You Owe It To No One To Be Beautiful

Also, never ask a girl with winged eyeliner why she's late

Photo by Trevor Buntin.

It’s been a year and a half since I’ve worn makeup. The lockdown, of course. Yet even before the lockdown, months would go by and … nothing. I work at home. Bras are optional. Shoes are never. John sees me with his heart and not his eyes, thank heavens. Makeup just seemed like an awful lot of trouble. It’s also expensive, and our income fluctuates wildly.

But for anyone who knows what a show pony I used to be (a college professor once called me “Hollywood,” and he wasn’t being complimentary), discovering that I go barefaced might come as a surprise. I used to teach sixteen sweaty, hardcore fitness classes a week while wearing full war paint. I was in the public eye. It made sense. But the real reason was I wore makeup was because I thought I needed to.

And therein lies the rub.

Like many women, I look better with makeup. Foundation allows you to spackle right over freckles and discoloration. Mascara makes your eyes pop. Guys will talk a big game about how they despise makeup and prefer a fresher, more “natural” look, but most men know absolutely nothing about makeup and often don’t realize when a woman is wearing any. Bra sizes, either. Bless their hearts, they couldn’t buy a clue if clues came in Happy Meals.

But here’s the question I started asking myself—and if you’ve already asked and answered this question, congratulations; I apologize for being late to the epiphany: Do I owe it to anybody to be “beautiful”?

Photo by Mitul Gajera.

Time was, I wouldn’t venture as far as the mailbox without a face full of paint. Being caught without it filled me with mortification and shame. All I could think about was what they were looking at. Were they repulsed? Were they secretly musing, My God, somebody get the BB Cream, this woman looks like roadkill?

Who knows? What people think of me is actually none of my business.

Perhaps when I was younger, I might have gotten away with less makeup, and now that I’m older, I could likely use more. But it doesn’t matter. At some point, I finally accepted who and what I was. This is it. This is me. You can like it, dislike it, hate it, wish you could put a bag over my head, whatever. All viewpoints are valid, but don’t expect me to care. Not really. I had to climb a very steep mountain to get here, battling the forces of Madison Avenue and every major cosmetics company that tried to make me me feel hideous so they could “fix” what was wrong.

This is NOT to say I judge anyone who wears makeup! Far far from it. And there will surely be occasions when I sit my butt down and go through the mess and inconvenience of putting it on. What I’m saying is knowing why you wear makeup is important. Are you actively dating? Fine. A slave to Instagram? Fine. In the public eye? Go for it. But if, like me, you thought (deep down) that a woman was obliged to look as good as possible at all times because, after all, that was just the way things were, you might want to weigh that viewpoint more carefully.

Photo by Darius Bashar.

I see watery reflections of my old self just about everywhere. Italian girls (who are, almost to a person, remarkably lovely) wear tons of makeup when they go out. Also high heels and rhinestone crop tops, and this just to hang out at the local coffee bar. Italian boys? Same old T-shirt and cargo shorts. No one’s asking them to glam up. From birth, they are given to understand that being who you are and looking how you look is perfectly okay.

I want that for all women, whether they wear makeup or not. I want to erase all self-consciousness and any sense of obligation.

If I could say anything to my younger self, it would be this: you do not owe it to anyone to look a certain way. You don’t have to be sexy. You don’t have to be beautiful. You can just be you. The right ones will see your beauty without the accoutrements. They’ll see your heart, your smarts, your occasional snark. If you want to wear makeup, wear makeup. If you don’t, don’t. But all the power you think you have because makeup and a tight top are a siren song to predatory men—that, my dear, is a primrose path. Boy, do I ever have firsthand knowledge of that.

From the outside, being desirable seems like power, doesn’t it? People pay you lots of attention. But the anxiety, and yes, self-loathing, it engenders is rarely worth the price. Society isn’t all that kind to beautiful women—not forever, at least. And what do you get for your efforts? Men might want to sleep with you, but they won’t necessarily love you. Not for the right reasons. Being beautiful comes at much the same price as being rich. Who will love you for you and not for your wealth or beauty?

I realize these nuggets of worldly wisdom fly in the face of everything a woman is told from the cradle onward: be hot, be hot, be hot. In a fruitless attempt to shield my daughter from these lessons of the marketplace, I raised her and my son without television and refused to buy fashion magazines. But then there was Instagram, and a thousand other social media apps that did nothing but reproduce the lessons of the marketplace. And there was no shielding her from that.

So, all I can offer is my own wan voice in the wilderness: Don’t cast your pearls before swine. Don’t seek the approval of people you don’t respect or even know. Don’t look for validation in the male gaze. Don’t let your mood be dictated by whether you’re having a “good hair” day.

Instead, do the most daring thing of all. Be you. Varnished, unvarnished, likeable, unlikable, it doesn’t matter. I’m not telling you you’re more beautiful without makeup or that a nice smile is all a girl needs. I’m saying you don’t need to be beautiful. It’s not required in order to exist as a human female. The sheer act of being authentically yourself is the finest form of rebellion against a society that tells women, relentlessly and without mercy, their only worth is sexual.

Photo by Liz Breygel.

What are your thoughts and feelings on the subject of makeup? I’d like to hear them. Leave your comments below.