Last Sunday, I did something highly unusual for me.  I treated myself to some spa time, took a boat out on the lake with my family, swam a little, and went out to dinner.  The unusual part was that I did all of this while wearing no makeup.  Though I haven’t really kept track, it’s possible that last Sunday was my first makeup-free day in nearly 20 years.  (Ok, there may have been one or two days after I gave birth, but they were days on which I didn’t leave my house.)

I don’t recall exactly when I started wearing makeup regularly, but I would guess it was in my early teens.  It probably started with some mascara and concealer.  Since then, my habit has expanded to include foundation, blush, eyeliner, lipstick, and more.  Over the years, I’ve probably spent a staggering amount of time and money on concealing imperfections and trying to make my face more attractive.

I’m not alone.  A 2014 survey found that on average, British girls now begin to wear makeup at age 11.  It’s estimated that women in the United States spend about $8 per day on their faces, for a lifetime total of more than $200,000 (although other estimates are lower).  In addition to money, the makeup tax costs women a significant amount of time — one to two weeks per year.  Think of all the things we could be doing with that time and money.

But the decision to devote financial, temporal, and mental resources to cosmetics is arguably an economically sound one when you consider the tradeoffs.  Women who wear makeup earn more than women who don’t, to the tune of $6,000 per year.  Women who wear makeup are perceived as being more competent.  And, of course, we have to consider romantic prospects: men consider women more attractive when wearing makeup, albeit less makeup than women generally think men find attractive.

So while I’m conflicted about my makeup habit and sometimes think of it as a waste of time and money or even narcissistic and selfish, the choice to wear makeup doesn’t entirely feel like an act of free will.  As one writer put it,

For men, the closest analogy to being stuck without makeup, for women who usually wear it, is being forced to wear a stained shirt to a meeting. It’s probably fine to run errands in a shirt with dribble of barbecue sauce down the front. . . . But if a man were to arrive at work for an important meeting, having somehow forgotten that his shirt was stained, and finding himself without an emergency clean shirt to don, he’d probably feel deeply uncomfortable.

It is this kind of shame that really drives me to wear makeup, or at least it did for years.  Like many people in their teens and twenties, I had acne, and I was embarrassed about it.  The only way I felt remotely comfortable in my own skin was to attempt to cover it up.  Now, it’s undereye circles and red spots I aim to conceal.  I want to look awake, refreshed, and healthy.  Deep down, I fear how I’ll be perceived without makeup.  Many women say that they wear makeup not to impress others but because it makes them feel good about themselves, but the only reason that’s the case is because our culture encourages, rewards, and even expects it.

The reality is that for women, looking our best is synonymous with wearing makeup.  All around us, for all our lives, we’ve seen women wearing makeup.  It’s what’s portrayed as beautiful and normal in magazines and on television.  As a result, many of us feel inadequate and flawed without it.  The #nomakeupselfie campaign and the willingness of celebrities like Alicia Keys to go barefaced certainly helps, but I doubt those efforts will go very far in changing our society’s expectations vis-à-vis makeup.  The cosmetics industry brings in more than $60 billion per year — I don’t see it fading anytime soon.

Although I hate spending my time and money on it, I don’t think I’ll ever stop wearing makeup entirely.  Does that make me complicit in the problem?  Is this a form of internalized misogyny?  Maybe.  It troubles me that our culture values attractiveness and grooming so highly (and disproportionately so for women), but like it or not, that’s the society in which we live.  The fact is that I want to avoid the negative effects of not wearing makeup, so I’ll continue to do it.  I don’t want to be seen as less competent than I am, less healthy, less likeable.  I don’t want to be paid less or held back in my career.  I don’t want to be distracted by self-conscious thoughts about my face while giving a big presentation.

But I am working on becoming more comfortable with my un-made-up face so that last factor becomes less of an issue.  I want to enjoy an afternoon in the pool or at the beach without worrying about my concealer washing off or mascara smearing under my eyes.  I don’t want to always have to wear a mask to feel my best.  So I’ve started cutting steps from my routine and going makeup-less from time to time on the weekends.  I even posted my own #nomakeupselfie — go ahead and laugh, but it felt like a big deal to me.  Baby steps, right?

Do you wear makeup?  Why or why not?  

If you enjoyed this post, please share.