the power of makeup??

[psocoptera]

Uh, content warning for hatred of makeup?

http://www.boredpanda.com/power-of-makeup-selfies-half-face-trend-nikkie/

I do not understand whatsoever how this is supposed to "fight makeup shaming" when it's picture after picture of how great someone looks without all that crap on their face.

I know, I know, there are so many people who love it. There are people I love who love it! My beloved and delightful sister, for one, and many more. And, you know, I support everyone in doing whatever the heck they want with their personal appearance, whether they're trying to be "pretty" or "ugly" or "camouflaged" or whatever the fuck else anyone can think of to do. Be weird! Be challenging! Yay!

But eek, gah, yikes, looking at these pictures makes me sad, the way I feel sad about people cutting down their trees and putting in astroturf lawns, the way I feel sad about bad movies of good books, even though those are also legit personal expressions. Maybe I'm not supposed to admit that. And in fact I rarely feel that way about anyone's face I see in real life, I mean, my sister's face is the face of someone I love and want to talk to, so I'm thinking that, not, like, taking inventory of whether I think she's changed her lip color or whatever. (I honestly couldn't tell you whether she usually wears lipstick. Fancy eye stuff, yes.) I just... I don't know. I really, REALLY hate the current extent of the makeup Overton window, and the half-face thing just invites a this-vs-that, and I definitely Have A Side there.

Comments

[irilyth]

Yeah, as a privileged cis male person I am not in a good position to speak to this, but most of those pictures had me saying "holy crap, she's actually kind of pretty, but what the fuck is up with all that crap smeared on her face". :^(

I also don't want to harsh on anyone who likes wearing makeup, for any reason, but I also found those pictures totally ineffective if their point was supposed to be "look how much better I look in makeup".

It's possible that the half-and-half thing was part of what looked so grotesque, but even so, I thought that in the vast majority of the pictures, the no-makeup half looked better -- if someone said to me "what would make this person prettier", I'd say "get the rest of that makeup off", not "finish putting the rest of that makeup on".

I read another article somewhere from someone saying that if she doesn't wear makeup to work, people say she looks awful, like in the I'm-concerned-about-you sense -- did you not sleep last night, are you sick, should you go home and rest. And I believe that, but I think a lot of it has to be just the change in what they're used to, and I find it hard to believe that the people who live with her, and know what she looks like without makeup, think that she looks exhausted and sick and horrible without it. It's the change, not the absolute value, isn't it?

Blah. Do not like.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I couldn't get past how grotesque the half-and-half looked, so I can't even judge.

[belecrivain.livejournal.com]

Those struck me as very odd, because in most of the cases it wasn't just "half made up" but half made up in a very specific style, i.e. thicker eyebrows, significant pay-attention-to-me eyeliner, bold lip. (Your sister may be following the rule of thumb to draw attention to eyes or lips, but not both at once.) Also a couple of them were wearing so much foundation I wasn't sure it was entirely foundation and not Photoshop. They looked waxen. I've never had foundation that effective!

(confession/disclaimer: my hobby of late has been Korean skincare blogs [the skincare is from Korea, the blogs aren't], where there's a lot of emphasis on "actives" and switching products until you figure out what particular combo works for your skin/insecurities/humidity level, and a lot of people interested in that apparently also know a thing or two about makeup, but I still don't know a thing or two about makeup. I do want to put myself in the hands of a sympathetic MAC artist someday.)

[antimony.livejournal.com]

The biggest thing I noticed was how odd plucked eyebrows on an un-made-up face look to me.

Followed closely by "huh, I haven't seen that extreme heavy smokey-eye look in person, ever, but it seems to be super-trendy in this group".

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those look really, really odd. I think a large part of it is the fact that their eyes look like they're dramatically different sizes, and the darker eye makeup makes many of the women look like they've been hit in the face when it's only on one eye.

I've recently started enjoying wearing makeup sometimes, as decoration, and it's so frustrating how impossible it is to find products or instructions that don't boil down to "here is yet another aspect of your appearance that you didn't realize you should be ashamed of! Buy tiny expensive bottles of goop to fix it and then feel like an inadequate grownup when you cannot actually put them on correctly!". I just want to look temporarily colorful and sparkly.