Why Do women Wear Makeup?
Table of Contents
Makeup is not something new; ancient women also used natural products for makeup. For example, berry extracts to tint the lips, and the ashes of burnt matches to darken the eyes as standard. Due to the lack of education, women also used beauty products that contained harmful chemical elements like mercury, lead, arsenic, etc. to enhance their appearances.
Today the cosmetics and makeup industry has become a multibillion-dollar industry. Thousands of drugstore and high-end brands have dominated the market, with each having products one better than the other. Starting a makeup line is now considered one of the most top-notch and benefiting businesses. Now, governments of the countries make sure that the products used in creating cosmetics should not be unsafe to the skin in any capacity.
Women wear makeup for three main reasons:
1) Confidence – Makeup helps to hide blemishes and imperfections. It helps women feel confident because it prompts public self-consciousness.
2) Attractiveness – Women wear makeup because it is like editing and loading a picture with filters to enhance the shades, hues, exposure, and saturation. It is an art that hides imperfections. It is an art; when applied correctly, it can make you look older, younger (whichever you prefer). All of this connects to looking more attractive.
3) Acceptance – Women wear makeup for the third reason, which is to be accepted. When a woman goes to a job interview or goes to work, they get dressed, and often they apply makeup because they feel like makeup and good dressing sense will make them socially accepted. If a group of girls is going out, they get dressed up and apply their glam look. So that they can enter clubs, etc.
Confidence
Makeup to Hide Imperfections
Many women reason that if they look good, they will also feel good. In the modern world, social media has played a significant role in setting up beauty standards for societies. Celebrities spend a lot of their income to look as good as they can. They go for hydra facials, micro-needling, PRP, derma-peelings, etc. all these procedures make skin look fresh and clean, but not every one earns enough to spend thousands of dollars on clinical skin treatments.
For this purpose, makeup proves to be a comfort for many of us. Women wear makeup to fulfill society’s beauty standards by applying minimal effort. They do not have to take clinic appointments or spend thousands each month. Instead, they prefer a temporary method: makeup.
You see, women will feel much more comfortable and noticeable if they’ll wear red lipstick instead of having no lipstick at all.
Flawless skin is a sign of health and beauty, but nowadays, people tend to have two-toned or blemished skin because of people’s air pollution and rigid routines. Similarly, 70% of the diet we take today is not organic, and whatever we eat affects our skin. Fast food with excess oil is a significant contributor to acne. To hide all these imperfections and to look like one of those flawless skinned Instagram bloggers, women take the help of makeup.
Using makeup is easy; you only must choose the right products for your skin. For instance, if you have dark circles, you must include a red color corrector in your makeup bag. If you have redness over your face, you must use a green color corrector, and to minimize the appearance of small pores on your face, you must apply primer before foundation.
Makeup to Promote Public Self Consciousness
Public self-consciousness is a personality trait in which a person is aware of himself, as others view it. The emotions a person gets from self-consciousness helps her perceive how she should fit herself in society.
To look pretty and clean is in everyone’s instincts. There are hardly any people who do not care about how they look at an event. Some people like to dress well while others have a focus on enhancing their appearances by using makeup.
The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDA) defines cosmetics and makeup as the products intended to be rubbed, poured, sprinkled, or applied to the human body to clean, beautify, and promote attractiveness, or altering the appearance. Many women wear makeup to amplify or enhance their features and youthfulness.
A study has shown that women with high public self-consciousness and are highly concerned about their appearance tend to wear more makeup. Such women believe that makeup could enhance their social interactions. In other words, they believe that outward appearance influences their self-esteem.
There is a strong relationship between appearance and self-esteem. This relationship affects not only teenagers but the women of every age. In a Dove self-esteem fund report, girls with low self-esteem admitted that it is difficult to feel great in school when you don’t like what you look like.
Attractiveness
Makeup for Attractiveness
The makeup acts and simulates three of our senses, touch (which encompasses all sensations from the body surface), smell (fragrance), and sight (the process of becoming and looking beautiful). The positive stimulation of these senses by makeup can induce sensory as well as psychological pleasure.
When asked, most women deny that they wear makeup to attract people, but this is true that many women wear makeup to look attractive.
Some findings prove that makeup makes people more attractive by amplifying three youth-related features-skin evenness, facial contrast, and facial feature size. Women feel more attractive when they wear dark lipsticks than when they are with bare lips. Eye shadow adds depth to the eyes and thus highlights them.
Makeup, An Art
Art is the expression or application of a human’s creative skills and imagination, typically in a visual form. This art can be photography, painting, sculpture, or even makeup.
Today you may find many people who would say that women use makeup to deceive their appearances. Those people who believe that the use of cosmetics is a vain attempt to change who you are might never be ready to accept the fact that like any other form of art, makeup is also a form of art, and an artist can never keep his/her creative soul still for very long.
An experienced makeup artist always knows what kind of makeup and colors will be well suited to certain face cut types. An experienced makeup artist knows they have a command on the brush. An experienced makeup artist knows how to play with colors and create contrasting looks. An experienced makeup artist knows how to create a beautiful piece of artwork.
Makeup is a tool that aims to make people’s faces flawless. The applier of makeup is the artist that uses different colors to draw fine lines or using various blending techniques.
Makeup to Look Older
With the increase in social media use and the rise in influencer culture, teenage girls often try to copy influencers. They copy their makeup techniques, which automatically makes them look older than their age.
Some clinical treatments make you look older like lifting cheekbone surgery, regular face modeling, filler help, etc. but these are expensive treatments. Many symptoms of these procedures show up more in people younger than 35-year-old.
To be on the safe and budget-friendly method for teenage girls to look older is by using makeup. Several makeup techniques can make you look older, like filling your eyebrows using black or brown brow pencil or powder (choose a color closest to your natural brow shade) will make your face sharp and defined.
Some people naturally have sharp cheekbones or jaw lines even in their teenage years, while others can make them intense by using contouring techniques. Applying heavy eyeshadows with a winged eyeliner can also help you to deceive your age.
In the course of recent years, we have seen advancement in makeup products. One of the favorite makeup products nowadays is highlighter. Everyone, from celebrities to teenagers are obsessed with it. Many girls love to buy highlighters in different brands even when they know they will give the same kind of glow. They can never have enough of them. Even brands keep on launching more and more products of highlighter with different shades. Teenage girls love to get that sun glow and thus use highlighter, which makes them look older.
Makeup to Look Younger
Women love to cover up their insecurities and make their skin look younger and perfect. The main motive behind it is “if you do not have it, you can fake it” This is what makeup helps to do. Makeup is not about completely altering appearances; instead, it is about improving and bringing out the beauty already there but fades due to aging.
Where makeup helps teenage girls look older, it also allows women aged thirty-five or plus to look younger. A highlighter can make young girls look older, but their uses can also make older women look more youthful by giving a natural-looking glow to the skin.
There are several tips and tricks to use makeup to look younger. Like, concealers can hide the signs of aging, and a foundation can be used to hide the fine lines on the face. With the increase in age, many people notice that their eyelashes and eyebrows start becoming thinner. Using mascara, we can create an illusion of thick and bold lashes and broader eyes. We use eyebrow pencils or eyebrow mascaras for fuller eyebrows. Lipsticks help to hide the tan lips and make them look fuller.
Using face powders after foundation can maximize pores and wrinkles’ appearance, so ditching face powders can also help women look younger.
Makeup to Show You're more Feminine
Makeup adds contrasts to the face and thus enhances the features. Have you ever heard someone say to you or someone else has a babyface? It has to do with contrast. Studies have shown that the more contrast there is of the face compared to the other parts like the lips makes a person look more feminine. Contouring is very common among women who wear makeup.
Contouring helps in creating that contrast. Using dark shades around the perimeter and a lighter shade in the center create a perfect oval shape. Contouring gives you the illusion that the face is slightly longer and is more feminine.
Some women naturally lack feminine looks, or it runs in their family, in such a case, makeup comes to their rescue. A little tint to lips and cheeks, highlighting the cheekbones, and adding a pop of eyeliner over the eyelids instantly changes the look. Women also wear nail polish to make their hands look more beautiful and girlish.
Longer lashes are the key to femininity. Thick, dark, and longer lashes help to emphasize the eyes effortlessly. On casual days, even if you apply only foundation, mascara, and tint to your lips and cheeks, they will make you look enough feminine.
Acceptance
Negotiating Appearance Rules at Workplace
Are you someone who thinks your outward appearances do not count when you are looking for a job? Well, in this case, you’re thinking is incorrect. Your skills might help you clear the job interview, but your outward appearances allow you to open doors to new and better opportunities. If you always go to work with your hair looking like you have just jumped out of your bed, it might not violate your company’s policy, but it will affect how people behave towards you. People would like to approach you if you look fresh and dress nicely, but on the other hand, people will not want to interact with you if you look untidy.
Many women understand the importance of this appearance factor in their lives and thus practice to wear makeup to look clean and fresh. We have written a fabulous article on the different daytime looks here. The appearance factor only looks at how well dressed you are. By well-dressed not only means your outfit, but it also means the choice of your lipstick, your eye makeup, etc.
To get impressed by beauty is in human nature. Today we see that advertising is about appearances. It is likewise about data, yet what intrigues us, what energizes us in and about promoting is how the objects or products are presented. Similar is the case with humans. A person who would have a better appearance would have better opportunities.
Appearance is related to both genders, i.e., males and females. Males get a stylish beard cut and hair cut to boost their appearances while women use makeup.
Appearances have a relationship with opportunities; you can appraise it from the example of blogger culture. Instagram is full of bloggers, with each having a different number of followers, but only those bloggers get the boost who have appealing looks or photos that show better photography skills.
Is it necessary to wear makeup?
Makeup can be a part of self-grooming, and there is no issue in wearing makeup because it makes women look more attractive. Makeup can even act as a protector sometimes. Most branded beauty products contain SPF, which could protect your skin from the sun and other harmful substances like dust etc. Makeup can also bring a feeling of self-satisfaction and could help women boost their confidence.
But women should not wear makeup to alter their appearances favorably. Women should be comfortable in their natural skins.
When buying makeup, women should do a patch test to get the right shade for them. Even if you are buying your makeup online, you should know your perfect shade because one wrong shade can ruin an occasion. While choosing a foundation and a pressed or loose powder, make sure that it matches your undertone or is only one shade lighter than your skin tone. The best practice is to choose a foundation precisely like your undertone or choose a pressed powder in one shade lighter.
To wear makeup, women should highly consider the scope of occasion they are wearing it for. If women wear makeup for a night party, it could be a little heavy, but if they wear makeup for the office or workplace, it should be light and minimal. Women should not overdo their makeup because it ends up giving a fake look.
Demerits of makeup
Makeup could make your skin look clearer and younger, but there are some demerits of makeup too. One of the major demerits of wearing too much makeup is that it can boost your skin’s aging process.
Makeup cosmetics contain chemicals that can make the skin prone to acne as well. Sometimes, when people with oily skin wear makeup, the makeup particles can get trapped in the pores and form acne. Women should also make sure that they do not use any low-quality products on your skin because it can stain your skin.
Keeping makeup on the skin for more than 12 hours can make women more susceptible to breakouts and damaged capillaries. Every good thing comes with some adverse side effects, and the users should be aware of them. To reduce the adverse side effects of makeup, women should be mindful of removing their makeup.
The best method to remove the makeup is to use any good cleanser. There are lots and lots of good cleansers available in the market. After cleansing, the face should be washed with some good face wash so that there should be no makeup left. Twice a week, women should also scrub their faces if they are apt to use makeup daily. Also, women should not continue to use the same makeup product for so long after opening.
Some women wear makeup every day, no matter what. To have healthy skin, there should be days when the skin should breathe freely. Like if there is an off day, women should not wear makeup; instead, some good skincare routine must be followed. To make bare skin look younger naturally, women should use serums and toners.
Conclusion
There are many reasons why women wear makeup ranging from attractiveness to acceptance to confidence. The critical thing to remember is to make sure the reason you’re wearing makeup is not to alter your appearance drastically but to enhance or hide some blemishes. I love makeup, it looks great, and I love the colors I can experiment with.
Iqra
As the head artist of Farishta Beauty I was inspired by many young individuals who were just like me passionate about makeup.
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