More Than My Makeup

The stories of women, unmasked | Exploring the relationships between makeup, identity and self-esteem.

[morethanmymakeup-blog]

“I quit shopping around five months ago for a few reasons. One of them is my daughter. She’s been living in Dublin with her boyfriend for the past two years, and she basically lives out a suitcase. It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her.

Another reasons is a friend of mine who recently sold their property. They’re actually living in a caravan, and they’ve had to store all their furniture in a container.

The older I get, the less clutter I need in my life. I think we all have more than enough, and the more things we have, the more things we have to look after.

Even after five months, I’ve feeling so much better.”

[morethanmymakeup-blog]

1/2

“I quit shopping around five months ago for a few reasons. One of them is my daughter. She’s been living in Dublin with her boyfriend for the past two years, and she basically lives out a suitcase. It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her.

Another reasons is a friend of mine who recently sold their property. They’re actually living in a caravan, and they’ve had to store all their furniture in a container.

The older I get, the less clutter I need in my life. I think we all have more than enough, and the more things we have, the more things we have to look after.

Even after five months, I’ve feeling so much better.”

[morethanmymakeup-blog]

“I remember when I started at a new high school, and for the first month or two I wore make up every single day.

There were new people, and I wanted to be cool. But there was no point, because no one ended up liking me at all; no matter that I looked pretty.

There’s really no point. No one actually cares.”

[morethanmymakeup-blog]

“Sometimes I’ll feel really, really insecure in my relationship. I’ll think, ‘oh, he watches porn with girls that look this way, and I don’t look that way.’ It’s taken me a while to realize, but the problem is more with my insecurities than what he likes. If I watch porn, it’s not because that’s what I’m attracted to, or what I want my partner to look like. Because it’s not. It’s just want I want at that point in time. And I know for a fact that if that if that were the case, and he wanted someone else, or someone who looked different -more like those girls that he looks at- he wouldn’t be with me in the first place. Sure, I get really insecure, but I know it’s my problem. I end up taking it out on him, which is bad, but I’m working on it. I guess that’s what counts.” Read more: https://buff.ly/2D2DUVk

[morethanmymakeup-blog]

“There have been situations where I’ve felt like I’ve had to wear make-up. I remember starting work in March of last year, and everyone there was always wearing make-up, hair done, and clothing on point. So I felt like whenever I went to work I had to get up super early to do my full face, and my hair, and pick a full outfit. And it kind of felt the same at my next job as well, because some of the girls there would always wear make-up and I was the only one who would turn up wearing just moisturizer. Some days when I had the energy I’d put on make-up, and on other days when I didn’t, if I didn’t have a high self-esteem that day, I’d feel super out of place. But I feel like that feeling was mostly internal. If I’d ever bring it up or if anyone would say anything, it was almost always positive, like ‘how do you wear just moisturizer? I wish I could do that’. When I’ve got my makeup on, I feel bomb as fuck. I’m always looking at myself in the reflections of mirrors and windows. I remember going out to a café with someone last year and I was going to something like a function afterwards, so I had a full face of make up on, and I just kept looking past them at the window. Just thinking; ‘shit, this contour though.’”

[morethanmymakeup-blog]

“My relationship with my body and my weight has changed a lot. When I was in my last year of high school, I lost ten kilos. And then, to keep it off, I was really strictly controlling what I ate. I’d weigh myself in the morning and if I didn’t weigh under a certain amount then I wouldn’t eat until later. When I started not being able to do that; like when I was stressed, and didn’t have the energy to control my food as much, it became harder and harder to keep that ridiculous standard that I kept for myself.

Over the past three years, I’ve relaxed a lot, let go. Not worried about it as much. And I’m the fattest that I’ve ever been. But it’s not the worst I’ve felt about myself.”

[morethanmymakeup-blog]

If I was ever going to consider being a parent, then what I want to do is foster children who are about to age out of the system. Children who feel like they’re about to be abandoned, or left alone while they’re in this really important part of their lives. They’re just figuring out who they are, they need support at that time in their lives. I did. I know that.

They know who they are, they know what they want to do, they know some things about themselves. They have interpersonal knowledge. And I feel like that’s where I could really make a difference in peoples lives.