What's wrong with makeup?

In some cases, nothing. There are times where it makes sense for people to wear makeup, such as mimes, clowns, actors, and sometimes warriors. For people who would prefer to conceal a scar, that can make sense too. In some cultures, such as France, the women might only wear a slash of bold lipstick which is less problematic than full contouring. (However, even then, those women are still made self conscious of how they eat/kiss/greet people, and are still exposed to toxins and heavy metals in makeup.)

So what's our objection? We have many.

  • We can't accept the average woman in the West spending two hours a day in the bathroom on hair and makeup to get to the baseline beauty standard.
  • We can't accept it being normal for women to paint a face on top of their face in order to be socially acceptable.
  • We can't accept the way most women wearing heavy, well-applied makeup designed to look "natural" means that actually natural women are seen as underdressed, sickly, or lazy.
  • We can't accept women spending nearly $250,000 and two years over the course of their lifetime chasing ever more absurd beauty standards, between the makeup, the hairdos, the hair removal, etc.
  • We can't accept the medical and environmental impact of all those heavy metals, endocrine disrupting chemicals, and forever plastics.
  • We can't accept the idea that there is something wrong with all women's faces that requires daily fixing.

What do you think? If you feel yourself resisting the idea that women have no more need of makeup than men do, articulate why you think it's different. Do those reasons really resonate as true? Do you feel yourself keeping a double standard in order to justify doing something that is socially advantageous to you as an individual?