The Misconceptions on Makeup

I talk a lot about makeup on my blog for many reasons. I love beauty products and trying new things, I love experimenting with my look, and beauty is one of the ways I express myself. My look changes with my mood. Red lips make me feel fierce, nude lips make me feel classic, the possibilities are endless.

For some reason it’s become a trend to shame those that enjoy makeup. Some believe that those that enjoy makeup are insecure with how they look and turn to makeup to make them feel “pretty”. That makeup somehow coincides with low self-esteem, shallow personalities, and not being comfortable with how you look bare-faced.

Let’s get something straight, just because someone enjoys makeup does not mean that they are unhappy with how they look. Those that enjoy makeup are not fragile little things that need others to tell them that “they’re beautiful without it”. We know we’re beautiful without makeup; we wear it because we want to- not because we have to.

No one has to do anything they don’t want to. No one is forcing this makeup into our hands, we buy it because we want it and we can. Makeup is a form of expression, the brushes are our tools and our face is our canvas and we can create whatever kind of masterpiece we so choose. If someone wants to wear a smoky eye, contour their face and wear lashes- they can do that. Who are we to shame others for what they choose to do with their face?

On the contrary, if someone wants to wear makeup as a confidence boost, what’s wrong with that?  If wearing makeup or your favorite lipstick makes you feel like you can take on the world- do that. You deserve to do what makes you feel beautiful. Oh but “you shouldn’t need makeup to feel confident”! Shhh. People do many things to help themselves feel confident. Some people have a song they listen to, others have a lucky shirt, and others turn to makeup. Different strokes for different folks.

When someone chooses to go bare-faced, there’s this huge commotion like “this person should be praised because they had the courage to go out without makeup”. Like, “wow you had the guts to go out like THAT”. It’s a back-handed compliment really. It also gives those that shame makeup more reasons to shame others, because it perpetrates that “oh I don’t NEED makeup” mentality. This goes back to what I was saying earlier about how no one NEEDS makeup, we wear it because we WANT to.

The same people that praise those that don’t wear makeup are the same ones that share those incredibly idiotic photos on Facebook and Twitter with before and after pictures of girls wearing makeup with sayings like “this is why you take a girl swimming on the first date”. So, you’re saying she was hideous before she applied her makeup? Was her bare face not enough for you? That is the belief that makeup is a way of lying to someone about how we look. Honey, if you thought that shimmery eye shadow and bronzer was natural- you need to revaluate yourself. Girls are beautiful natural and with a full face of makeup, you however, are a miserable person and nothing can cover THAT.

This brings me to another huge misconception, that girls wear makeup to impress boys. Listen closely; absolutely nothing I do in life is to impress a man. If I get up in the morning and decide to wing out my eyeliner, contour my face, wear lashes and my favorite lipstick, literally NONE of that is to impress a guy. If I go into MAC and pick up a new lipstick that cost me $16, I did not go in thinking, “well Bobby likes the color purple so I’m gonna buy this purple lipstick”. If I’m putting time and money into something it’s for me, myself and I. Now, if a girl wants to wear makeup for her man or makeup gives her that extra boost she needs on a date or whatever, that’s totally cool, but the notion that all women do things to impress men is nonsense.

We have to stop this makeup shaming because why should we put down a group of people that love wearing makeup just because you don’t like it? If you don’t like wearing makeup, cool, don’t wear it, but don’t shit on someone that does. Why is it that in order to inspire one group of women, we must trash another? It’s the same with body shaming- someone tells a curvy woman “you’re a real woman, not like those skinny girls”, completely tearing down women with a different body type.

Go natural, or don’t- the choice is yours. Whatever you do, choose what makes you happy.