Contouring. Strobing. Tight-lining. In the past year or so, these buzzwords have smattered the pages of magazines like Cosmopolitan and Allure as the top trending makeup techniques in the world. Tutorials on how to perfect these looks abound—entering “contour tutorial” in YouTube’s search bar yields almost a million results. The intense social hype around makeup becomes even more extreme with the emergence of makeup lines from celebrities like Kylie Jenner and Victoria Beckham. Makeup and glamour have become an entire industry. Women spend hundreds of dollars on makeup every year, fueling the wildfire that is the art of wearing the perfect face.
On the other hand, celebrities have also had a hand in snubbing the social norm of wearing makeup to every event that requires a red carpet and a security detail. In August, Alicia Keys caught everyone’s eye when she chose to attend the MTV Video Music Awards sans makeup. Whether or not it was her intention to make a statement, people certainly felt all types of ways about her choice to go completely natural. Some people were quick to applaud her; others were quick to call her out, saying that her #NoMakeup movement had gone “too far.” Since then, other celebrities have joined Keys—even Kim Kardashian, whose glam team spends anywhere from 45 minutes to three hours getting her look perfect, recently opted to attend an event fresh-faced.
The problem doesn’t lie in the fact that there is a “correct” side of the spectrum to fall on. Whether you’re super into contouring or going completely natural, the only thing that’s “correct” about wearing makeup or not is whether or not it fits your personality and your aesthetic. The problem lies in the fact that girls and women can’t win either way.
If you live for a perfect contour or perfectly winged eyeliner, you get labeled as superficial. You get labeled as a “cake face.” If the most makeup you ever wear is a touch of mascara, you get called out for looking “worn out,” or for a lack of self-respect.
A guy once told me he liked me more without makeup because it made me look more “honest.” Cool, dude. But what if part of who I am is spending 45 minutes doing my eye makeup to get that perfect smoky eye? What if I spend twenty minutes agonizing over whether I should wear matte lipstick or a shiny gloss? Whether I spend 10 minutes or two hours in front of the mirror in the morning shouldn’t have an effect on how honest I look. I don’t wear makeup to hide anything; I wear makeup as an extension of who I am.
We shouldn’t criticize Kylie Jenner for looking “fake,” just like we shouldn’t criticize Alicia Keys for looking “washed up.” At the end of the day, we’re all working on the same thing: expressing ourselves and showing the world who we are. Let’s take time not to criticize, but rather to encourage self-expression—whether it’s in the form of a perfectly executed smoky eye or the form of a little lip balm. No matter what side of the spectrum you fall on, the only person who gets to decide is you.