It was a Friday morning and I rolled out of bed at 6:35AM. I was running late and in a hurry to get to school. I completely forgot to do my daily makeup routine and as I rushed out, I glanced in the mirror and thought, “eh, it’ll do.” Little did I know, I was wrong. I strolled into my first period and sat down next to my friend. Suddenly, I heard someone behind me say, “she looks ugly without makeup on,” I turned around to see who had said that and once I noticed it was my guy friend, I rolled my eyes and turned back around. Soon after, some boy I had never seen before,  confronted me and said, “please put some makeup on, I don’t understand how you expect to get guys looking like that.”On the outside I seemed to not care about the comment, but on the inside I was hurt, offended, and astonished that someone would have the audacity to say that.

I decided to tell my friend in newspaper and she went through a similar confrontation. We both determined that we would write an article about this and proceeded to interview multiple girls to see if they had experienced a similar situation. We began by asking them if they wear makeup and how often. All of them responded by saying that they do wear makeup and it is usually everyday. From that, we continued by asking what makeup they usually wear to school to get an idea of what their usual routine is. They said that everyday, they fill in their eyebrows, apply foundation, mascara, and powder, however, one girl said that she usually applies eyeshadow and eyeliner as well. We then posed the question, have you ever not worn makeup to school, and has anyone ever mentioned anything about your appearance? The response was heartbreaking, nine out of ten girls replied that they had, and people have said hateful things like, “you look dead/tired/sick,” “you should wear makeup all the time”, and“I can’t even look at you, go put some makeup on.”

This is unacceptable. People should not be shamed for the way they look naturally, and they should be embraced for wanting to go a single day without covering up their insecurities with makeup. Woman and men everywhere go through this everyday and are tired of having to conform to everyone’s expectations of “beauty.” People should be able to feel safe in their bodies and environments and learn to love themselves and the way they look regardless of whether they wear makeup or not. Yet, there are still people out there ready to call out every single thing someone does differently, or in their opinion, worse. The world needs to spread more love, especially to young girls and boys expressing themselves through wearing makeup and clothes of their choice. Although some people may say they don’t care what others think, it is still spreading hate in a world that already has far too much of it, and it is easier to say nothing at all, or something nice, rather than a hurtful comment. You  never know how much your comments can affect someone, especially about how much makeup they wear or don’t wear, so it’s best to choose to spread positivity instead of hatred.

We continued by asking the interviewees if they ever get comments for wearing more makeup than the usual. We were relieved to hear that people had relatively nice things to say like, “I love your makeup” or “so pretty and fancy.” Even though people shouldn’t need others validation or opinions, it is nice that there is positivity being spread and a sense of reassurance that someone may need. People should be able to wear whatever makeup they want, and wear it for themselves if it makes them happy, in contradiction to wearing it to conform to beauty standards or for others.

Alicia Keys, Demi Lovato, Kendall Jenner and more celebrity idols have stopped wearing makeup and gone for a more natural and subtle look. We feel it sent an amazing message to viewers that you don’t have to conform or always put pounds of makeup on your face if that’s not what makes you happy. You can be beautiful and successful by just being you. On the contrary, celebrities like Khloe Kardashian or Christina Aguilera enjoy over-the-top makeup and expressing themselves in that way and are gorgeous all the same. These interviews we conducted have proven that to live a better life you need to embrace the uniqueness in everyone, do whatever makes you the happiest, and wear all the makeup you want or don’t want. It is important to help others feel good in their own skin and to not  make them feel like they have to change or wear more or less makeup to fit some image of beauty because in reality, we are all beautiful in our own way.