Growing up in our society, makeup has always been a prominent part of a feminine, womanly appearance. Cartoons had long eyelashes and red lips, and our mothers and the older girls or women in our lives usually wore it. We started to feel defined by it in a way, whether that added or took away from the fun. It was a new and exhilarating world, playing with your mother's makeup as a little girl. Trying on her lipstick and blush, and now, just like magic, you're a grown up.
At this stage in our lives, past adolescence and veering into adulthood before too long, the time has come to examine how attached our identities are to our products. Everyone's story will be different, but all in all there seems to be a sort of consensus today, especially among girls growing up now, that this is a requirement. This is an interesting thought considering the history of makeup. When it was used in courts of to make women pretty, using makeup that has radiation in it, putting gunpowder on our faces, geisha wearing makeup, women in the 19th century thought of as whores -and some were- that painted their faces. There's a checkered past. Considering what time period you look at, you'll get different results. Often, the conclusion seems to be that natural beauty is favored, especially if it has the results that makeup does -naturally long eyelashes, and lips with a red hue, for example:
Sure, we've made great strides in what's available since those times. It can be much more natural and you can change your entire bone structure. There are things available, techniques used that people of centuries past saw no need for. There in lies a simple fact, but also part of the problem. Middle school seems to be the typical time we start trying to define ourselves. Most don't know who they are until college, or until they're married with kids, or never. That's just life. Middle school is the time that we really start to think about it however, and we start to experiment with makeup then to see how it relates to us, if we have a personal style, just to try to some trends, or because we finally feel like we're getting closer to that stage of being like our mother.
People talk about so called disasters from those days and praise how they make themselves look now, without realizing that they looked real then and none of it really matters. We're all just taller and more shapely little girls trying our mother's lipstick and trying to fit into her heels. Is this really for us, or are we simply playing into what we think society expects of a woman? Society is often brought into question with matters like this, and its beauty standards, but this is one of the stigmas that we create for ourselves.
A trend that's been popping up in the online beauty community, similar to reminiscing about your middle school makeup mishaps -try saying that five times fast-, is the "How I Wore My Makeup In High School" challenge, or simply tag or what have you. The name has varied, and often it's just a call back to 90s trends in general, but the video that Jenna Marbles made for this interested me, especially. She developed her own style that was nothing like how she does her makeup now or how she did it when she got big with her first video. She wasn't taught anything about it and she lamented about not looking decked out like middle school girls today, all with Kylie Jenner Lipkits and eyebrows as "fleek" as their older sister.
She reminded me of myself, except I didn't mind not being taught about makeup as much. Part of it for me, especially in middle school was not feeling the need to wear it all of the time, and from then until now the reason for not being like the girls who would wear every single product every day that they can think of, is that I wouldn't have been able to afford the drawers of jars that you see on Beauty channels. It's not exactly about laziness, but when you are in school and you look at the girl who wears makeup sporadically and then there's the girl who has a mask every day, the latter is often sought after more. Then -honestly, at least in my experience- the girl who doesn't wear it as much, gets looked at with disdain by the girl who does.
It's another thing where we set inner barriers between us, blocking friendships and making resentments where they don't have to be. This was a thing in middle school, and many people's excuse in high school, and even now; they wear foundation, and highlight, and bronzer, and eyeliner, and mascara, and some lipstuff because they think they're ugly otherwise. Just in a matter of fact way. "I'm ugly." You've seen the posts on Facebook, I'm sure. Of girls getting annoyed when a boy tries to tell her she isn't, or always thinking she is. Makeup is made out to be such a big deal because of that. Not loving yourself isn't cute. Posts like that and the nonchalant mentality, make it seem like people think it is. It's not.
Whenever natural beauty is brought up a debate is sparked. Think of Alicia Keys today, people say "Oh, she can only not wear makeup because she's conventionally beautiful.", "She has naturally good skin.", "If she looked like me no one would be praising my no-makeup face." Instead of accepting her, fellow women attack her. She gets praised for her face, which should happen but not as no makeup being such a huge and obscure concept. We do this to ourselves. People accuse her of going without makeup because her career isn't what it used to be, as if not putting products on her skin if she doesn't want to is a publicity stunt.
People won't have a chance to love you for you if you never give them a chance, and even still there are always going to be those who have a problem with your appearance, personality, or existence. Not "haters", but there will always be those who will point out something they don't like about you. Makeup can be such an artistry, and we have such fun with it -I know I do-. Girls, and guys, everyone does it and they aren't doing it the wrong way because it's not a mandatory facet of our being. Makeup dos and don'ts. Do wear it if you want, don't judge others for how they do. Do be kind to others and love yourself, don't act like it's a requirement for you or others and claim you're ugly without it. Do what you want, don't subject yourself to every single trend. -Or do if that's what you want, but "brick eyebrows" do not look as cute as you think they do.- Do chill, and live life. Don't stress over the little things.
