Speaking to Nicolaia Rips, TikTok’s favourite older sister figure Kay Poyer shares her beauty wisdom and her advice for the coming year
“When the girls say it’s not about the hormones, it’s not about the surgery, it’s not about the make-up, it’s not even about the clothes… they’re right,” says Kay Poyer, looking into the camera with glittery bronze eyes.
And suddenly we’re on a rambling story involving the foodbank, salmon stakes, a mental hospital, fruit cups and omega 3. In the TikTok video captioned “t girl wisdom,” Poyer is funny, beautiful, warm – the older sister you wish you had dispensing sound, but confusing, life advice. Finally she reaches her point sternly, “You need to eat. It’s about food. It’s about fats. It’s about oils and omega 3s. Three meals a day and two snacks and a dessert if you’re nasty. If you’re kinky. That’s what it’s about.”
We are in a time when the biggest beauty trends are food-related – glazed doughnut skin, jello skin, looks inspired by everything from tomatoes to blueberry milk to whatever cinnamon cookie butter is. Essentially: consuming products that make you look good enough to consume. It’s more of the same from a beauty industry that values thinness, whiteness and youth, convincing us to buy things we don’t need, to encourage dehydrated and underfed girls to trot toward the grocery store, not to eat but to sit on the shelf.
Poyer’s video is a reminder that it’s not enough. Doling out advice with dew-drop skin and a sense of humour, the world clarifies – everything seems clearer, a bit more simple. Yeah, I do need to eat an avocado and I don’t need that lip oil! The rest of Poyer’s videos are similarly great, she’s a skilled storyteller and comedian with a tender edge.
Talking to her is reminiscent of watching a balloon that’s slipped from your grasp; though its path might have strange turns and twists, there’s no question where it’s going and that’s to the top. To mark the new year, the 23-year-old and I chat about beauty affirmations for 2024, Wisconsin candles and bad advice.
@kay_wow I dont remember
♬ original sound - Lady Miss Kay
Where are you right now?
Kay Poyer: I’m at home. I left work early today and went to my favourite vintage store where they were doing a 20 per cent off sale for students. And she did not even mention that to me! I was like, ‘Shit, I have to go home and put make-up on.’
There’s this genuine aspect to your videos. Like, ‘Oh, I’m talking to my best friend. She’s telling me about what just happened, and she’s giving me the worst, maybe best advice of my life.’
Kay Poyer: I think a lot of people are tired of being given therapised advice. They want something that’s a good mix of what an older woman in your life might say, but also the messy girl in the bathroom at the club might say too. Wherever those two points intersect.
What glamour does glamour mean to you?
Kay Poyer: I started transitioning when I was 20. I’m sure a lot of girls in this position would tell you, but it feels very much like a tortoise-and-hare type of situation. Except you’re like the tortoise and the hare, like you’re trying to go really fast and catch up, and so I think over the past two and a half years in particular have been a huge learning curve. I feel like, for anyone making the decision to be really sexy and glamorous all of a sudden, you’re going to look nasty and crazy for a while.
And so, it’s gotten to a point for me now, where I’m gonna do this [gestures to her immaculate beat] maybe three days a week. It’s like a costume, and it’s fun. I think there has to be freedom in that I don’t look like this when I take it off. But I put a lot of work in. I don’t want to say it’s like drag, but getting really dolled up and going out feels like a different person.
In a video where you’re talking about glam, you mentioned your eyebrows and your mom’s eyebrows and how your mom died with those eyebrows.
Kay Poyer: It’s crazy. The whole time growing up, I would look at her and be like, ‘you look insane.’ Because she had these tiny little… it looked like long grain rice sleeping on her forehead, it was so short. And she wouldn’t make them longer! She would just fill in what she had. But you know, then I go back and look at pictures of her in the 90s. And yeah I get it. But I was thinking about that, too. I’m like, ‘how far will I push this to where when the make-up comes off what am I left with?’ So, it’s about balance. It’s about balance.
Would you ever return to full brow?
Kay Poyer: Maybe one day. I’m never going to pretend that I am not a victim to the swing of the pendulum. And right now, everybody really likes thin brows, which is funny because ‘everybody’ is just girls. Whenever we say anything about make-up, we’re just talking about girls liking something. However, I think trans women in particular, do gravitate to a thin brow because it can lift a lot of things up. I could see myself someday being like we’re going full blush. But who knows?
I like that you admit to liking trends.
Kay Poyer: Some of them. I saw the basketball shorts and cowboy boots around and I was like you will find me in a dumpster before I do that. But certain things. There’s this girl Dara who I just think is incredibly glamorous…
Kay Poyer: Yes.
Well yes.
Kay Poyer: And she made a video one day where she was like ‘I’m over eyeliner.’ And I was like let me try not using eyeliner and I liked it better! I feel like a lot of people are just putting the wing down.
@kay_wow Happt holidays! What are yall gifting your loved ones?
♬ original sound - Lady Miss Kay
What are your beauty essentials?
Kay Poyer: Colour correction, orange and green. I use a lot of cheap make-up, I’m not even going to lie to you. I think that’s the only essential. I can’t do like... I think there’s a Parisian type of woman who can do a red lip and mascara and leave. I look worse if I stop there.
American women have made some of the worst sartorial choices in history all in the name of French style.
Kay Poyer: I agree with you. I can’t do that. Either I’m going to sign on to be like unmade and unapproachable all day or it’s full glam. That being said, I do think the colour correcting is the single number one thing that has saved me, although it’s actually a really nasty goopy primer. I don’t even care what it is but it just needs to be like swamp slime. Like really slick you know what I mean? Slip and slide.
Beauty inspo?
Kay Poyer: OK, this is very cliche, I am going to say my mom. I’m very inspired by like a lot of drag queens in general. Honestly, Violet Chachki in particular. I remember seeing her make-up up close. Her little face is just so cute. I wanted to grab it and take it. Also, Ugly Worldwide.
Were you a Tumblr girlie?
Kay Poyer: Chronically so. But you’re not going to get the URL out of me. I feel like anybody who was on Tumblr should be questioned heavily though. We have to be realistic about that.
I feel like Jazzelle [Ugly Worldwide] was a real switch from Tumblr to Instagram moment for me.
Kay Poyer: This is so embarrassing but I thought Ugly Worldwide was this whole thing she had started, like a community, I did not realise that that was just her handle. I was talking to my parents about it, like ‘yeah, they’re like all these really cool people.’ And it was just her, just one person. But I was inspired. I was very taken aback and inspired.
She was a shapeshifter. What’s the best beauty advice you’ve ever gotten?
Kay Poyer: Oh, that’s gotta be to bring my eyebrows closer together. For sure. I was really letting them rock like [points to the outer edge of her face] out here for a while. One of my followers commented and was like, ‘bring them in.’ I like two things. I like people being genuinely critical. And I also like people being shady when it's good. Like if you can get a good dig I’m gonna laugh. Somebody once said that I look like the Wisconsin candle lady. I was like shiiit. OK, that’s funny, though.
You’re so calm and present. Have you always been this way?
Kay Poyer: I was crazy up until I was probably 21. And then I was like, ‘Oh, I’m good now.’ And then I kind of just got it together over time. But yeah, no, I could not have been doing this… like, at 18, they would have been like, she needs to be taken to the ward. Immediately, she needs to be taken out. I think everything has come together for me to do this now.
Last question and I’ll let you go, what are your favourite scents?
Kay Poyer: I tend to gravitate towards anything that has Amber, a lot of perfumes with grapefruit or cedar in them. But this one in particular that I wore all through college, and now I still wear it sometimes. I’m not going to say it, it’s French and I’m not going to do that to myself. Oh, but it’s an Hermès fragrance and it’s in a round bottle [Eau des Merveilles]. It specifically draws in other women with incredible make-up who are very sexy to come and talk to you. It’s like a little slut all grown up. It feels classy, but it also feels promiscuous. I wore it all through college and I talked to so many pretty girls because of it.
And then… this is actually crazy but Sarah Jessica Parker had a perfume called Stash Up. That was legitimately the best perfume that has ever existed. And I will die on that hill. And then she discontinued it! It was a perfume oil. So it was rich, and it was so beautiful. And you can’t get it anymore. And if I see her I’ll leave it there but it will be a problem. And I need that perfume back.
Sarah, if you see this, bring it back.
Kay Poyer’s Beauty Affirmations:
- Beauty is a costume I put on
- I do not need to contour my nose and a lot of people don’t either
- Luxury mascara is a scam
- Being pretty is the least important thing I can do but it is fun
- Never wear more than two sprays of a perfume
- I will be my most glamorous at 80 years, everything else is a pregame
- Bleach your own hair but never touch up your own roots
- Say a prayer for a free meal daily
- Eat some seafood, drink some wine
- A pic from a bad angle is an accident, a pic from your worst angle is an attack