Friday, March 2, 2012

Made Up Make Up

Today I have been pondering the concept of "makeup". I know it goes back to the Egyptians but why do we do makeup the way we do now? Why do only women wear makeup today? Why is it when men wear makeup they are called drag queens? What if the tables were turned and the only gender to wear makeup was men and not women? What is the purpose of makeup anyways? Vanity? Insecurity? Acting? Pretending? Overconfidence?

After hearing continued story after continued story about the heavy metals in today's modern makeup (yes, even some of the so called "natural" brands have heavy metals by means of being processed) I have been rethinking my usage of makeup and why do I feel the need to put on eye shadow, eye liner and mascara when going out in public? So I asked myself a few questions today and then proceeded to leave the house sans makeup.

Am I trying to be someone else? Nope.
Am I trying to pretend to be something or someone I am not? Nope.
Do I need this on to be beautiful? Nope.
Am I ugly if I don't wear makeup? I hope not and personally does it really matter to anyone other than my husband?!
Am I wearing makeup to make other people like me? Nope. It doesn't matter what you do, some people will never like you so why bother trying to make people like you that probably wouldn't like you anyway.
Am I trying to "fit in"? Hmm. maybe. Not everyone wears make up.

Then my last question I asked myself: Why DO I wear makeup? The answer: I have no idea. All I know is that when I don't wear my mascara I feel naked. Strange. I wasn't born with it so it must not be essential? Is it just propaganda from the producers telling me I need to wear makeup? Since when did the status quo of "normal" people become having to spend $10 on a tube of mascara, $7-$10 on eye liner and $6 per color of eye shadow?!?!?! Really people?! Really?! When? Why? Who Says? 

Then I got to thinking more. If the average joe man that normally wouldn't wear makeup decided to randomly wear makeup like most women do,  well, people would think a couple different things like the following: He's gay, drag queen, goth or "kids, stay away from that man".... So why don't people have that reaction to women who wear makeup? Isn't it a little silly to put peacock colors on your eyes? Isn't that a tad clownish looking? Excessive? Does the Emperor have clothes?

Smokey eye? I mean, really? At least the Egyptians had kohl down to an art on their liner. Albeit on the bottom lid but still at least they didn't look like that had black eyes from either being punched or hung over. Nothing sexy about looking like you had a drunken weekend. Gross.

Okay, back on task here. Don't get me wrong. I like wearing my eye makeup until lately since I have been seeing more pictures of me and it looks like I'm not wearing any makeup anyways. Now, either you could say I have the art of makeup down pat so I look natural or that I naturally do NOT need it. I'm going to lay off the makeup laden with heavy metals and save that for church. But isn't that a little crazy? Why would I even want to put heavy metals on my skin anyways? I certainly wouldn't want to eat food laden with them then how is it different than patting, brushing, painting, drawing with them and putting it on my skin? 

Skin. Our bodies largest organ. Kind of funny how many chemicals we put on it every day thinking we are doing our skin a favor but instead we are smoothing heavy metal laden "beauty" products on it.

I'm not against beauty products or makeup but the point remains. Think about what you are putting on your body and why you are doing it. Why does not wearing makeup make you weird? Who wants to be a mindless lemming following the crowd to eventual toxicity?

Not a lemming,
KT

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