Makeup!

Having a beauty routine and applying makeup is an everyday body practice for many individuals, whether it is to enhance natural beauty, create an illusion of beauty, demonstrate individuality, or even complete a costume. Beauty products are part of a huge industry, and they can improve or entirely alter our natural appeal. To my grandma, beauty routines are extensive and makeup was applied liberally for dramatic costume effects.

To my mother, beauty routines and makeup are minimal and meant for a natural perk. Despite my grandmother always encouraging my mother apply more makeup, my mother has never budged, and beauty routines and makeup had to be taken gradually in my family – a praxis to signify a coming of age. Obviously at a young age no makeup was allowed – a quick shower and you were ready for the day. Later in grade school nail polish was allowed, but only in soft pinks and pale neutrals. Middle school was an acceptable time for lip gloss and iridescent eye shadows. High school allowed for darker polishes, darker gloss, darker shadows, and mascara, but all in moderation.

My mother was always careful with the amount of makeup she’d allow us to wear. She didn’t want us wearing too much foundation even if we were trying to cover our blemishes, or wear eyeliner to school because our friends did and we thought it was sexy, or paint our nails with black polish because it was a trend. In other words, my mother didn’t want us trying to be “cool” or “hot” – she wanted us to look natural and pretty in our own wholesome way.

Makeup was not to be used as a confidence construction, or else we would be spending endless amounts of time in a ‘pursuit without a terminus’ trying to achieve a look of perfection that simply doesn’t exist. Routines and makeup are more about presenting our faces as beautiful in their own way rather than a way of painting on a new face. We are given the choice every morning to wear makeup or not, but we should make that decision for ourselves. We can’t continuously try to impress people. We should really have better things to do.