Time for makeup is not for you to decide.
EOY Party. I was wearing bright eyeshadow and coloured contacts. Nothing new. Shot on Minolta Riva Zoom 75W (2021)
“I can tell you’re working extra hard today, because you’re not wearing any makeup.” (November, 2018)
I didn’t know how to react when I first heard it. Instinctively, I laughed nervously. It was the final semester of my master, and my tutor came to observe and assist us as the fourteen of us were on the floor, carefully putting together the displays for our presentation. The weather was warm, and I was time poor to have makeup on my face that day.
To hear my tutor (who I initially wanted to work for right after graduation) comment on my work ethic being correlated with my appearance with a smile felt unsettling. I’m sure the comment could have come from a jovial place. Albeit it pushed forward my insecurities that proved my theory to be true. That is, the time I spent on my face should have been contributed to the performance of my work.
During the early 2010’s, a common YouTube makeup tag would rest under the umbrella of getting ready under a certain amount of time. Media stereotyped women who enjoyed makeup to be rather time-poor. Myself, growing up being told that time spent on something could impact a performance, it heightened my insecurity and wondered if past condescending comments on my academic work was correlated to how put-together my face was.
My relationship with makeup hasn’t been a consistent one. Let alone, my attitude towards makeup was a hostile one (and under the impression that a lot of peers in high school were keen to wear makeup to look grown up or impress boys…). Yet over the years, through participating in school performances and appreciating the artistry of makeup, I found myself gravitating towards the empowering feeling of wearing makeup. A swatch of a good red lipstick, a colourful eyeshadow look that garners validating comments or even an alluring teal lipstick to turn shocked heads – I loved the soft armour I could give to myself. I laughed at how I was so sceptical about makeup when I was young (probably associating it with being girly and that was considered cringe and uncool) and later transitioning to the thought of “I paid good money for this, let me enjoy the items that I bought!” I was able to feel the happiness of spending the morning in putting myself together.
Despite being able to enjoy the performance I put for myself – it doesn’t push away the judgements I receive from others. Perhaps it was my own insecurities being the loudest, but with comments from tutor that falls along the lines of ‘I know you work hard, but you can work harder’ or ‘You work really hard when you know what you want’ – it makes me wonder, are they expecting me to be extra polished with my draft because of the way I present myself at class?
Are they expecting that the time I spent on my face should have been contributed to work instead?
A few months ago – I was watching Michelle Wong’s (also known as Lab Muffin Beauty Science) beauty science video, she expressed her frustrations on the double standards women face when their appearances are scrutinised. Once, while she was preparing for a presentation on gender and online science communicators – she came across a bleak statistic, in which out of the top 150 Science and Tech YouTube presenters, only 8 women are within the list, and only 6 are openly presenting in person. Despite their credibility and their impressive resume, a large percentage of audience would still undermine the woman’s capability by being misogynistic on their physical. Listening to her frustrations took me back to the sentence my tutor joked with me during my final year in university. It wasn’t about pretty privilege; it was meeting a certain societal expectation. Even how I decide to curate my face each day for work can be dependent on who I was interacting with: darker eyebrows to frame a serious mindset; a red lipstick to give me a boost to give myself some equal ground around men who have tendency to be condescending to women (and perhaps a woman of Asian descent), wearing colour on my eyes to counteract the stereotype that architects wear black – these were all intentional decisions to give myself an air to get me through the day.
“Being a woman is quite politicised” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
To quote Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “being a woman is quite politicised”. Our appearance will constantly be under the scrutiny of many lenses – men, women, children, everyone. It’s not surprising given that sight is something majority prioritise, yet as a woman, with added beauty standards and societal expectations our appearance will forever be the main target of conversation. Even I, myself am guilty at taking note of how one prepares and dresses themselves on television. Having said – it would be nice if expectations of how one keeps their appearance is kept to themselves. Sure, a fun conversation on how to wear makeup with excitement and gusto is one, but I’d appreciate it if people could respect that makeup isn’t necessarily the result of vanity – but rather a small boost for people to feel better about themselves.
We all deserve to show up for ourselves in our own creative way.
This entry was written while the summer sun sets on Wurundjeri Land