For Bhasma Hamed, a burn survivor, make-up is her secret weapon and the reason she launched her own professional beauty brand.
Hamed, who suffered third-degree burns at the age of two, started experimenting with different types of makeup at a young age because it gave her confidence after being bullied.
“My burns were very red and very hard to hide. They’re the first thing anyone sees,” Hamed told CTV’s Your Morning on Wednesday.
Little did she know she was using techniques such as color correction to prevent her red discoloration.
“I found myself mixing colors, trying to figure out what the right shade was and what the formula was,” Hamid said.
At 14, Hamed consulted a plastic surgeon in Toronto, but was told there were no next steps in treatment.
Hamid took matters into his own hands, customizing the pigment to match his skin tone and embedding it as scar tissue. The technique, called scar camouflage, was an unusual idea for her time and motivated her to practice it herself.
“I was the first patient,” Hamed said. “I was able to treat all kinds of surgical scars, burns and bruises.”
Hamid has opened his own scar camouflage clinics in Toronto and Los Angeles.
She has also launched her own professional beauty brand called BASMA Beauty, featuring foundations that have been praised by Kourtney Kardashian’s makeup artist.
With his beautiful lines, Hamid gives others what he couldn’t give himself: hope.
“Having a good understanding of pigments at an early age really helped me,” she said.
