Many can relate to the stress of homecoming day––curls, makeup, dresses, nails and the list continues. Seniors Kara Sherman and Christina Piron relate these feelings to a typical morning at a beauty pageant. Over Labor Day weekend, both participated in what Piron refers to as the ‘Super Bowl’ of pageants, Miss Teen IL USA, which took place at the DoubleTree Hotel in Skokie.

Although Piron first got involved in beauty pageants as a sophomore when she competed in the National American Miss, she first developed a passion as a young girl.

“[My family and I] went up to the Wisconsin Dells one time and we went to this hotel and they just happened to be hosting a pageant there,” Piron said. “So I literally made my whole family go with me and sit in the back and just watch the whole thing. Ever since then I wanted to do pageants.”

Piron was able to convince her parents to watch the pageant in Wisconsin Dells. Although, her parents said they initially were very opposed to the idea of her pursuing this interest, Piron said.

“My parents did not want me to [participate in pageants] at all,” Piron said. “I had apparently been getting open call letters for years about pageants but my mom would just throw them out and not tell me. About a year ago, my mom came up to me and said, ‘I don’t think you’ll be interested but this has been coming to you for years.’ She showed it to me and I was like, ‘Of course I want to do it!’”

Sherman decided to enter Miss Teen IL USA after receiving the invitation in the mail. Her main passion is for modeling, but instead, she decided to try this pageant at a time when she wasn’t getting any bookings.

“I would usually ignore these, but since I was getting no bookings, I said, ‘You know what? I’m just going to go for it anyways and maybe I can give that whole world a try,’” Sherman said. “In the beginning it was kind of a little bit of a joke. We were kind of just in this ‘yolo’ mode. I said, ‘Why not?’ ‘Who cares?’ The only bad thing was that my dad was kind of not happy with how expensive it was.”

According to Piron, participating in pageants is the most expensive hobby someone could have. However, Piron shared that the whole idea of these high costs is for the girls to go out to companies and businesses and talk to people and have them sponsor you. Piron had an easy solution to this process; her father was able to sponsor her with his chocolate  shop, Belgian Chocolatier Piron.

Along with the process of finding a sponsor, Piron shares that there are numerous other steps that go into preparing for a pageant.

“You obviously have to get French manicure and pedicure,” Piron said. “You have to get a spray tan done a couple days before because under stage lights you can’t be just plain white. You have to practice with your stage makeup. I have to contour my face and everything. Contour is using the makeup to bring out the shadows and highlights in your face. You can basically resculpt your face.”

Although the process of getting ready was difficult in itself, the process became even harder with the lack of time the girls were given to get ready each day. According to Sherman, they were given only 30 minutes to an hour to get ready.

“We had to be somewhere 5-6 in the morning, so we had to be up before that,” Sherman said. “We were packed pretty much the whole day. There were nonstop rehearsals all day. There really wasn’t that much time to do hair and makeup right before competition so you really had to get the majority of it done in the morning that early. So you would see girls coming down with coffee, their hair all up in buns, curlers and caps.”

According to Piron, after signing up, each girl is assigned a roommate and specific schedule to follow for the weekend. Although they are on their own for most of the experience, the pageant girls bond easily.

“We really never got to see our parents or families at all but they would go watch,” Piron said. “It was fun because we got to meet all these girls, instead of just being with our families the whole time. We became like a sisterhood, almost like a sorority. It was almost like big sister little sister dynamic between the girls who were experienced and the newbies. In my category we had college girls all the way down to 15-year-olds and we just all bonded.”

One might assume that pageant girls aim to beat their opponents in competitions. However, Sherman learned that it’s not about beating others out year after year; it’s about beating yourself and improving with yourself each year.

“It was not at all what I was expecting; it was a lot better,” Sherman said. “At first I thought it was going to be the typical cut throat girls who act really fake. Once I got to know them they were genuinely the sweetest and most ambitious girls I had ever met. I was expecting it to be kind of petty. It was completely the opposite, these girls are so sweet.”

Piron states that many people not only have misconceptions about the type of girls who are involved in pageants, but likewise the motives behind the reason why they do pageants.

“We do pageants because they increase our self confidence, and teach us poise and how to conduct  ourselves in professional conversations, which are skills that will be needed for our careers,” Piron said. “You would be surprised just how many pageant girls are actually very self conscious of themselves and what they look like and competing in pageants makes them feel beautiful even if only for a moment. Personally, that is why I do pageants.”

Sherman had made the same initial assumption about the girls who were involved in pageants. She realized that judges don’t only look at looks. They are mostly focused on general character, or who lays beneath the beauty each girl presents.

“I thought it was going to just be girls who care about looks,” Sherman said. “What I realized is that you can make any girl pretty. Makeup can do that or hair styling can do that, but [what] it comes down to is really that personality. It’s how they interview, how they can converse with people, and how they conduct themselves. Take away all that makeup, the jewels and the glitz, and you have really sweet genuine girls.”