An increasing amount of people(who tend to have penises) seem to believe that women need makeup to look a certain way and they look that certain way to please others. As a woman, I want to put an end to this makeup stigma that seems to be so hard to shake.

First of all, if you see a woman wearing a full face of makeup, you can bet your ass she is only wearing it because she wants to, for herself, not you.

Second, if you see a woman wearing a makeup look that is not "natural", understand she did not want it to be natural. Said woman wanted blue eyelids and she does not care if this is off-putting to you, as she is not worried about you.

Now that being said, I am not a frequent wearer of makeup, and usually when I do wear some, it is very light. However, I do enjoy a full face every once in awhile. When I saw one of my good friends post about a “month without makeup challenge”, I was immediately intrigued. I wondered why she would do that? Maybe for skin care purposes? Maybe as a social experiment? Maybe for funsies and nothing else? I decided to challenge myself and do the same. Starting on August eleventh I began my month without makeup. At first, I wanted to do it purely to see if I could but that brought me to wonder, what would make that difficult? All I have to do is not put goop on my face for a month. I initially thought I would have no problem with this as, again, I don’t wear a lot of makeup and if I do it’s not often. Then I counted out my month, which is to end on September eleventh, and realized that I will be attending not only several social events but also my first week of college and a formal event within this time span. Because of that I nearly made it a project for next month because I want to look my best for everything. Then I thought, why would a lack of makeup translate to not looking my best? And decided to stick it out and see what happens.

I like to think I’m a confident person, I like how I look with and without makeup but suddenly the idea of going to college, meeting people and making first impressions without it horrified me. But why, Vaness? What about an under eye bag is so hellish to you? Realizing even my own confidence was subconsciously compromised by the social norm of a face of porcelain skin and full lashes, I skipped a beat. This idea of a perfect face and how a girl “should” look had gotten into my own head. Without realizing it, I had absorbed everything I was taught about beauty standards and wondered how I was going to live a month of my life without concealer and mascara. Because of that revelation, I am going through with my one month without makeup, no cheating. Because maybe if I can believe that I don’t need a painted face to look my best, someone else might too.

Before I get into the details of this experiment, let me just say that women, men and other can all wear makeup and still be more than confident without it, because they have it on does not mean they are conforming to some standard or do not believe they are beautiful, it just means they like it. But I know more than a few young girls who won’t even go to the gym without makeup on because they don’t believe they’re beautiful without it, and that’s why I’m doing this.

That being said, in the next month I will be in every situation you could possibly want makeup for and I’ll be doing it bare faced. The only products touching my face this month will be water(I did not previously have a skin care regimen, I just wash with water in the morning and night), a sensitive skin moisturizer with no tint when I’m feeling dry, and a clear lip balm. I will not be using any “no makeup makeup” hacks either (vaseline in place of highlight, eyelash curling etc.). Through the month I’m going to document how I feel at certain situations without makeup and follow up the with another piece about my results. If you hate this it’s because you took it the wrong way, sorry you’re feeling like that but I’m doing it anyways.