Making up for what?

A few days ago I was having this conversation with some of my friends and we were talking about make-up and beautification. I argued that make ups are based upon the dissatisfaction with your natural form and based upon an insecurity which is induced by companies. However they said not everyone made-up due to their insecurities, people might feel good in the process of making up or they might want to try new looks. Both the arguments seemed appealing to me. Though the latter argument is also based upon trying to change oneself to fit into a certain type which is validated or approved by people. Even if someone makes up for oneself then one can actually pose this question about very instinct or desire to see oneself with beauty products.

My perspective comes from this dissatisfaction that we all encounter with ourselves where we fail to accept ourselves naturally beautiful. There is this ideal type or benchmark of confident individuals established by companies which mandates make-up to look good and attractive. The whole system around make up and beautification through products tries to reduce personality to phenotypic form or physical appearance.

That may also not have any problem if that transformation in physical appearance would have been based upon exercising or other activities but the whole personality transformation is actually embedded with consumption of products. Almost all personality making is linked to certain consumption.

There is this consistent effort to make you feel insecure about your form and appearance. To disregard your natural form and appearance, to create a sense of dissatisfaction with what you are. And once you become part of what they want i.e generation of insecurities around looks and appearances in people, you are made insecure and doubtful about your appearance, they come up with solutions to perceived problems. This creation of lack among us is what makes consumers of makeup chemicals from us. They employ such a huge force and investment that this desire to put makeup on our faces and skins seem 'real' to us and it seems natural to transform our faces and appearance into some other which is shown in advertisements of companies.

Feeding you with propaganda

Do you look dull? Are you also under confident about your appearance? Are you also struggling to make friends at college? Not any more you have ‘such n such lovely, it makes you glow’.

When you walk through the street you watch 'such n lovely, it makes you glow' you listen to radio they say 'such n lovely, it makes you glow'. You read the newspaper they say 'such n lovely, it makes you glow'. You see the billboard Yami Gautam says 'such n lovely, it makes you glow'. And then you go directly to the shop and demand 'such n lovely'. To be honest this demand is not actually yours, it's been fed to you, you didn't even know about 'such n lovely' cream to hide your skin color or conceal your black heads but a propaganda is run to make you demand the product. Under insecurity you then rush to shop and ask for ‘such n lovely’ cream. You speak what companies want you to speak.

Consumerism embedded in insecurities

Companies employ tactics to sell make-up products which make us feel insecure about natural skin and processes like pimples and oily skin, they claim that it affects your beauty. It is an imperfection and unnatural therefore you must cure it or you look ugly and under confident. Then they pitch in their products to cure these skin problems and simultaneously they set high expectations around them through employing pseudo credibility and authority. They run advertisements by actresses showing huge results in certain uses or using symbolic doctors claiming the product is trusted by medical professionals and made through much research. This makes us believe them and we end up buying their products. However once we fall prey to their agenda they ask us to put more and more of it. Sooner and later our natural skin gets affected by harsh chemicals and toxic elements and then they come up with solutions. There comes the final stage where companies launch their range of products for damage control. This is how companies create problems and then give you solutions for it and during this whole process they do not just make you consumers of its products but also insecure and dissatisfied with your looks and appearance.

One of my friends argued that "we can use makeup some days and totally go out without it some other days. We may think that it’s rather a form of expressing oneself and it’s about creativity mean athletes also work out to look good and improve themselves. We can’t look like we just woke up and chose to go to work. I think it’s very very subjective and it depends on who is using it and for what purpose . Insecurity could be just one of the several factors. We can’t generalize it".

I totally agree to not to generalize and it's subjective. But there is a difference in using products to stay healthy or to maintain themselves and consuming for the sake of hiding one's natural form. I don't argue undermining people's agency to use make-up or not, it’s totally up to them but about this imperative upon people to put on makeup. It's about the creation of desire by make-up companies who endorse usage of chemicals by making people feel less presentable and in accepting their natural form and face.

One of my friends said, aren't medicines also chemicals. Why are you not opposing that? so I say that when you take medicine you accept that you have a disease which you must cure or you are not healthy so you take medicines but would people accept that diseased individuals use make-ups.

I said that when you put make-up, you somewhere accept that you lack something however they said it feels good to use make-up not essentially due to insecurity. However one must enquire why you want to change your face when it's well and fine.

The Odd Angle

I try to inquire how these desires to put on make-up are formed through insecurities that the make-up industry induces. It's not about maintaining oneself through other ways but how we all have been befooled by companies and a new kind of anxiety through peer pressure is created to be part of this. There is a difference between making up and preening that needs to be understood. Preening is all sort of different act while making up is more about using products for maintaining and taking care of the body. So basically it's like, I don't cut my hairs, I can preen myself using comb trying different hairstyle which is quite different from using products and machines to change their form in order to fit into a type which may even harm my hairs however it is often validated by trends propagated by companies or celebrities for fashion.

Authored by: Jatin Mathur

Only way to guarantee Growth is to self improve and develop oneself everyday .

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