I never really wore makeup, except for a couple years in high school while in my goth phase. Maybe my first year of college, too. But I only really wore eyeliner.
My mom never wore makeup, so I never grew up with that as a norm. I grew up in theatre, where makeup was a tool to make you look like someone you weren’t. Maybe that’s why I used it in my most awkward years; the years I tried to be someone tougher & cooler than Mary, the previously homeschooled girl who moved all over with her military family.
I did start to pluck my eyebrows when, during a show, someone said the makeup made it look like my huge eyebrows just grew right down my eyelids. I was mortified. My Groucho Marx brows became a huge physical embarrassment of mine.
Now I am a mama myself. When I was pregnant, I began observing little kids & how they interact with people. They hug everyone. They believe everything. They have big, curious eyes that take in all the advertising around them & begin to assimilate to the ideals they feel are there for them. I decided I wanted my baby, boy or girl, to be confident in who they were, & to value others by their own standards, rather than by what it seems society would have us value.
I left my eyebrows alone, joking that they make me look more Muppetish & babies probably like that, anyway. I stopped shaving, period (& still only shave before putting on a bathing suit. Not as brave as I wish I was quite yet!) I ate better foods & drank more water & started to walk just so I could be the healthiest me. And I tossed all the long-expired makeup in my stash that was sitting around for special events. I don’t even wear mascara to a wedding anymore. Fancy occasions bring out my lipbalm. Ooooh, fancy!
As it turned out, I had a daughter. I really want to make sure she knows how uniquely beautiful she is- that her beauty cannot be bought in a bottle or applied with a brush. It’s inside her, & it is in the very cells that make up the skin on her face. It’s my mom’s eye color she has & her dad’s impish features that look pixie-ish on her. The reddish tint to her hair that we think comes from my husband’s mom. It’s that ridiculously too-big smile that changes her entire face shape that she gets from me, & the gap teeth that I also passed down.
My experiment with loving myself for myself continues, & ironically, I owe it to my daughter. The body I love now is changed from the one I was so insecure of in my teen years; stretched & dimpled & saggy & sometimes leaky… But it made Rue & I love it more for that. My husband loves me & my body just as it is; as the body that my daughter has been nurtured by & grew in & still nurses from.
With all that goddessy goodness, some fuzzy eyebrows seem superfluous!
So, here’s Rue & me; unbrushed hair, pre-face-wash, between washing diapers & cleaning the house & working from home. Ah, the glamorous life!
Mary
YAY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS OF CONFIDENT WOMEN!
Do you have something to share about beauty standards and makeup?
If you would like to participate with this project email a natural make-up free or silver/gray haired photo of yourself that has not been filtered to greenbeltgoddess (at) gmail (dot) com. Don’t forget to tell us something about how you feel about make-up or beauty standards.
Body Politics 