By most standards, I don't wear a lot of makeup. If you asked my boyfriend, he'd probably tell you I don't wear makeup at all (I definitely do, but I've mastered the art of the no-makeup makeup look). Like most girls I know, I have a few "flaws" that I choose to cover up and other features that I like to enhance.
On average, it takes me 10 minutes to put on my makeup for work. I wear tinted moisturizer and concealer to even my splotchy skin, fill in my brows because bold brows are still a thing, and curl and coat my lashes with mascara because I was blessed with the teeny tiny Shunatona eyes. (All I ever heard growing up was that I have squinty eyes.) This was my daily routine until one morning, when I was running a little behind schedule and showed up to work bare-faced.
I was planning to touch up in the bathroom before any of my coworkers could see me and my under-eye circles, dark spots, blemishes, and melasma in all their glory. I discovered the melasma, a skin discoloration triggered by hormones and sun exposure, a few months back when my boyfriend thought I had dirt on my face and tried to rub it off. Needless to say, I've been pretty self-conscious of my skin since then.
Up until that point, I had never been to work without makeup on. Unfortunately, that morning, a coworker of mine caught a glimpse. To my surprise, he said, "You look so fresh-faced." I scrambled for excuses: I recently started using a new face cream for my melasma, I told him, and wanted to give it ample time to soak in before I slathered my face with makeup.
"You should just stop wearing makeup then," he suggested. Sure. Easy for a guy to say, but I've always felt like if I'm going to work, an event, or any occasion other than bumming around watching Netflix, I need to look presentable. For me, wearing concealer and mascara makes me presentable.
Still, I took his challenge and pledged to stop wearing makeup for one week. Celebrities proudly post makeup-free selfies all the time and they feel way more pressure to look good than I do. I hardly wear anything on the weekends and all my friends and loved ones have seen me without makeup anyway, so I thought this would be easy and not too life-changing. #FamousLastWords.
Later that day, I went to an event to preview a new makeup foundation launch. The first thing the representative of the brand, whom I had not met before, said to me was, "You have really uneven skin. Have you been in the sun? You have spots on your face." Here I was thinking no one could even see it and that I was overreacting! I'm sure she had good intentions, but she was tapping into my deepest insecurity. I played it off and told the brand rep that I didn't have any makeup on and usually it didn't look that bad, but the truth was that what she said did bother me and my skin did always look like that.
I kept the makeup simple, mostly made sure my skin was even with foundation and concealer. One girl actually approached me and said my skin looked nice (I felt like an impostor since it was the makeup that made my skin look good, but I was happy to take the compliment anyway). I also made sure to wear a hat, not only because it was part of my outfit but because I can't be in the sun anymore without a hat or SPF 50 if I want my sun-induced melasma to clear up. Pro tip: Hats are also a great way to hide your face from the world. Even though I had a little makeup on, it was honestly nice to have that giant hat as a crutch.
I did, however, decide to put on makeup at night for dinner because, well, it was my birthday and I was going to put makeup on if I wanted to. That's the thing I realized about makeup through this experiment: If you choose to wear makeup, wear it for yourself and wear it because you want to, not because you're trying to meet other people's expectations. The only reason I wore makeup most days was because I thought I had to — that my spotted face would otherwise offend someone. But I don't really care how my coworkers feel about my skin anymore. I think it bothered me a thousand times more to have them see my skin than it bothered them to look at me. Throughout the week, I started feeling better about my skin and it just so happened to start looking better when it wasn't covered up anymore.
It's been a few days since I finished the experiment, and I haven't worn makeup to work since. Despite the fact that I received way more compliments when I wore makeup and had to deal with someone blatantly call out my uneven skin tone when I didn't, I became aware of how much time, money, and energy I was wasting trying to hide something so insignificant. Don't get me wrong, I still love to occasionally get dolled up. But I've learned to love the way I look without makeup as much as I do with it.
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