Born with Netherton syndrome, a condition that affects the skin's appearance and gives the illusion of sunburned flesh, Carlie Foulks (@hootieq) creates art with her face and educates people about difference. Armed with brushes, glittery eyeshadows, and tinted sticks, she doesn't seek to hide her uniqueness under makeup but rather to transform pity into admiration. Carlie Foulks is an example of acceptance and makes beauty a precious language of expression.
Makeup is a calling, not camouflage.
Some wave banners, cardboard signs, and flags, but Carlie Foulks raises her angled brushes, colored kohl, and silver palettes high. The young woman, known as @hootieq, advocates for a more inclusive and less idealized beauty. While tutorials promoting "clean girl" beauty standards regularly bombard us, making us believe in the impossible, the talented Carlie Foulks breaks through these norms with her radiant personality and infectious good humor.
For her, makeup isn't an artificial practice meant to correct features, cover dark circles, reverse facial lines, or retouch the work of genetics—the marks of individuality . No, makeup is an outlet, a gateway to a creative world, a space for letting go. She creates makeup tutorials within the private confines of her bedroom. In fact, she has a signature look, like Amy Winehouse: a line of eyeliner with gothic undertones and a heart-shaped stamp under her eye. A look that's part kawaii, part rock, which internet users too often overlook, driven by misplaced curiosity.
Because even though Carlie Foulks (@hootieq) wants her condition to be just a minor detail, she raises questions for the general public, accustomed to flawless skin , fraudulent filters , and Photoshop retouching. Living with Netherton syndrome, she sports a vermilion complexion that gives the impression of summer burns. Lacking eyelashes and sporting a few sparse hairs, her natural radiance easily compensates for this "lack." Despite the visible symptoms of this rare disease, Carlie aspires to be "just like everyone else," applauded for her makeup and not for her undeniable resilience.
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A muse who doesn't want to be reduced to her physical appearance.
A multi-talented woman who excels at both eyeliner and vocal exercises, Carlie is what you might call a "jack-of-all-trades." Sparkling, joyful, and brimming with optimism, she has a knack for making her viewers smile and spreading her happiness amidst the pixels. However, she laments that her appearance is always the main focus.
Because her illness doesn't define her. It's only the tip of the iceberg, and makeup then appears as an extension of her personality, a continuation of who she is inside. Her face is simply a backdrop in her aesthetic discipline, a canvas for fantasy, a playground. With makeup, she adds embellishment where suffering has long reigned.
“I’m human, I’m not a live performance,” she firmly states in a clarifying post. Fed up with all the intrusive comments trying to unravel the mysteries of her illness, she even suggests that budding gossips go Google for information. Carlie Foulks (@hootieq) doesn’t want to be an ambassador for her condition, she simply wants to remain a girl who puts on makeup in a relaxed setting.
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Beauty tutorials that sound more authentic than ever
And that's precisely where the strength of her beauty tutorials lies: in their raw sincerity. No promise of a transformed face, no discourse on "perfection," but an invitation to play, to experiment, to reclaim one's reflection without subjecting it to a single standard. Each video becomes a parenthesis where we understand that makeup can be a language, not a correction.
On social media, some discover a unique aesthetic, while others learn to see things differently. Carlie Foulks (@hootieq) doesn't ask for admiration, much less pity: she offers a fresh perspective, free from the reflexes of immediate judgment. And while comments still too often focus on her appearance, her community follows her for what she truly conveys: a freedom of expression, an unabashed joy, and a way of saying that beauty is never limited to what is expected of it.
In a digital world saturated with filters and unattainable standards, her presence acts as a simple reminder: there are a thousand ways to inhabit a face, and none of them need to be validated to exist. Carlie Foulks's account (@hootieq) is not a medical or preventative showcase; it's a travelogue where beauty is told in a different way.
