Makeup shaming is such a weird phenomenon that crops up again and again and it has to stop. It’s way too common to see people criticised for their makeup choices, but I’m sick of seeing people being told that they wear too much or too little makeup.
Whether you choose to wear a full face of cosmetics or go completely bareface, what you do or do not put on your face should be nobody’s business but your own. Seriously. There’s absolutely no reason anyone should feel entitled to an opinion on your makeup. It’s ridiculous and toxic and says a lot more about them than it does about you.
Let’s be honest. Most of us have felt judged at some point for our appearance. And, even if we haven’t been personally and directly criticised, chances are that we’ve seen a tabloid article or social media post aimed at someone who looks and/or dresses just like us. It sucks.
Everywhere we turn we’re bombarded with images and ideas of what our lives – and, in turn, we – should look like. Thousands upon thousands of articles about what we should wear, what our bodies should look like, why our hairstyle is out of date, exactly what shape and size our eyebrows should be and just how much effort we should put into achieving these things.
You see, despite us being told that there are specific requirements that our faces are expected to meet, there’s also a very limited amount of ways in which we are encouraged to achieve them. And heaven forbid we should choose to wear the wrong amount of makeup.
And people do judge us for the amount of makeup we wear. I’ve seen and heard it for myself a thousand times. Women going out without makeup are regularly shamed for being unattractive or lazy. Anyone wearing too much makeup risks being shamed for being fake or told they are insecure and seeking validation.
Society can’t seem to shake this idea that people wear makeup exclusively for the pleasure of others, despite the fact that, for most of us who choose to wear
makeup, this simply isn’t true. And, if they think we’ve put it on specifically for them, then maybe that explains why they feel so entitled to leave us a review.
Maybe they’ve never stopped to think about the possibility that makeup means more to us than just being a tool to enhance our appearance. That we feel better when we present ourselves in the way we are most comfortable. That putting on makeup can be an important part of our self care routine. Or that we see it as an artform; a way to express our creativity on a daily basis.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling insecure about your appearance, by the way. It’s OK if your makeup is a barrier between your naked face and the rest of the world. It’s OK if you feel like it protects you and makes you feel more secure. Not everyone has the privilege to feel comfortable and confident with minimal or no makeup and they shouldn’t be expected to make themselves feel more vulnerable because some magazine article says that they’re wearing too much makeup. It simply isn’t fair.
In a world of moving goalposts, where the rules aren’t clear and nobody’s really sure who is making them up, where we’re being perpetually sold certain ideas about what is and isn’t beautiful and where literal human beings can come in and out of style, don’t you think it’s time that we stopped telling ourselves that we have to try to meet these impossible standards?
I think we deserve to relax a little bit. I think we deserve to be able to choose how much makeup we want to wear. And I think that we should remind ourselves daily that the decision to wear or not wear makeup is a personal one. People who wear makeup are not less authentic than people who don’t. Our worth is dictated by who we are and who we choose to be, not what we choose to put on our face.
