I'm not Make[ing this] up
I didn't start wearing makeup until 10th grade. My mom generally doesn't wear makeup, and I'm the oldest, so it's not like I have an older sibling who taught me all about it. And like with many other things it seems like, I just didn't bother to try and learn until later than most everyone was already learning.
I have distinct makeup memory from before, though. And that was in the first grade, preparing for the all-school play Dear Edwina. While getting ready, my mom put lipstick on me, and then attempted eyeliner, but that failed because I cannot hold my eyes open for eye drops or eyeliner or really anything, so you could say that my eyeliner fail was foreshadowing for future makeup endeavors.
By the time I got to 10th grade, I basically just went with the "I don't know how to do makeup and I don't have any makeup so I don't do makeup" even though I did have some of an interest in having makeup on. Of course, I had lip gloss and lip balm and whatever and I would do that, but when it came to anything else, pssshhh, I wasn't doing it.
Late February of 10th grade, my Danish sister and I were at Target one evening, and we went and smelled all the scented candles that we could find, and then tried on a bunch of makeup in the makeup section. I ended up with blue eyeliner (but not on the inside of my lids!) and who knows what else, and I'm not sure what all Ida put on except that she bought a curling iron and she curled our hair once we got home and we took a bunch of pictures on her computer. I will let you see one for your own entertainment.
Yeah, I had braces. I'm not sure what day this was, but it was less than 2 weeks after getting braces. That was a crazy month.
Then in March, I had a friend over, and she did some makeup, so she taught me how to do mascara. My mom then got me mascara and some eyeliners from Walgreens. And actually, that mascara brush has been my favorite one to this day. But not so much on the liner. This is the one.
So for the rest oh high school, I pretty much did mascara every day. And sometimes I would do eyeliner. I decided, if it's only taking a total of 15 minutes out of my day, then I can handle that.
In 12th grade, I joined Indoor Drumline for my 2nd time. This was the first time that our ID had a Visual Ensemble, so me and my friend Caitlin decided we would do that. And then since middle schoolers were allowed, my brother and his friend joined our VE team as well. It was great fun. Since we were Visual Ensemble, plus Caitlin really likes Makeup and all that stuff, us VE girls (and cymbal girls) designed and did up our faces with major (for me) performance makeup. And that was great fun too. I decided that outside of performances, foundation and blush isn't so much my thing, but the black-lip-liner-blended-into-red-lipstick was fun, as was the sparkly gold eyeliner and the other sparkly stuff we put on our cheeks. Now, I wasn't all that good at putting it on, and it's definitely a task to NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE with all that stuff on (just try drinking out of a plastic bottle without messing your lips up, my gosh. lol.), and taking it off also took a little longer, but heck, it was worth it. We looked totally cool in our steampunk-photographer-and-love story show.
So through all this, plus the times I had friends do my makeup for prom, I started to learn the littlest bit about makeup. I found out that I like soft pencil eyeliners, but I only do it on top. I sometimes use concealer. Sometimes a shiny lip balm or something subtle like that. But everything else, is for the extra special occasions. Like a party or a picture or one of the many high school award ceremonies. Also, makeup has a lot of chemicals and bad stuff in it, but it's really hard to find stuff that's more natural but cheap. In general makeup is just really expensive. But there's this drugstore place in Germany called DM that has a line of cheap natural cosmetics, and frankly, that's all I want! So when I was there, I totally filled out my collection of eyeliners and got other things I was interested in and I think it was all under $30, too. I was very happy with that purchase. I only wish I had that option in the US. Germany is kinda far. But I'll figure it out. (If you know of cheap and natural makeup available in the US, tell me!)
One of the things I'd heard about college is that you usually end up giving up fashion or makeup for class or for whenever you're not doing anything. And ok, that sounds normal. Whenever I'm not doing anything social or school or if it's vacation, I mostly just skip the makeup. But I've realized now, even though I'm not in college yet, I've already kinda done that! In my 8 weeks that I spent in Europe and my almost-7 months that I've spent in Panama, I've done makeup less than a dozen times. By the time I get back, it'll be almost a year of not very much makeup.
Thinking back on it, did I really need to wear mascara to school every day? My lashes are fairly light, so I did want to, because that's how I preferred to look, but how much of that was because that's how I wanted people to see me? Was I bending to social expectations? Of course, I wasn't a slave to social expectations. For most things, I tried to ignore whatever was "expected" and do what I wanted to, whether it was against, or with "normal society." But when it comes to fashion, I am not super interested or creative, so I just kinda end up doing whatever. And yeah, I'm particularly inept when it comes to hair and makeup (especially hair, but yeah, I don't have a story of actually learning anything yet).
When I was traveling, it was so much easier to just skip it and have less to deal with. It wasn't really convenient. If you're traveling and don't want to do makeup, totally skip it! But here, I skip it because it seems like extra work for nothing important, because I don't want to make my face even more noticeable/comment-able when I'm trying to not bring very much attention to myself in public (I perpetually look like a tourist here), and because not as many people seem to use it. Of course at gatherings when their dressed up, there's a higher chance of makeup. But for daily, I see less in teens here than in the US, while for those older I think it's about equal. Am I just seeing some teens who don't feel the need to wear as much, or do teens here in general just wear less? This is something I'm not sure about.
I do believe that makeup is completely a personal choice, and that whatever reason you may have for wearing it or not is completely acceptable. It doesn't really seem to harm you either way, except maybe if you're using it to hide your insecurities and if you believe that your face is not good enough. That is definitely harmful, and I do believe that everyone who does wear it should also try some time without. Buzzfeed did some makeup experiments. Fascinating results. I would highly suggest taking a look at them!
I don't know how often I'll wear makeup when I go back to the US and then on to college. Maybe just for the days where I want something extra if I'm doing something I want to look particularly nice for. I would like to become better at it, so there's that. But how about you? Why do you or don't you wear makeup? How much of that do you think is because of social expectations and gender roles? Have you wanted to change that? Or are you happy where you're at? As long as you're happy, that's the main point of it all.
See ya.
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