A burn survivor who was left with scars on her face and body and lost her hair due to her injuries let her crush remove her make-up and wig in an emotional video, hoping the experiment would help her feel more confident. Shalom Thom, 22, who goes by Shalom Blac online, was badly burnt aged nine in her native Nigeria when a pot of hot oil fell on her and her sister in her mother's grocery store. She lost most of her hair in the incident and has scars on her shoulders, chest, and face, which she usually conceals with make-up.
After getting burnt, Shalom spent four months in the hospital, after which her aunt, who lived in the U.S., brought her, her mother, and her sister into the country for surgery. In her new video, Shalom explained that at the time, she got the sense that her aunt had found her face after the injuries 'so horrendous' that she worried her niece would have trouble finding someone to marry her. Over the years, Shalom struggled to embrace her appearance and was cruelly bullied. Yet, she knew that she wanted to feel confident enough to live freely, without worrying about her appearance, and began to challenge herself. 'I started really wanting to work on myself and to be comfortable and confident because I wanted to feel free,' she said in her video. 'I wanted to be able to do whatever I wanted. I wanted to be able to wear clothes that I want to wear. I used to be in long sleeves 24/7 because of my scars.'
Before she let her crush take her make-up off, the vlogger explained what an important challenge this was to her, adding that there was once a time when she wouldn't even go to the 7-Eleven across the street from her house bare-faced. However, she once challenged herself to go to Walmart make-up-free and was 'the happiest girl' when she managed to do it. She has been challenging herself ever since to become more confident, which is why she decided to record a video with her fellow vlogger, J Cook, and ask him to use make-up wipes to remove her cosmetics, before allowing him to take off her wig.
'I basically wanted to challenge myself to strip my make-up in front of somebody that I might be a little crushing on, you know? I think he's cute,' she told her viewers. Shalom was motivated to devise the challenge because, she said, people often leave cruel comments online suggesting she is trying to do 'catfish', i.e. deceive men by wearing a wig and make-up, and claiming they would be disappointed to wake up next to her and see her without cosmetics or a wig. 'I think after doing this I'm definitely going to gain some sort of confidence in myself,' she said before her crush joined. 'It's not about getting validation from anybody, from that person, but [doing it] for myself.'
Shalom then explained that she and J have been friends for a couple of months, and go to know each other after she moved to LA. After Shalom admitted to having a crush on J, he said that he, too, thinks she's 'cute' and 'very beautiful'. 'I see comments where people are saying I'm trying to catfish a guy when he wakes up the name morning and sees me without makeup, he's not going to want me,' Shalom said, prompting J to reply adamantly: 'It's not true.
'Shalom then handed J some make-up wipes, after declaring that the experiment was going to make her feel 'very uncomfortable' but that it was an 'important' step. The vlogger has shown herself without make-up and without a wig on in videos and photos before, she said she had never been bare-faced in front of anybody she's 'interested' in.
'I think it's natural for dudes to wonder what she looks like without makeup. But at the end of the day I feel like all beauty is good beauty,' J said. 'So it doesn't matter if you're putting on make-up or anything like that as long as you feel comfortable in your skin. I feel like that's the true definition of beauty.
'J started wiping Shalom's make-up off, beginning below her left eye. As he did so, he began uncovering her scars, commenting: 'I think it looks cool.' While he kept removing more make-up, J asked Shalom more about her surgeries. While she doesn't remember everything, she told him about getting skin grafts and said that after the burns, her ears had fused with her skull, meaning doctors had to separate them. 'She's looking prettier and prettier by the second!' J said as he began Shalom's right cheek.
He was spooked when the time came to remove Shalom's false eyelashes because he worried doing so would hurt her. Towards the end of the process, Shalom removed her bangs from her face, allowing J to wipe off the make-up from her forehead. She insisted again that she was searching for confidence, not validation because external validation only lifts one's spirits for a finite amount of time. 'I like the scars, and they're soft,' J said. When he was done removing all of Shalom's make-up, the two chatted some more before she told him to take off her wig. 'This is dope,' J said. ; I feel honoured to be able to do something like this.'
Shalom pulled him into a hug, then, in an emotional moment, J got onto his knees and gently removed Shalom's wig, revealing her bald skull. 'Oh, that's dope,' he said. 'I have to give you a hug.' The two embraced again, after which Shalom buried her face in her hands, visibly moved.' She's going to make me cry,' J added, getting emotional too. 'I'm not going to cry.' He gently rubs Shalom's head, telling her: 'You're beautiful.''I don't even know what to say, this is awesome,' he added. 'You're beautiful.
' Shalom, meanwhile, was proud of herself for going through with the challenge.' Oh my God, I f*****g did it,' she said victoriously. The vlogger has already planned her next challenge, which will consist of going out in public without a wig. 'Thank you for being a part of it and thank you for being such an open-minded individual,' she told J at the end of her video. 'I appreciate you.'