So I've heard online today that May 14th is Bloggers Without Makeup Day (via: this blogher article) based on a feud with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb on the Today Show vs. Rosie O'Donnel who accused them of plastic surgery. The challenge? To do their show with no makeup.
I found the video clip quite refreshing and liberating. I feel that we as women are expected to be this platform representing grace, elegance, and being beautiful with no signs of stress or difficulty and let's just be honest. Who is really like that? Every model you see in a magazine, everything you see on tv, every billboard or advertisement is a falsification for what we think is expected of us. If we don't live up to that standard than we are categorized as boyish and less feminine. Even in the working world, we are expected to paint our faces, wear stilts, and suck in our tummies to be worth listening to. What a difference "professional" means for men!
This is a fascinating topic to me because I personally didn't wear makeup on a regular basis until I was 21, a junior in college. Don't get me wrong, I love makeup. It's an artform and it does make me feel confident and expressive. I'm not going to say that my bare face is loveliness... quite the contrary actually. I'm rather plain and my high school and college years were right at the worst of my acne problems and I was grandly overlooked by classmates. BUT what I learned was to be okay with myself for who I was inside and let that define me as a person, not my face.
It's strange to now be in the world of youtube and blogging because so many people out there see your face before they bother to read your words or listen to what you have to say. There are snap judgements made and I think people get offended if you don't look how they want you to look, talk how they want you to talk, or apply makeup how they think is best. Isn't that just the most bizarre concept? But we all do it without comprehending why, or considering what that person is going through and feels.
So yeah, I just wanted to write my two cents. I'm not saying it's easy to love yourself with a bare face but I think it is important to love who you are as a person, disconnected from your face and body, first. And we should also love others with no makeup too. From doing makeup on other people, I get the joy of seeing lots of beautiful women with no makeup on and I'm always delighted to see the potential in their canvas. This woman has gorgeous green flecks in her brown eyes, and this woman has wonderful rosy lips. This one has beautiful dark eyelashes, and this one has delicate hairs on her face which act as a natural mattefier. No woman isn't beautiful.
On that note here is me with a deep breath *gulp* showing my bare face.
Photos without makeup, straight from the camera. Not even lighting correction. Just resized and watermarked. (Ahhhhhhh!)
Bravery always feels a bit naked. ^.~
Here's to No Makeup Day!
This is a fascinating topic to me because I personally didn't wear makeup on a regular basis until I was 21, a junior in college. Don't get me wrong, I love makeup. It's an artform and it does make me feel confident and expressive. I'm not going to say that my bare face is loveliness... quite the contrary actually. I'm rather plain and my high school and college years were right at the worst of my acne problems and I was grandly overlooked by classmates. BUT what I learned was to be okay with myself for who I was inside and let that define me as a person, not my face.
It's strange to now be in the world of youtube and blogging because so many people out there see your face before they bother to read your words or listen to what you have to say. There are snap judgements made and I think people get offended if you don't look how they want you to look, talk how they want you to talk, or apply makeup how they think is best. Isn't that just the most bizarre concept? But we all do it without comprehending why, or considering what that person is going through and feels.
So yeah, I just wanted to write my two cents. I'm not saying it's easy to love yourself with a bare face but I think it is important to love who you are as a person, disconnected from your face and body, first. And we should also love others with no makeup too. From doing makeup on other people, I get the joy of seeing lots of beautiful women with no makeup on and I'm always delighted to see the potential in their canvas. This woman has gorgeous green flecks in her brown eyes, and this woman has wonderful rosy lips. This one has beautiful dark eyelashes, and this one has delicate hairs on her face which act as a natural mattefier. No woman isn't beautiful.
On that note here is me with a deep breath *gulp* showing my bare face.
Photos without makeup, straight from the camera. Not even lighting correction. Just resized and watermarked. (Ahhhhhhh!)
Bravery always feels a bit naked. ^.~
Here's to No Makeup Day!
