Saturday, April 29, 2023

Removing the Makeup



This video from The Cut talks to a variety of women about wearing makeup and what it means to them. What really fascinated me was the point at which they all removed their makeup and show that there is almost no difference at all. It seems to me to be an awful lot of work with very little bang for your buck. But if it makes them feel more confident, more power to them.

On a personal note, I started wearing mascara as teenager because I had long eyelashes that were invisible because they were blonde. I honestly got a lot of notice after that. The only makeup I wore as an adult (outside of the occasional TV appearance) was mascara, but eventually my lashes didn't grow long enough for it to make a difference so I gave it up. Life is just much easier when you don't think about what your face looks like. (via Digg)  

7 comments:

xoxoxoBruce said...

But Miss C, you are one of the fortunate ones that are beautiful without it.
I had a wife that wouldn't walk to the mailbox without the full menu of makeup.

Miss Cellania said...

Thank you, but the vast majority of women are beautiful without it.

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Great video! I've never worn makeup either. To me it feels like wearing clownface. Unnatural and uncomfortable.

Anonymous said...

War paint.

xoxoxoBruce said...

Point of interest...
Melisa Raouf is the first Miss England contestant in the 94 year history to compete without makeup.

Marco McClean said...

The one in the video who says, "I use makeup as a way to distance myself, so if I don't want people to talk to me I look more like a freak." That's what I suspected all along, but about most people who wear it, not about the small subset it actually turns out to be. Worse, weird blotchy tattoos and piercings, especially the kind of piercings that force a hole open wide somewhere a hole doesn't belong, which is most places; I mean, bleagh! If a person uses to just to repel people like me, it's working great. They can do what they want, it's their body, and I'm sure they'll find someone to love who thinks it's nice. Everyone involved would have to be very different from me, and it's good that there are lots of different kinds of people, even incomprehensibly alien kinds. If everybody was like me we might already be living in cities in space but more likely we'd all be dead of being too lazy to prepare for winter.

I never liked makeup on anyone, as far back as I can remember. And, speaking of clowns, you see a clown and you're vibing /stay away, don't involve me./ But that attracts them like a cat is attracted to a person allergic to cats. Clowns know it; they're aggressively, deliberately creepy. That's an extreme case of makeup. Regular makeup is milder, but anyone male or female in noticeable makeup looks like a 1950s stage female impersonator to me. I don't like the smell of it, the texture. I don't like lipstick. When I was a small child I didn't like my own mother's makeup. I asked her, Why are you doing that, and she would say something like, To look nice. It was baffling. (I just saw a play last week where a teacher asks a Muslim girl in a headscarf why she wears makeup, and she says, "To look nice.")

I remember in high school noticing that sometimes a girl would come to school with a tremendous lot of makeup on, and I thought that their father probably beat them up and they're trying to cover up bruises or a black eye. They shouldn't cover that up. They should let everybody see so their father would get arrested and go to jail, is what I thought. That might be worse, though; they might have to go live with their uncle who rapes them, or with their aunt who makes them go to church every morning and won't let them have butter on their toast and commits them to a Magdalene laundry for kissing a boy.

All the people in the video look better in every way without makeup, to me, just like in real life. Healthier, saner, safer to be around.

lolarusa said...

My mother put on makeup every day for decades and decades, even if she was going to spend the entire day at home working in the garden or painting or sewing. When she had a serious illness, she didn't feel up to putting on makeup every day, and I said I liked it because I could see her eyes. She said, "But isn't it easier to see my eyes when I am wearing makeup?" and I said, "I mean your actual eyes." She had beautiful eyes.