face up.
yesterday evening, mom and I went to target — she needed to return something and I took the opportunity to grab a new mascara.
while i was trying to find my favorite (maybelline colossal in glam brown, for the record), i saw a mom and her tween-to-teenage daughter trying to find a foundation. they were struggling, trying to figure out her right shade. after a few minutes, it became clear that the mom was out of her league, so i jumped in.
this girl was between 11–14. I’m not sure exactly where, (girls around that age look ALL OVER THE PLACE) but if I were making a guess, it would be toward the lower end of the spectrum. she was spending her birthday money on some makeup.
which honestly made me laugh, because, as my mother will often tell the story, for my 13th birthday, they got me makeup. and not even makeup that was going to change my appearance that much: clear mascara, a brown eyeliner, and lip gloss. and i threw a fit. which i now realize was not only ridiculous, but also ungrateful and rude. (sorry mom and dad. i love you.) she had asked my cousin mollie, who is nine months older than me, for birthday gift suggestions, and at 13, mollie was a makeup girl (they knocked it out of the park with the pirates of the caribbean DVD though).
at the time, i thought that was because my parents, mom especially, were trying to make me look more like she wanted me to look. which was not the case at all, she was just trying to possibly guess the interests of a 13 year old girl, which is ever-changing and impossible.
i didn’t get into makeup until right around my 22nd birthday, minus the atrocious attempt into winged liner when I was 20 before I realized that I had hooded eyes, yikes.
aaaaaand then i got really into makeup.
like, “have enough eyeshadow to last me through the nuclear apocalypse and still have some left over for the roaches to do a killer smoky eye.”
but the reason that i got into makeup is the same reason as so many young girls are getting into makeup, and it’s really incredibly damaging to young women.
i got into makeup because i started looking on youtube. it is an INCREDIBLY addictive thing, the world of youtube beauty gurus.
back to my little friend in target.
She had PERFECT skin: tanned but not overly so, not a blemish in sight, a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. she was looking at full coverage foundation.
i wanted to laugh and cry. laugh because GIRL if you’re using full-coverage foundation, there is NO HOPE for the rest of us. cry because she was looking at one of the most-recommended youtube drugstore foundations: maybelline fit me. let me be clear: it is a great foudnation, BUT it is the WRONG CHOICE for a starter foundation.
i redirected her to a bb cream because a) there is more room for shade range variation as her tan faded because it’s a thinner product and b) she doesn’t need that level of coverage.
the problem with youtube and the things that it spawns is that young girls, incredibly impressionable girls, think that they need an entire face of makeup to go to school, which PAINS me. like, with all of my soul, it pains me.
the things that these women are shilling (and 90% of them are shilling, I don’t care what you think: they need to make money and even if they’re not doing it directly, when they’re sponsored, they want you to buy the products from the brand they’re working with) have one goal: to make you buy more product. watch a “everyday” makeup tutorial. they’re still going to instruct you to use moisturizer, primer, a bb cream or light-coverage foundation, probably two kinds of concealer (one for undereye, one for blemishes), blush and bronzer, highlight, multiple eyeshadows, possibly multiple eyeliners, mascara, probably false eyelashes, and at least two lip products.
it’s damaging, because we all want to look and feel beautiful. that’s the point of doing it in the first place. but just like celebrities on magazines, these women know how to further manipulate themselves into looking better.
they do it with a two major tools:
1. incredible lighting that is usually very bright, which will wash out most imperfections on the skin including texture
2. using apps like facetune which is sort of an automatic photoshop that uses algorithms that will make your face slimmer, blur out any remaining issues with your skin, and make your face look closer to “perfect”
i am a 26 year old woman. i recognize that these women are trying to sell me things. i recognize that they use lighting that will fix most of their problems, so they’re going to look great no matter what. i recognize that they have access to technology that will make them look better so you give them more views, more interaction, and more money.
but you know who can’t recognize those things? 13 year old girls.
13 year old girls that are in a hurry to grow up, and want to look more mature, want to look like the pretty girls, whether they’re in their class at school or on an instagram that they follow, and they cover up their acne. (one thing that took me WAY TOO LONG to figure out: no makeup will cover texture. so you can hide the color of a zit that’s healing, but you can never cover the mound of skin that has gotten swollen.)
it was hard enough for me being a girl in middle school. i cannot imagine the kind of pressure girls have today because of social media and the need for validation and likes and followers.
so when they see that some instagram they follow is recommending a concealer, a FULL COVERAGE concealer, and they want to get it, as a former teenage girl, as someone who can see through the bullshit that they’re doing, ask them WHY they want it.
because honestly, no teenage girl should need more than a few base products. to this day, even *i* only have one bronzer. where they can go wild is lip products and eyeshadows. but even then, wonder WHY they want it. is it because they want to try something that they saw and liked, or is it because they feel that’s what they HAVE to do? and that’s a fine line to walk, especially with teenage girls, because they often overlap.
i guess what it boils down to is wear makeup when you want to. IF you want to. and don’t wear it when you don’t want to or feel like it. and let young girls and women know that that is the ONLY way to live your life. and that goes for adults as well.
because even with the makeup collection that I have, which is truly ridiculous, i don’t wear ANY makeup between 40–60% of the time. i don’t feel like putting it on, so i just don’t. and i am perfectly confident in that choice. but i’m also perfectly confident when i have all that aforementioned crap on my face. one doesn’t make me feel more like myself than the other. i liken it to what outfit i’m wearing on a given day. i feel the same about myself regardless.
i just think that the things that young women see and are directed to spend money and effort on are often misleading and can be harmful to the way that they feel about themselves.
it’s hard enough being a teenage girl; don’t contribute to it by not speaking up when you see it happening. the pressure of being a young woman can be so soul-crushing, don’t contribute to that.
my new friend from target left with a brown-black mascara, a bb cream, and an ELF illuminator, and i hope that she takes that to heart and carries it with her as she goes through the rest of her teen years.
and to walk the damn walk and not just talk the talk, i’ve got two selfies to prove it to you.


