In a world obsessed with beauty tutorials, contouring our faces and Instagram filters; many feminist groups, photographers and celebrities alike have driven forward the No Make-up Debate. Celebrating femininity by posting pictures to social media ‘fresh faced’, ‘natural’ and revealing the ‘real me’ is a craze which sparked the ‘No Makeup Selfie Campaign’ and raised over £8m for Cancer Research UK back in March last year. Yet whist many are learning to embrace this new era of makeup free self-confidence and are praised for stepping away from the conformity endorsements of the beauty industry, what happens to those who still want to wear it? Does a full face of makeup mean you’re against the positives so many have found from going without? What about those who enjoy using beauty products, or those too self-conscious not to use it?
Here Katie Braithwaite and I explain why we want everyone to stop telling us not to wear makeup. – Beauty Editor, Renate O’Connor.
The pressures of growing up in a beauty obsessed world
Nowadays there a mixed variety of views about whether women should wear makeup or not, and how much they should wear, if they decide to. As a 20-year-old, I have grown up with the media portraying the idea of ‘beauty’ as an almost unattainable goal.
As a young girl I found it difficult growing up, wondering if I was pretty enough, if I had the right hair-do or if my makeup looked right. Although these worries were present for a very long time, I knew that wearing makeup gave me an extra boost of confidence. It was a way of finding myself and experimenting with the way I looked as I grew up. My face was always changing, as everyone else does when they’re getting older and I always liked the idea of changing my look to suit me better.
“I know I am chubby,I have big feet, and have bad hair days. When I grew up and even now sometimes, I hardly hear any…
Posted by Kate Winslet Fans on Thursday, 27 August 2015
Celebrities such as Kate Winslet and Scarlett Johansson may want us to love ourselves, but at times that can be easier said than done. The lack of confidence many young people face stems directly from the celebrity world. The media portrays them one second as the perfect examples to look up to and then slams everything about the way they look the next. Whilst messages like this from Kate Winslet are empowering and I’m sure meant with pure intentions, they can’t show the opinions of everyone or change the negativity we’ve already been exposed to.
Accepting who you are
Now I have realised that it is OK to wear makeup. It’s OK to choose how you look and how you want others to look at you. Changing my nail colour doesn’t make me fake, the shade of my lips make no impact on anyone else’s life but my own. Dying my hair and using tips to make my skin appear clearer and even doesn’t make me shallow or overly insecure – it makes me feel good.
We all have the right to freedom of expression, and wearing makeup to look a certain way can be the way in which some people best express themselves. It can even be an art form and mean much more to some people.
25 year old beauty blogger and YouTuber Jordan Bone was left paralysed from the chest down after breaking her neck during a car accident. In this video she shows us the struggles and eventually overwhelming achievement she felt after re-learning to apply her makeup by herself. To her, being able to do this daily task means everything. Of course, she is tragically an extreme example, but the message stands for everyone. We have no idea what another person may be going through and for many, making themselves look good ties in directly with feeling good.
We all have the right to freedom of expression, and wearing makeup to look a certain way might be the way in which some people express themselves. Everyone should feel comfortable in their own skin, for me, this is with a full face of makeup and I’m not alone…
I wear makeup for me. For my own satisfaction. I want to feel pretty, sometimes. Leave me be.
— Serena.☮ (@Hipsta_lovin) September 30, 2015
3/3 Makeup to me is a pleasure. Please stop telling women what they should wear or not wear. This is #feminism. #stopsexism.
— Marion Carrin (@Jurisdistic) August 11, 2015
Its ok for a girl to wear as much makeup as she desires, bc its her face, her skin, her temple, she can design it however she likes
— Tania (Vaz) Riestra (@tvazquezjb) May 9, 2015
Makeup is so fun to play with and I get annoyed when guys try to say I wear to much. like I don’t wear it for you. I wear it for me so bye
— Peyton ✨ (@SebsQtSider) September 27, 2015
I wish people would stop telling me to not wear makeup. If it makes me feel more comfortable with myself I’m going to wear it.
— Liana Meehan (@lianamaexx) April 22, 2015
I wear it for me, and no one else. I am proud of who I am and how I look.
Why do you use beauty products? Or maybe you hate wearing makeup and are fed up of people telling you to? Let us know in the comments below.
