I woke up this morning and walked in to the bathroom to wash my face. As I looked up at my reflection, an overwhelming sense of sadness flooded over me. You’re so ugly. I mean, look at you: the dark circles, the red blotchy patches, the pimples. Not one single part of me felt beautiful. Tears completely filled my eyes and I began to cry as I stared at my bare faced reflection. This isn’t the first time that this has happened either.

So, to all the girls and guys who have been told, “you wear too much makeup” or who just enjoy those ten extra minutes of getting ready, this is for you. When you get home from work, jump in the shower and you are taking off your makeup, how do you feel? Do you still feel as beautiful as you do when you are wearing makeup when you are completely bare faced?

When I ask myself this question, in all honesty, I can say that I definitely do not feel beautiful at all. I was on a school camp in high school and I woke up one morning and couldn’t be bothered to put any makeup on. As the day went on, some of the kids in my class asked me if I was ‘feeling okay’ and told me that I ‘looked really tired’. Since then, I cannot think of one time that I have left the house without even a little bit of makeup on. I have been on mission trips overseas where I have put makeup on before meeting everyone for breakfast. In the process of hugging people, I have left marks on their shirt from my foundation and when I apologised, they just said, “you obviously wear too much makeup”. When I sleep over at another person’s house, I try to make sure I wake up earlier than them, so I can run to the bathroom and cover up those dark circles. My sister has told me she doesn’t understand why I bother putting it all on, but apart from enjoying it, makeup also gives me confidence and makes me feel beautiful. Without it, I am incredibly insecure about my appearance. And this is where the issue can begin.

There is a difference between makeup giving you confidence and makeup being your confidence. When it starts to define that you are confident, that can be detrimental. As soon as you wipe away the foundation, are you wiping away the confidence and the beauty, too? For me, that’s a yes.

As fun as it is to put on some mascara and cover up those dark circles, I realised that the way I was thinking was emotionally unhealthy. I spent almost fifteen minutes crying as I sat there looking at my reflection, telling myself I was so ugly. I am finding my value, my worth and my beauty from my appearance, and moreso, an appearance that I am creating. I am not saying it is easy to stop doing this, but once you acknowledge the way you are thinking, you can at least attempt to change this mindset. I am not saying that wearing makeup is a bad thing and that you should never touch lipstick again (because let’s be honest, as long as Priceline is around, that’s not happening anytime soon!) However, if you’re like me, then you need to seriously reevaluate the reasons why you wear makeup. Makeup shouldn’t make you beautiful. Makeup should enhance what was already beautiful in the first place.  

Keep smiling. x