None of my young, male (college-aged) friends ever wear makeup. Haven’t seen my students ever wear it, either, in school or out of it. Lots of hair product, definitely, but not makeup.
The only male friend I have who wears makeup at all wears a LOT of it and also considers himself “too beautiful for gender”
Some subcultures of men in Japan wear makeup, definitely. As do many models/celebrities. But the same applies in the US as well.
Dunno, it might have passed as a fashion. (I left about a year and a half ago.)
Are you in Tokyo?
Makeup seems to be in an overall decline, though: thirty years, respectable women didn’t go get the paper without their full face on. Twenty years ago, professional women didn’t go to work without makeup. Now it seems like something that is optional for just about anywhere–many people wear it, but not everyone, and even the ones that do do not have to wear a “full face” look. In another ten, it may be rather like pantyhose, which has gone from absolute musts to comparatively rare in general and totally unheard of in people under 30.
I was two years ago. Now I’m in Niigata, which, I’d wager, is a bit more representative of typical Japan. Tokyo is where a lot of the goofy fads that Western Media plays up as the Japanese norm are. Center Guys (Shibuya, Tokyo-based subculture), for one, wear a lot of makeup, but they are about as representative of Japanese men as Emos are for Americans.
I persuaded my brother to wear concealer once in a while for blemishes. I also think eyeliner looks good on men, but I guess it’s got to be the right type of man (which I haven’t quite defined, but I’m looking at a co-worker right now and picturing him with eyeliner, and boy is it not working).
Every once in a while I feel it’s bizarre that women wear makeup. Then I think of all the other things women can change about their appearance, and I think it must be really strange to be a guy and have to deal with us chameleons. Do they wonder what we really look like? If men started altering their appearance a lot, I think I would be trying to see past it.
I dunno. Isn’t the whole point that you can’t really tell where the makeup ends and the real face begins? Sure, you know that there’s blue eyeshadow there, and that’s obviously makeup… but how much of that eye pop is eyeshadow, and how much is real?
I’m sure you look at other women too (everyone regardless of gender likes looking at women!) and I presume the majority of them wear makeup. Do you ever wonder what they really look like? There’s always that story floating around where a woman decides to give in to a man’s cajoling to “not wear so much makeup” and being asked if she’s ill.
Personally, I’ve never seen some of my colleagues’ bare faces. It would be strange for me to see her without makeup, just like how it must shock some of my collegues who see my stick arms when I’m not wearing my dress shirts.
Not as much of a shock as the day I show up for work in eyeliner, that’s for sure! (Someday. Someday! Maybe the day before I quit heh)
The Bible refers to women with painted faces as a evil as in Queen Jezebel:
And Jezebel is still active in the church and society today:
Also there is a hint that Eve looked to beautify herself as part of the fall:
Here Eve realized the perceived benefits of the ‘fruit’ of her human effort, food (resources), pleasing to the eye (beauty), gaining wisdom. All 3 are outside the method God established for humanity.
Though this doesn’t address makeup, here is a passage which I believe what God expects:
I take this as don’t use earthly things to try to make yourself appear beautiful, but beautify yourself by your actions in worship.
Yeah, but he was embarassed and denied that he did. So not “acceptable” from his point of view.
Fun fact: My mom was friend for years with RR’s makeup artist from his “Death Valley Days” days. (oh!) She definitely knew what he looked like with and without makeup.
Presidents and such since then don’t so actively deny it when making TV appearances. OTOH, they don’t want to talk about it so much. (The clip Letterman showed when McCain bailed on him and did an interview with Couric instead shows McCain getting madeup. I don’t think people generally cared about that part.)
Lots of teenage boys are wearing it now, so I suspect it will be acceptable on a larger scale when they keep buying it as they get older.
Somewhere around here I have a photo of my son in eyeliner. It’s disturbingly (to me) hot. I’ll try to post it later if I can get my stupid USB cable to work.
I’ve come to reluctantly realize most women look way better with makeup on (the really beautiful ones often look just as good or even better without). I’ m sure most men would benefit, too. But the couple occasions I’ve gone out with as much as light foundation to cover blemishes, I’ve received wierd looks and not-so-warm banter about my “makeup” from my friends. Consequently, I don’t do it anymore. It still is a taboo where I come from.
There are tinted moisturizers designed for men. I just googled “tinted moisturizers for men”, and there were a bunch of sites. Sorry, but I don’t know how to post a link on here.
I’ve noticed it is gradually getting more acceptable for men to wear makeup. There was an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago about men getting their eyebrows professionally groomed.
This is one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for things. I’ve always thought the expectation for women to wear makeup was more a curse than a blessing. For most of my life I never wore makeup, and my friends and family members would nag me to wear it. Only starting a few years ago have I started wearing a tiny amount.
Like another poster stated, eventually it will be an expectation for men to wear makeup, and men will complain about it like they complain about wearing ties and shaving for work. Women will start complaining about their husbands and boyfriends always being in the bathroom fixing their makeup and hair.
I think eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss and the right foundation/concealer looks good on a lot of men. When I was in my late teens/early 20’s (I’m 47 now, just for reference), I thought Adam Ant was incredibly hot, but wouldn’t have been nearly so without the eyeliner and lip gloss! Actually, though, I find androgyny in general to be hot, so that could be part of it.
Weird thing, though, the man I’m happily married to for 20plus years couldn’t be less androgynous if he tried! I wouldn’t mind giving him a good go with my mineral concealer to cover his occasional zit, but just could not picture him in eyeliner/mascara (lucky bastard doesn’t even need mascara; my eyelashes are non-existent, his are long and thick and curly and dark!) Of course, this is pointless conjecture, because he’s the type that needs to be nagged for two weeks before he’ll get a haircut, only wears cologne when I personally put it on him, etc. It’s certainly not like he’d take the time for makeup!
I might if I were considering a relationship with them. For one thing, I don’t want to kiss anybody wearing lipstick.
For some, sure. For others, it’s a chance to have fun with neat colors. I can do nice natural makeup, or I can do bright neon-y purple eyeshadow that goes above my brow bone. Both are fun.
Makeup won’t cover ugly. I won’t be wearing any anytime soon.
I’m agreeing with a prediction I read in a SF novel a few years ago: with the advancement of teleconferencing, the day will come when a significant amount of business is transacted over live video connections over the internet, and we’re all going to be TV personalities, at least in our own world. In the novel I read, all the business people wore at least a base makeup so they wouldn’t look all washed-out on camera. All of the other SF I’ve seen where video conferencing happens all the time, they never consider what most people look like without makeup, which, under a bright light, is: not so good.
On my last visit to a local TV station, I noticed the newscasters all wore makeup-it is because the bright lights cause ordinary skin to look pale.
To me, they all looked like freshly-prepped corpses.
There are women like that too–I consider makeup evil and wouldn’t recommend it for men or women. Of course part of the reason I think it’s evil is because it’s expected of women and not men, so if expectations change, so could that opinion.
Hopefully never.
I hope not. Makeup on men looks retarded.
Dude, be a friggin man and put down the lipstick.