About Face

For some reason it is difficult for me to admit when I possess one of those typical girly characteristics. I'm not sure why, but it feels like I've succumb to weakness and must admit defeat. I may pull off a tough exterior, but alas, I confess: I love make-up. I do, I hate to pass up the counters at Macy's, I'm a Sephora junkie, and I'm sure that there have been times when the number of eye shadows I possess have outnumbered the dollars in my bank account. It's not that I am one of those that can't check the mail without piling on the rouge, but I do feel a little more confident when I take a little cosmetic time. I find it interesting that the act of applying make-up is often referred to as "putting on your face." Maybe it's because I tend to lean to the less is more side, but I just can't relate to that expression. I have had the unfortunate experience of having a makeover that, after 5 seconds in the Houston humidity, felt like my face was melting off, but I can't imagine wearing so much make-up on a daily basis that it actually defines my face. I know plenty of women that do though and when I have seen them sans their synthetic exterior, I actually notice their attributes that their make up seems to camouflage.

Cosmetics have had a pretty amazing history as far as what has been considered a beauty treatment and how it was accepted in society. Some of our habits these days may be tedious and even painful at times, but at least we've moved past bloodletting and applying lead to our skin to create so-called feminine beauty.
There have been practices traced back in history that make a face-lift sound like fun. I wonder how it all got started, where people (mainly women) started to feel that natural beauty needed to be enhanced. Why do I feel less secure when I face the world with my blonde eyelashes and pinkish hue?  Did it start with the unrelenting goal of beating Aphrodite out of the running? How horrible is it that the very idea of a "beauty contest" even exists? I guess it all goes back to some ideal people have about beauty being a social status, how else can you explain the ever-changing image of what defines beauty?

Not to disregard the creative side of cosmetics that I personally enjoy, but we literally spend millions (if not billions) of dollars trying to find ways to feel more secure with ourselves, be accepted, reverse aging, to just tolerate ourselves a little more! Why is aging such a bad thing anyway? I mean, there is truly only one way to stop it, and at that point, even the longest-lasting lipstick won't help you. My goal here isn't to inspire boycotting the cosmetic industry, but mainly to to reconsider allowing MAC, Urban Decay, Maybelline, Estee Lauder, Clinique, or Oil of Olay, to tell us that we are beautiful. Perhaps instead, we can gaze into those little compacts in our purses and find beauty in what we've faced instead of what is on our face.