Accessible Beauty Products for Disabilities – Products to Use With One Hand

This story is part of The Beauty of Accessibility, our series on inclusivity and representation for people with disabilities in the beauty industry and beyond. 

After I was involved in an accident that paralyzed my left arm a couple of years back, my beauty routine started to feel tedious and frustrating. My everyday struggles regularly included a battle to uncap my mascara or a scuffle to sharpen my eyeliner with one of those tiny makeup sharpeners. (FYI: Those electric pencil sharpeners from elementary school don’t do the trick either.) Before my accident, most of the products I was using weren’t accessible for people with hand or arm impairments. So I said “nope” to that and set out on a mission to find products that would allow me to single-handedly power through a beauty session like a professional — or at least reduce the number of fights I was having with my makeup.

Due to design, some products are just easier to wrangle than others. But I didn’t want to settle at just accessible; after all, you shouldn’t need to skimp on quality to accommodate a disability. Accessibility should be a given, not a bonus. All of the products I’ve curated here are not only five-finger user-friendly, but all-around winners in terms of quality and efficacy too. Everyone’s adaptability journey is different, so you’ll need to play around to find which products work best for you. But hopefully, in sharing what’s worked for me, I can help you speed up the search process.

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