Why Makeup Isn't BAD - And Why You Should Wear It With Confidence
Plus, Book Club Is Postponed Till Next Week...
Book Club Is Postponed
Due to the depth of this month’s book, I’d like to take another week to finish it and give you all some extra time as well! I find that books like this can be difficult to get through but are so satisfying once you finish them. Keep an eye out for a bonus episode of my podcast this week instead!
Why Makeup Isn't BAD - And Why You Should Wear It With Confidence
Hello classic crew! I hope you’re having a great start to your week. We had another lovely weekend here in Florida and we are feeling so grateful that we moved. We finally belong to the community we have always dreamed of! Jacob’s parents actually came down to spend time with their grandson and we got to introduce them to our community. It was a lovely time.
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of content focused on the reasons why wearing makeup is bad. Some women feel very strongly that they don’t have to wear makeup, and think that even the suggestion that it is nice to wear makeup implies that women need makeup to look beautiful. They feel that makeup only increases insecurities and encourages women to cover up the things they should be proud of displaying. Therefore, they say that makeup is a net negative and shouldn’t be worn.
I think this is the wrong perspective because it is too broad and ignores the very different needs and circumstances of different women.
Makeup is an unbelievable tool. It can cover those blemishes you’re self-conscious about; it can accentuate your most beautiful features; it can make you feel pretty when you are feeling down.
Wearing makeup is a personal choice, one that can be made by each individual as she sees fit. Are there certain situations where it’s more appropriate to wear a little bit of makeup just to show a level of professionalism? I think so. I think wearing makeup in professional settings is a nice way to look put together and show that you have made an effort. It’s similar to brushing your hair. That doesn’t mean a full face of makeup. It can simply mean a little concealer, lipstick, and mascara. But it shows that you didn’t just roll out of bed.
Some women, though, feel better not wearing makeup on a regular basis, while others feel better wearing makeup. Some women have beautiful skin that doesn’t require anything to even it out; other women, like me, have redness or scars or anything else that they don’t feel confident about.
What the anti-makeup crowd will say is that you shouldn’t cover your insecurities - instead, you should stop being insecure. You should love your skin no matter what it looks like. But that’s unreasonable. We all have things we are insecure about. It’s normal to be self-conscious about certain aspects of our appearance. If we can wear makeup to make ourselves feel better, why shouldn’t we?
I personally have found it really frustrating to be told that I shouldn’t wear makeup by the same women who have effortlessly beautiful skin. They might look great without any concealer and therefore don’t need anything to look their best - but that’s not true for all of us. Why make those women feel bad who enjoy touching up their appearance? No woman is selling herself or anyone else out by choosing to wear foundation or mascara or lipstick. It’s simply not true that beauty is a competitive race between all women, so we need to forswear makeup in order to avoid driving ourselves crazy in competition with one another. It is simply nice to look nice. Beauty can be its own reward when you enjoy it for what it is and don’t confuse it for vanity. If wearing a bit of makeup makes you look and feel more beautiful, you should do so.
There are women who have a great base and don’t need a lick of makeup to look absolutely perfect. But many of us don’t, and the added help of concealer can boost our confidence and bring the attention away from our blemishes and toward our best features. Now, that’s not to say that a woman with blemishes isn’t beautiful without makeup. My husband often prefers me without any makeup, even though my skin can be uneven. It’s just to say that being told you “don’t love yourself” unless you can go bare-faced, even when your skin just isn’t as clear as you’d like it to be, is not true. You can love yourself and also recognize that there are things you can do to improve your appearance - and that it would be nice if you did them. (I also recognize that skincare is a powerful tool, but as someone who has a skincare routine - it doesn’t always work and it’s nice to have concealer as a backup!)
The anti-makeup crowd also say that a woman does not need makeup to be feminine. Just by the very virtue of being a woman, you are feminine. I agree that women do not need makeup to be feminine, but I also believe that makeup is an inherently feminine thing because beauty is a feminine thing, and makeup is a primary tool to enhance and shape our feminine beauty. Women have been wearing makeup since the beginning of human culture. In the Bible, when the Jewish women of Egypt needed to entice their husbands to conceive children with them even after their long days as slaves, they used mirrors to apply their makeup and accentuate their beauty. God instructed Moses to use those very mirrors to build the wash basin at the front of the tabernacle as a way to honor the wonderful good of the women using makeup to cultivate their beauty to ensure the survival of the Jewish people. Wearing makeup is specifically for women to use and beautify themselves - and it’s a lovely creative outlet to boot.
Makeup is also a wonderful equalizer. If one woman has beautiful natural eyelashes and another woman doesn’t, the first doesn’t have to wear mascara and the other woman may choose to. They both feel confident despite their different starting points and approaches to beautifying themselves.
Of course, all of this is different than vanity. I recently wrote a piece for my Substack delineating the difference between vanity and taking care of your appearance:
If you are so uncomfortable with your looks that you can’t go anywhere without a full face of makeup, then perhaps you should consider working through that fear with someone. If you need to be hot to attract someone’s attention rather than just have a baseline level of beauty, then makeup is negative. But beauty is a good thing - it’s just not the most important thing or the only thing. The media gives beauty itself a bad rap because people get lost in the cult of beauty and hyper-sexualization of everything. We can be self-confident enough to reject the modern pitfalls of idolizing beauty above all else while not running in the opposite direction by rejecting the importance of appreciating and cultivating beauty in is proper role and proportion.
Makeup when used to accentuate natural beauty, disguise unwanted flaws, or simply as a creative outlet is nice and feminine. And there’s no problem with wearing it. Not at all.
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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I'm a wife, mama, opera singer, entrepreneur, YouTuber, and your guide to becoming the classic woman you've always wanted to be! Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter to see how! And together, let's be classic.
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What a wonderfully thorough opinion! I love the artistic aspect of makeup. What bothers me most about makeup is the insane consumption cycle of some people. When I started getting into makeup, I discovered the trend "hitting pan." All this time I assumed that everyone uses their makeup, until it is empty. Naturally one stops using certain items for other reasons, like changing taste, release of a better product, but I thought that "hitting pan" was the standard. I find the videos of hauls and collections shocking. How could you possibly use that in a lifetime?
I've honestly loved learning more about Jewish faith and history through your content, what an interesting connection to makeup!