Hey! This is ART:
This is not art
This is makeup and facetune.
Disclaimer: I am in no way trying to put down the women in the second photo set. They look great, they’re doing as they please, but I wanted to use their public photos in order to make a point.
Often times I hear the argument, “but makeup is an art form! How can women be harmed by the makeup industry if it’s a CHOICE and an art form?”
There is a gigantic difference between the two photo sets. The first are women who have applied makeup, face paint and other materials in order to create something on their faces that does not enhance their appearance or follow beauty standards. They are literally creating a painting/piece of art on their faces. The second photo set shows women who are using makeup in order to enhance their looks and quite honestly change the appearance of their natural facial features.
The makeup looks that are shown are what the beauty industry distributes their products for. These looks are what is deemed “beautiful” and “acceptable” in our society. It is what 10 year old girls are trying to achieve in order to feel pretty and gain attention and acceptance.
It isn’t an art form to put on eyeliner, eyebrows, matte lipstick, contour your entire face to the point in which you are unrecognizable from your bare face. It may be aesthetically pleasing, but it isn’t art. Women and girls are pushed to wear foundation, eye makeup, and whatever else every day. No one is pushed to look like a Rorschach test (see third photo in first photo set, lol). No one is pressured to wear makeup in the form in which we see at the top, but girls are pressured beyond belief to make their noses look smaller. Their eyes look bigger. Their eyebrows more shaped. Their eyelashes longer. Their cheeks higher. Their neck slimmer. Their eyes lighter. Their lips bigger... more seductive. And it goes on.
Know the difference between conventional makeup and artistic makeup. They are not the same, they are not to be conflated. We are not smashing the patriarchy with our winged eyeliner. We are not going against what men want by over lining our lips. Choice or not, we aren’t doing it for anything other than because we feel we have to.
Contour isn’t art.
