Consultation Needed!
I’d like an answer, once and for all, about whether ‘make up’ or ‘no make up’ is more attractive.
As part of my existential crises, I’ve stopped dressing up the way I used to. First, I nixed the heels. Then, I’ve nixed anything remotely tight or uncomfortable (how did I ever willingly wear things that were so binding in my “free” time!?!). Now, in the final stages of my regression to utter laziness, I’ve stopped putting on make up.
Make up clogs pours.
It stiffens and damages eyelashes.
It requires an extra ten to twenty minutes of application time before you can get out the door.
And it’s a pain in the ass to take off.
The cost of high quality make up plus the cost of non-irritating make up remover – these expenses mount up. Did I mention my favorite product, Dior Airflash, is $60 for a small bottle?
Ultimately, however, cost was not the deciding factor in my decision to start going al naturale. It was more of a laziness / time saving issue. I then decided something in my basic methodology about the understanding of beauty was wrong when I continued leaving the house make-up-less and got whacky compliments like:
“I love your knew look. No make up. You look totally hot.”
“You look so great tonight. What’s different?”
Oh, did I mention that men folk flock to me as well?
And all this time, I was wasting copious amounts of money and time trying to look nice. Clearly, I should’ve just rolled out of bed without washing my face and made an extra point to stand in florescent lighting that highlights my jaw line pimples.
I have a nasty habit of theorizing about everything. My current theory about this is that sans make up, men perhaps find you less intimidating. You look less attractive, and are therefore more approachable. Maybe they also see you as extra confident since you’re okay with not concealing the purple bags under your eyes. Or maybe they think, ‘I don’t wear mascara and neither does that girl. We clearly have something in common.’
I don’t know.
Every woman’s magazine in the planet addresses this issue by asking ‘real men’ (is there such a thing as non-real men, Cosmopolitan? And if so, can you tell me where? I’d like to date one) what they think about make up.
The answer is always the same.
The selected pool of dudes they interrogate always report that they don’t like lots of make up on their girlfriends. The magazine then twists their words to say, “Men don’t like a lot of make up, but they love it when your make up is enhancing your natural beauty. As long as they can’t tell it’s there, men love you in make up. A LOT.” Considering their magazine is 60% sponsored by ads for beauty products, it’s really no surprise they tweak ‘real mens’ words, which otherwise would sabotage a multimillion dollar beauty industry.
My question: What’s the real deal?
I just want to know why when I dress down and make less of an effort to look nice, I end up getting more positive attention.
Men out there or women with theories, explain, please.
December 12th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I don’t know much about makeup…but I think it looks nice when women just use a small amount to enhance/give depth to the features they already have, rather than covering the entire face from top to bottom with a new layer.
But then again I also think fake eyelashes look very attractive on women. So maybe you want to just disregard.
December 12th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I guess you already covered that observation, but I was just voicing my support.
December 13th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Whether a woman is wearing makeup or not is the furthest thing from my mind when I talk to her. I would prefer no makeup because then you are seeing what you getting so to speak.
Most of the time I would probably have a hard time telling if someone is wearing makeup or not if I actually tried to figure out. If the makeup is obvious enough that I notice it, that is a turn off.
More along the lines of my interest is whether makeup is healthy or not (I think in general healthy=beautiful), so I did a quick search and came up with this: http://www.health-report.co.uk/ingredients-directory.htm. I had a professor in biomedical engineering who said that she wore makeup until one day she read through the ingredients list–then she stopped.