So Ive been thinking about this a lot lately and did some research on how much makeup has no redeeming qualities for daily use by women. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
If a woman begins using makeup in her daily routine at age 16 and stops at age 70, giving the benefit of the doubt and saying she only uses it 5 days a week, and spends 30 minutes every morning, she will have spent:
7,020 hours
which equals
292 full days
WHICH IS ROUGHLY 4/5 of a YEAR
doing makeup in their lifetime.
#wasteyourtimewithmakeup.
And, according to professional research, the average woman will spend $15,000 on makeup and non-necessity toiletries in her life time.
#wasteyourmoneywithmakeup.
And where does that $15,000 and 7,020 hours go to?
Well, I looked up the CEOs of 20 makeup brands and guess what? 17 of them are of course, MEN.
Makeup Companies with male CEOs
Urban Decay
Maybelline
L'Oreal
NYX
Lancôme
Sephora
Estée Lauder
Revlon
Almay
MAC
Mary Kay
Covergirl
NARS
Bare Minerals
Benefit
Too Faced
And even the ones who are ran by women (I found that Avon and Tarte were female-led), are still creating profit for a patriarchal industry which thrives off female insecurities and reinforces misogynistic gender roles.
And if you’re thinking, “grown ass women can do whatever they want!! Makeup is feminist!”
58% of GIRLS ages 8-17 report wearing makeup. 65% of these girls started wearing it before they even turned 13. 8 years old is the average age girls start showing inquisition about this femininity glorifying and oppressive industry.
Oh, and here’s a whopper:
98% of teen girls feel that the pressure to look a certain way is immense and affects their self esteem.
And in this current era of “feminist empowerment via spending hours of time and hundreds of dollars makeup”, the levels of pressure girls and young women are experiencing about looking a certain way are only increasing.
And into adulthood, unsurprisingly, around 50% of women feel bad about themselves when not wearing makeup. This is not normal. Women are literally feeling uncomfortable with their natural state of having a face because makeup culture is such a harsh reality.
But the current trend in new wave feminism is to glorify makeup and pretend that it’s empowering. Do you have more power because you wear makeup? Or are you just continually wasting time and money that men are out spending on work, self care, entertainment, sleep, and other things that actually contribute to rather than deteriorate an individual’s wellbeing?
Maybe you say, “but hey! I like doing my makeup. It makes me feel pretty/artistic/talented/expressive etc”
Here’s a little test I devised for you to see if your use of makeup is unhealthy on a psychosocial level:
-Do you think you are not as beautiful of a person without makeup?
-Do you look in the mirror without makeup and feel gross/ugly/have self depreciating thoughts?
- Have you ever skipped out on an event because you didn’t feel like applying makeup and/or felt “indecent” to be seen in public without makeup?
- Have you ever been frustrated with the lack of sleep, getting up early, or amount of time you spend doing makeup?
- Have you ever made fun of or sneered at a woman for not wearing makeup/doing makeup poorly (mentally or verbally)?
- Have you ever chose to spend money on makeup rather than something else which you wanted or needed and served an actual purpose for your life or wellbeing?
- Have you ever felt that applying makeup was an absolute necessity and that you would not be accepted by colleagues/boss/romantic interests/peers/family if you did not wear some?
- Have you ever skipped breakfast, a shower, or another important daily routine because you lacked time and chose to do your makeup instead?
- Do you ever see an ad for makeup and choose to buy it not based on the idea that you like it’s look, but that you envied the appearance of the model?
- Have you ever said to yourself or someone else that you can’t just not wear makeup, because that’s what women do, or “I’m not the type of woman that can pull off no makeup”
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are not as “empowered” by makeup as you think. In fact, you are allowing yourself to be oppressed by wearing it regularly like this. And there’s a lot more questions you could be asking yourself.
No I don’t think all uses of makeup are bad, I’m sure a very small amount of people wear it because it’s fun and expressive and do it to have fun, not cover up their literal face out of obligation or internalized misogyny.
I plan on doing more research on this, so stay tuned and stuff.
I did this on mobile so I didn’t tag sources, but look it up, it’s all legit.
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