Last week I did sort of a “trial week” of makeup. You might’ve noticed from the pictures of me kissy-facing the camera and wearing eyeliner.
Well, let me give some backstory. When I was in sixth grade, I would have done anything to be labeled feminine. I tried pretty hard, but not hard enough. People who I used to be friends with passed me mean notes in class saying, “hey dyke!” and, “you’re a loner”. Comments from 99% of my class consisted of, “you look like a man” and “does your face hurt? no? well it’s hurting me.”
So I started trying to be feminine and work myself to pretty. I started plucking my eyebrows when I was 11, plucked them so thin you could hardly tell they were there. Then I drew over them in an attempt to make them look perfectly arched and defined. Then came the eyeliner - thicker every day. Within a year I was using up one stick of retractable eyeliner every 10 days. I never wore much lip gloss or lipstick, but if you’re friends with me on facebook, you might be able to catch a glimpse of how heavy my eyeliner used to get. It was ridiculous.
In ninth grade I would skip lunch and spend the entire period in the bathroom, fixing my makeup and waiting until I could go back in the halls, convinced I wasn’t pretty enough to socialize. Between sixth grade and twelfth grade, not one day went by that I didn’t wear makeup - at the very least eyeliner. It may not seem like a big deal, but I specifically remember having a “makeover party” with my friend Danielle.
“Do you want purple eyeliner?” she asked.
“Well, I would, but I already wear black,” I replied as if her question was absurd.
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s like, our base look.”
“Yeah, it is.”
Danielle and I believed that our BASE LOOK was an inch of eyeliner surrounding each eye in any direction. Base. Look. We couldn’t even imagine there being bare skin underneath it. In that case, we would be - gasp - ugly!
I was at a photography class downtown when I was about 14 or 15 and I remember a pretty, natural-faced girl leaning across the table and telling me, “You should get rid of that makeup. It kills your eyes.”
“No, it’s just my face,” I replied, totally offended. I vowed to myself to never take it off. I thought it made me pretty, even though I was not oblivious to the fact that still I wasn’t making friends.
In 10th grade I uploaded a makeup-less facebook picture with the caption, “I apologize in advance.” Friends commented telling me I was pretty even without eyeliner, but I didn’t believe it. I scoffed and returned to makeup the next morning.
I stayed with a friend in California for several weeks in 2009 and, when leaving, on the drive to the LAX airport I realized I’d forgotten my makeup bag at my friend’s house. I was panicking, wringing my hands and hoping I’d be able to find makeup at the airport. It was an obsession. I knew how my makeup looked around my eyes without needing a mirror. I knew it was terrible, I knew my zits would show soon enough and my friends would see me as the ugly, manly sixth-grader I was inside.
We stayed in LA that night before our red eye flight in the morning and I found a Sephora on Hollywood Boulevard. I bought a $5 three inch eyeliner pencil (I hated the pencil kind, anyway) and prayed that my other friend who I was flying to Baltimore with would take me to a beauty store ASAP so I could get the rest of my essentials. I couldn’t wait for my California friend to send my makeup bag. Nope.
As soon as I got to Baltimore I demanded to go to a Sally Beauty’s Supply where I bought concealer and tweezers. Concealer and tweezers. For the one week I’d be there.
In twelfth grade, I started to realize I was being ridiculous. Petroleum oil around my eyes was not making me more beautiful. I tried uploading a youtube video without makeup, declaring to the Internet that I was going to stop wearing it. I cringed the whole time I edited it and played it back. I was back to eyeliner the next morning.
I’ve had one or two more spurts of “let’s try to go au natural!” in which I usually take a couple pictures, call it a day, and go back to makeup the next day. I started wearing even more, actually - lipstick and lipgloss and lipliner and lipeverythingyoucouldeverythinkof.
In my freshman year of college, I met some absolutely amazing people, my girlfriend Katie being the one closest to my heart. She never wore makeup, and yet she was radiantly gorgeous. My friends Olivia and Carina absolutely never wore makeup, and yet there I was with my makeup mask day in and day out. So I just stopped. One weekend in November, I just let the eyeliner fade with every shower. I couldn’t find any vegan makeup removers at the time, so it was easy to let it fade and see my face coming through, see my hazel eyes, so tiny without the black circles.
I didn’t wear makeup all through December, and so I decided I would do “No Makeup 2012”. I didn’t necessarily believe that I would not wear any makeup ever, but just that I was going to stop with the 24/7 eyeliner (I never ever took it off before bed). Now the most I do is chapstick and rare lipshine stuff.
But I did it. Seeing my friends so naturally pretty and seeing so many girls around campus not bothering with makeup, I felt stupid wearing as much makeup as I did. So I left my makeup bag alone, although I’d still carry it around out of habit. And I went makeup free from December to today.
Last week I did a ~trial run~, where it was almost the opposite of what I used to do during my days of makeup obsession, where I’d attempt au natural. I tried to wear makeup. I’d forgotten how to even apply eyeliner when I used to be able to do it without a mirror. I felt like a drag queen. I felt pretty, but no prettier than I did than the last 10 months without makeup. I did it for a week, and I am so much more comfortable without it.
I can rub my eyes and not have smeared dirty hands, I can have conversations with people and not think, “what does my face look like? Is it decent?”
I just don’t give a fuck anymore. My face is my face with or without being dolled up. And I am so proud of myself for being able to go back and forth without worry.
You can still be beautiful, sexy, pretty, lovely, gorgeous, you can be YOU - without makeup.
