Some Thought on Make Up and Why I Wear It

I like to wear a lot of make up. I like it bold and I like it slutty. I’m not what people tend to call a "slut" at all but I just like myself with tons of make up on and dressed in a short skirt with stockings held by suspenders. 

 
So – obviously – I get to hear the usual reactions a lot. „You’d look better without all that make up on“, „Guys don’t like girls who wear that much make up“, „You’ll give people the wrong impression“, and so on. 

And let me get this straight – this is not a whiny third wave feminist post about how girls can wear whatever they want and how it says nothing about them. Of course it says something about me. The way I dress, the way I paint my face – and this is mainly about make up so this is what I’m getting deeper into – says a lot about me, obviously. We express ourselves through our looks, we want to send a message. Everyone does. 

And my message is maybe kind of a remain from my teenage days – I like to piss people off. When I was 12/13/14 I wore tons of black eyeliner and eyeshadow to school everyday, and I obviously got a lot of shit for it, but also some people who thought it was cool. And not necessarily the few ones who did the same, I never belonged to a clique of gothic or emo kids. I was more like the freak in the group of „normal“ kids but nobody really cared within that group. The point is just, I didn’t only overuse my eyeliner the way I did because I thought it looked cool as fuck – I also wanted to scare some people away and piss them off. It was like a tiny, childish form of rebellion and if I think about it, maybe it still is. 

I KNOW that a lot of men prefer less make up on women. I know that a lot of women do, too. And that’s fine, everyone has their own taste, and everyone’s entitled to it.
But the point is, personally, I like wearing a lot of make up and that is because when I look at myself in the mirror, I just love the way it looks. That simple.
But it’s not like I’m trying to pretend I’m doing it all for myself. I don’t put on any make up if I’m planning to spend the whole day at home. I don't put on make up if I'm going to the grocery store or the gym. It is – to a certain extend – for other people, but more as a kind of war paint. With make up on, and for me there’s only a lot of it or none at all – I feel stronger and more ready to face the world. It may sound overdramatic but it really does have a psychological effect. If you look into the mirror and like what you see, you feel good and strong. And liking what you see is really just up to your personal taste, some people like to see themselves with no make up, or only a little make up, or – like me – really over the top make up that is probably way too much for the occasion.  

 
I once read that women don’t wear make up to look good for men but rather to look better than other girls. In the end that leads to the same thing – you want to look better than other girls, you want to feel superior so you’re the “top bitch“. And at least to some extend that is for men. It’s only natural, our bodies want to reproduce, in the end we’re just animals.

But we all compete in our own way, we want to look our best – the way WE think we look best. And if I like myself best with a lot of make up on I’m going to wear it. No, it’s not a compliment if you tell me I’d look better without it. You may think it would be more natural, more myself but aren’t you really the purest form of „yourself“ if you look exactly the way you want to look? In the end your bare face itself doesn’t really say anything about your personality, the way you dress up does. And to the people who say I don’t need it – OF COURSE I don’t NEED it! Nobody fucking needs it! And I’m happy to go without it on some days. But I like it, and come on – at least half of the stuff that we buy or do are pure luxury. We don’t need them, but we like them. And as long as we can afford them, that’s perfectly fine. Everything that gives us joy is a good thing as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. 

In the end I just like myself with a lot of bold make up on, and part of why it makes me feel good is because it makes me feel  like a bit of an outsider. As I said, it’s war paint, it sets me apart from other people. It repels some people – attracts some people, too, yes, but that’s not the intention. Again, it’s just a tiny, childish form of rebellion. But it makes me feel good, that is what it’s all about. 

So what about you? Do you like to wear a lot of make up? No make up? Something in the middle? Do you make assumptions based on the amount of make up people wear? Tell me your thoughts! 

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