Makeup is a conundrum to me. I didn’t start wearing makeup regularly until I was in my mid-forties. That’s when those first light age spots showed up. I wore the minimum of cover-up and didn’t think much about it.
When I stopped working from home and entered a more professional office environment, I began to notice that makeup was a thing.
Lipstick everywhere. It wasn’t until I saw a picture of me with a couple of colleagues that I noticed I looked a little ‘washed out’. What? Lipstick can make that much of a difference? So, I started wearing a little color on my lips. Then I started hearing, “you look nice today.” I’m sure no one who said that to me was intentionally saying that I looked better in lipstick; just an innocent comment that I looked nice.
My first reaction was to smile and say, thank you! Then I became confused. Why do I look ‘nicer’ in lipstick? A more troublesome question was, why do I care?
Same thing with mascara. When I started wearing it occasionally (together with lipstick), I might hear, “you look great today!” Conversely, if I wasn’t wearing mascara I would hear, “are you okay? You look tired.”
That was the beginning of an interesting journey for me. So many questions. Do I feel better about myself when I’m wearing makeup? Do I care about others’ perceptions of me, based on my amount of makeup (whether or not they know that’s why their perceptions were different)? Is my work affected due to others’ perceptions of me? And, of course, do I perceive other women differently based on their lipstick or mascara use?
I’m not going to try to answer any of those questions here. I’m throwing out food for thought, mostly for myself, but maybe some of you can relate.
About ten years ago I took a day off to be with my mom in Muskegon. She had a hair appointment, and we were going to have lunch out. As soon as I arrived at her door she said, “Oh Patty, please put some lipstick on.” I’d been driving two hours, so happy to get to spend some time with her, and that was my hello. I smiled and assured her I would definitely put lipstick on before we went to the hair salon. She was quite relieved.
Some of that is generational. Some of it is cultural. And some of it is, in my opinion, just silly.
And it’s complicated. And everyone’s experience is likely different. My closest colleagues are around my age (give or take a decade). We mostly agree that we’d rather not use it, and, that there is pressure (both direct and indirect) to wear it. It is expensive and time-consuming, and just a bother in general.
Desiring to get some feedback from outside of my circle, I went to Google. I discovered Quora, a website/App where you can “gain and share knowledge. It’s a platform to ask questions and connect with people who contribute unique insights and quality answers.”
I simply asked the question, “Why do I hate wearing makeup?” The Quora site had a wide variety of answers, but I noted that experiences were similar to mine – even though most of those respondents were quite a bit younger. Many said, “if I don’t want anyone to pay attention to me, I don’t wear makeup.” Or, “if I have to attend a meeting I do wear makeup. I don’t want anyone to wonder if I’m sick, tired or whatever.” And the one that pangs me the most, “I wear it if I want to be taken seriously.”
As I age, I do take more care to minimize or blur the increasing signs. I enjoy aging! I also know that ageism exists where society tends to diminish the older people in their midst as ‘less than’. And when someone says, “you look pretty today,” it does make me happy.
Yes, we are complicated. We change daily, and I encourage you to just go with it. Regardless of your choices, I hope you feel beautiful and confident. We are works of art in progress.