Why I Continue To Wear Makeup

I've done a post like this before titled Why I Can't Go Out In Public Without Makeup On, and things haven't really changed much since then. I still find myself wearing foundation for a simple trip down to the printing lab in the lobby of my dorm. This is the story of how I started wearing makeup and part of why I still continue to wear it today.

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I can’t draw or paint, nor do much when it comes to the artistic realm, aside from Photoshopping a cigar into the hands of a raccoon to amuse my roommate (long story). It was clear from a young age that my calling was not artistry. The thing was, I tried incredibly hard to be good at something that I just genuinely couldn’t do. Traditional art wasn’t my forte. It took a while to accept this, especially when I was forced to take an art class every day until I entered high school. The end of required art marked the beginning of my, arguably, favorite method of artistry.

I don’t have good skin. No amount of celebrity endorsed products promising me clear skin will fix what I have accepted as life’s greatest curse on me, second to me never being able to meet my favorite male celebrities and have them fall madly in love with me. My best friend in high school became foundation and concealer, two products to this day that I choose not to live without.

I remember my first trip to Sephora vividly. It all started with a frosty pink lipstain that smelled strongly of vanilla and made me strongly resemble somebody who would go by the stage name Vanilla. This coincided with my absorption into the world of Youtubers (a lot of moments in my life coincided with one another, like my bang phase as teenage angst). Once I was exposed to the beauty gurus of Youtube, my bank account depleted and my face became slightly more lively.

It took three different shades of foundation until I looked like myself and less like Casper or a competitive cheerleader. It took three different shades of foundation to make me feel OK walking around the halls of school. My otherwise naked face slowly but surely became my canvas, a form of art that I was mastering fairly quickly. Putting on eyeshadow was easier for me to learn than drawing three-dimensional shapes, and just about anything else my teacher’s desperately tried to teach me before giving me a passing grade for effort.

For a while, makeup was my mask, I will admit it. I can’t be alone when I say that high school can make you feel very insecure and inadequate. And I’m not going to say that college doesn’t miraculously wipe away these feelings, but at least for me, something clicked within me the summer before my freshmen year that told me to stop caring what other people thought and do things for myself. I don’t wear my berry lipstick to catch people’s attention or lure in the men (apparently guys hate bold lipstick? HAH!). I wear it because I’m comfortable in it and I can hide the fact that I recently burned my top lip with a curling iron…so perhaps that use is a mask, but you get what I mean. Makeup is a personal choice, either way you choose.