I also want to ask: is wearing makeup just an admission of ugliness or inadequacy?
I wish I'd put this question at the beginning of the thread.
Nah. To me, it is a connection to the traditions around which I was raised.
My mother taught me to wear beautiful underpinnings that were just for me. I was potty trained instantly with no accidents on the promise that if I kept my training panties clean and told someone whenever I needed to go, someday I would get to wear lovely underthings like hers. I wanted that. Oh, the idea of wearing all the pretty satin and lace like Mommie!
I remember the excitement and pleasure of sitting down in the elegant, tall chairs at the Fashion Fair and Estée Lauder counters, and trying all the perfumes and powders which made me feel mature and tickled my grandmother no end. My grandmother, for most of my life, epitomized grace, elegance, poise. I wanted to look, speak, and smell like her. Some of that faded away with time and personality development, but I inherited her love of downtown department stores and make up. I actually wear more than she usually did, probably because I grew up influenced by 80's and 90's fashion, while she looked like she fell out of a 1940's movie, and then put on modern designer clothes (that she made herself!) Who wouldn't be struck by that kind of glamour in their own house though?
Just so you know really what I mean, an anecdote. I moved away and she lived alone. Neighbors would keep tabs on her for me. The first windy day after I left ALL the neighbors called me concerned. They had seen her and her hair was messy. They wanted me to make sure she was okay. I called, and Grandma mentioned that it had been so windy a day that she'd nearly lost her hat and didn't put it back on for fear she would not catch up to it a second time. Her neighbors had never seen her with windswept hair. It was always PERFECTLY coiffed, or perfectly coiffed and under a fabulous hat.
Even her bathrobe (referred to as a dressing gown) and slippers were elegant. She had full blown dimensia when I was traveling to meet my dude's family for the first time. She gave me travel advice. "If you can't make room for a house coat, take a dressing gown. If no room for that, at least take a bed jacket. Otherwise, you have to get completely dressed to go to breakfast if you are staying in their house. What a hassle before coffee! Don't forget." His mother and sisters thought I was dressed to go out and complimented me on my cute outfit. It was my pajamas and bed jacket. Grandma was a glamour pro! Hahaha! I miss her.
Anyway. No. For me, make up and skin care are just part of my rights of passage from girlhood to womanhood. It is for me a normal womanly set of rituals, part of a tradition of old-fashioned propriety as passed through my family. According to my mother, grandmother, and aunt, you know how you are supposed to look and feel before you meet your public, and you have to do whatever it is you do to look and feel that way before you meet your public. For Grandma that meant a minimum of styled hair, moist skin, and vibrant lipstick and a good coat and shoes. For my mother, that meant styled hair, clean face, big glasses. For my aunt that meant moist skin, bright lipstick, pretty jewelry, a cute purse, and a huge smile. For me, it's outrageous hair, all the makeups-- all of them, perfume and a flattering outfit with matching accessories. I like to sparkle. The ritual of applying all the color soothes me. The ritual of taking it off soothes me. I'm far from ugly but I look so great when I tweak this and that with my brushes and creams, and I feel so calm and feminine during and after.
I do wear a lot of makeup, but I wear it well. People tell me I have flawless skin. I tell them I have really good make up and halfway decent, religiously cleaned brushes. I've had people tell me that makeup can't make pretty skin like mine. Usually I just accept the compliment, but sometimes, if I'm almost home or prepared to fix it back up, I will reveal how a glandular disorder made my eyebrows fall out and put splotches on my skin. And I'll also reveal my age. This kind of demonstration is always met with disbelief. My dude used to say he liked that I don't wear much make up. I told him just wait until it gets all over you and you look like you went for a tan! He really thought I just wore lipstick. No, I wear two lipsticks and a gloss unless I expect to be kissed.
I don't expect my skin to be picture perfect. I am almost 37. I have freckles, splotches, wrinkles, all that. I'm good with that. Those are mine; I earned and own them. But that doesn't mean I see them as stylish. That's okay for running errands and going to the dog park. But when I'm out to do my thing I'd rather be my most beautiful, and if I have to deal with stress I feel less stressed made up and dressed to the 9's.
P.S. I'm not wearing any makeup today, have not worn for over a week, because there is a large, kind of deep abrasion on my cheek that needs to heal. Appropriate skin care trumps cosmetics all day. I'm going out to a nice lunch tomorrow, and while I will rock a dope outfit, fly accessories and gorgeous hair, I'm going to be barefaced because I won't be healed. I do miss my ritual.
