Why I Really Really Hate Make Up Shaming

Today's blog post is one which I have had whizzing around in the back of my mind for quite a long time, mostly because I experience make-up shaming in one form or another on a pretty regular basis. But it wasn't really until I spotted a video which was the launch of Sleek's My Face. My Rules campaign that I decided maybe it was time to put my two-pence in.

I've always been what you'd call a 'girly girl'. I vividly remember being three or four years old and sifting through my mum's make up bag in the mornings whilst she was getting ready, wanting more than anything to be grown-up enough to wear her pretty lipsticks and carry around a powder compact like hers (not that I had any idea what powder did. I just wanted it for the mirror, really.) The older I got, the more I loved experimenting with make up and getting ready in the mornings.

I thought there was nothing wrong with that. And there wasn't. 

Unfortunately, other people told me otherwise. One morning, as I was putting my make up on ready for school (Natural Collection, of course), my dad commented that, 'it's all about vanity with you, isn't it?'

On a residential trip with my youth group, a youth worker told me as I got up fifteen minutes earlier than the other girls, 'It's ridiculous that you're getting up early to put all of that rubbish on your face. It's just shallow if you ask me.'

Friends still say to me sometimes, on a fairly regular basis, 'You need to stop wearing so much of that. You're just hiding what you really look like.'

Each and every time I got a jibe about how much make up I wore, I felt the need to defend myself. To tell them how self-conscious I felt about a spot on my chin. Or agree that yes, I am a little superficial and scuffle away, completely embarrassed.

Any of this sound familiar?

For me, wearing make up is in no way connected to being superficial, or vain, or shallow. It's not a way for me to hide what I really look like (and really - if anyone believes that I genuinely have ruby coloured lips or glitter eyelids, the problem definitely doesn't lie with me.) Putting on my make up in the morning is almost a form of self-care. I find it almost therapeutic, I guess. I feel more awake once my make up is on, and ready for the day in front of me.

And in all honesty, wearing make up has been almost a coping mechanism for me for a long time. As someone who has suffered with anxiety for four years now, I found that putting my make up on was like putting on my war paint. Once it was on, I felt slightly more like a functioning human than I had been when I first woke up with the knots in the pit of my stomach, and I could now face whatever was scaring me on the other side of my front door. (This did backfire on me a little when I went to the GP and he told me that I looked 'too well put together to have anxiety' but hey!)

It's an incredibly long-winded way to get to my point, but what I'm getting at is, there is SO much judgemental, negative and downright bitchy behaviour around us all of the time, that something as simple as whether or not you wear make up, the amount you wear and how you wear it becomes a point of criticism. Why?!

If you want to wear make up every day, then go for it. If you don't, rock the natural look. If you want to put on false lashes and contour to go to the supermarket, amazing! If you're a guy and want to start wearing make up, also amazing! But, if you'd rather have an extra fifteen minutes in bed in a morning and not bother, I'm actually a bit jealous! But PLEASE can we just stop associating make up with vanity, and a lack of make up with being a scruff? We have way too much negativity flying around as it is. Stop being judgemental of what others choose to put on their face, okay?!

Love,

Sian xo