To a lot of the female population, the first battle of our day is looking in the mirror. A number of seemingly large imperfections can cause an unpleasant experience when examining our appearance. The smallest flaw can be enlarged to unnatural degrees by our mind's eye, and it's of course very difficult to coach us away from this state once we get there.
I feel that one of the things we females are most self conscious about is the way our faces look when we're not wearing makeup. When you examine the way we behave, as to the aspect of banning a lot of people from seeing us at all without our "Faces", you can't be surprised. We will go to extreme lengths to keep our flaws covered and hidden, largely from the very men we live around. We feel a lot of pressure, for some reason, to look perfect all of the time for men -- not to mention other women. Even those we know for years through dating or otherwise, we feel a need to impress, and to continue to impress.
A lot of how women crave perfection in their facial features seems to stem from makeup. Also, the more that is provided for us to make over our faces, the better we think we have to look. For instance, when viewing makeup products, the woman is enticed to buy such materials, because they want to look as beautiful as the model who is displayed in the advertisement. We're led into believing: "If you buy this product, you'll very easily get this result." It's not because we're stupid, it's just because we want to be able to feel as good as the woman seems to feel in the commercial. A lot of the time feeling good for us starts with looking good.
I think we have done ourselves in, however, by setting such high standards for our own beauty. I know that there a lot of men out there who prefer their women to don a far much more natural look, instead of caking on all of that foundation, eye shadow, mascara, eyeliner, blush, bronzer, toner, etc. I'm sure a lot of guys think that's too much, but we persist on doing it anyway, because we're not happy with ourselves.
A lot of women think that if they go without makeup, their chances of attracting male attention are lowered a disheartening degree. Without cosmetics, they'd find that it would be much more difficult to find the confidence to date. They feel that without using makeup, they don't carry themselves as someone who takes care of their appearance, and that it reduces their feminine appeal. Makeup brings about a specific type of confidence that just isn't naturally found in society.
In many ways, we have forged an identity with the way we wear our makeup. I know that if I go out in public with none of it on, I feel messy, and my face doesn't feel like it's clean, even though it's the other way around (most makeup is very bad for your skin). I feel like people look at me as though I don't take much care of myself, or that I look lazy, and tired. I know that people don't really see me that way, but that makeup has trained me, so to speak, to think this way.
One interesting thing about cosmetics, is its early history. Makeup has been used in various different ways, for a number of reasons, for probably thousands of years. The earliest recorded use of makeup was that of the ancient Egyptians, and ancient Romans. Much like today, these societies painted their nails, used oils for their skin and complexion, applied lipstick and eyeliner, and surprisingly, they went so far as to color their hair.
In the early 20th century, women wore as much makeup as humanly possible, because they thought it produced a very glamorous look. That was the style of all of the women in the film industry at the time. They caked on, (More than the average woman does today I'm sure) large amounts of eye shadow, and wore vivid red lipstick.
The war against vanity, and self-consciousness has been a long one for us. It's still just as gloomy as it was years and years ago, but at least now our cosmetics are safer. In earlier centuries, when women went out of their way to become pale, skin was bleached, powdered (often with harmful toxins like lead and arsenic) and leaches were used to bleed the skin and make it look paler.
Indeed, we very much poisoned ourselves with dangerous toxins in the name of vanity. Nothing concerning safety in those days was looked into. It is always said that "It hurts to be beautiful", but what of risking blindness, paralysis, or even death? I'm just thankful that we've become a little bit more sensible about our health, and the price we're willing to pay for it just to look good.
