Did I dare to apply makeup without a mirror? That was the YouTube-inspired challenge I attempted on March 6.

I decided to try this challenge on a Monday, because I could go to sleep early on Sunday so that I would have time to wake up early to do my makeup. I usually don’t wear much makeup to school, but because I wanted to do the challenge justice I went for a more dramatic look.

After washing my face, I decided not to wear contacts and sat on my bed so I wouldn’t be tempted to look in the mirror.

As I began putting concealer under my eyes, all seemed well. Moving to my eyebrows,, I was worried that I would end up looking like a clown with dark dashes on my forehead.

Although I desperately wanted to look in the tiny mirror inside the eyebrow powder compact, I forced myself to resist the temptation and continued on, slowly feeling along my brow bone and using light strokes of the brush.

I then used a fluffy brush to apply eyeshadow, which was relatively easy compared to the real challenge: eyeliner. It has always bothered me that I have uneven eyelids. This makes applying eyeliner even harder. I used a gel eyeliner with a stiff, short brush, and I looked upwards while moving the brush back and forth along my lash line (and almost poking myself in the eye multiple times).

Then, as the final touch, I applied lipstick.

Once I revealed the final look, I was surprised at how “normal” it looked. Because of my hooded eyes, the eyeliner didn’t seem so bad, and although the eyebrows were a little strange, it wasn’t noticeable. The main part of the look that seemed off was the lipstick, which was uneven and didn’t even match the shape of my lips.

At school, I actually received a lot of compliments on my makeup from my classmates. When I told them I did it without a mirror, they were totally surprised — I guess my own insecurities about my makeup weren’t so noticeable to my peers.

My friend in English class even complimented me on my lipstick, which I even ended up removing later in the day because it seemed messy to me. In fact, whenever I tell people that I have one eye with a crease and one eye without, they usually tell me that they never even noticed that.

In doing this challenge, I realized that people don’t pay enough attention to my looks to criticize slightly sloppy makeup, or even I might just do this again if I’m running late, because no one would probably notice a difference.