I have seen many debates as to why women wear makeup. We feel pressure from society to be perfect, we do it for men, or we just want to feel pretty. There is also a lot of support behind women who say they wear makeup for themselves. I once saw a video that promoted this and my inner feminist screamed “yes that is exactly why I wear makeup! I wear makeup because I like it!” But I realized I didn't always think this way. So why must we have a specific reason for wanting to wear makeup?

I have been playing with makeup since I was super young and I’m sure I share this with a lot of people. However, I’ve actually been wearing makeup since 6th grade and I know that may seem young but let’s get real, that’s pretty acceptable. I have blonde hair so that means my eyelashes are really light and hard to see. I would wear mascara because it made my eyes stand out more. I guess at that point in time I fell under the “women wear makeup to feel pretty” category.

I didn’t stay in that category for long. I quickly switched into the “wearing makeup because of societal pressures” category. It was middle school, an awkward time for everyone. I was heavily acne prone and I took to makeup to cover it. Then, the whole goth eyeliner phase began, and that is something that no one who went through that phase wants to look back on.

Once I hit high school I had more things going on and often times wouldn’t sleep a lot. It also didn’t help that I got up almost two hours before I had to be at school just so I could get ready. I would shower, straighten my hair, and put on a complete face of makeup (luckily, no goth eyeliner happened here). This was me falling into the “wearing makeup for boys” category. High school was filled with cute boys and friends that would get into relationships and I wanted that. Looking back at it now I don’t understand why I thought boys would find a makeup covered, sleep deprived girl attractive. It was later in high school when I would sometimes forego the fully made up face for just concealer and mascara.

Once I got to college I realized that I didn’t have to wear makeup anymore and no one cared if I did or not. (That's not to say that I didn’t try a little harder when I had a class with the cute football player!)

I can now agree with that blogger who said she wears makeup for herself. I truly enjoy doing makeup and take pride in it. I don’t like that there are limited options as to why people think women do makeup. And if someone does their makeup every day to impress guys, why should anyone else have a problem with that, it’s their decision.

Everyone who has ever done makeup probably started using makeup in the first place because of one of these categories and they should not be shamed for fitting into them. It doesn’t matter why a person does their make up just as long as they’re happy doing it.