Up until a couple years ago, when I reached that age where women magically become invisible to 99% of the population, I used to hear this a lot.
Gee, you’d be pretty if you’d just wear some makeup.
You know, with a different hairstyle, you’d be relly nice-looking.
You’d be great if you just lost 10 lbs.
Etc.
It always fried my ass. I was reminded when I heard a conversation like that today at work. A perfectly nice-looking, intellegent, attractive young woman being “advised” by a more fashion obsessed coworker that she’d be realy pretty if she got her hair colored.
I’ve never been obsessed with the way I look (not since right after high school, anyway, when you can’t really help it). My self-worth is based on who I am and what I do, not how I look. I’ve always hated messing with hair and make-up, and I hate shopping for clothes and shoes. I am clean about my person, my clothes are washed, neat and comfortable, my features aren’t going to frighten anyone off, and my figure is decent because I eat well and get a reasonable amount of exersize. Who the hell gave them the right to try and make me feel inadequate because I don’t look like the cover of Cosmo? Who the hell gave them the right to try and make me feel that it is somehow wrong to want a low-maintenance lifestyle and look? Who the hell are they to sneer and give me pitying looks because I don’t change my wardrobe and hair color with the seasons (as defined by E!fashion).
Mind you, these are not women with any style of their own, just your run-of-the-mill fashion slaves who think that because they are wearing what the flavor of the month pop star wears (or wore 2 months ago), they have a right to proslytize their fashion religion to me and indicate that I am wrong because I choose to emphasize inner rather than outer values.
I looked like the cover of Cosmo once…literally ONCE…a modelling shoot…it took 6 fucking hours for 4 people to make me look like that…and the miraculous airbrush didn’t hurt either…
like I have that many hours to devote to what OTHER asswipes think I should look like.
I like my tie dyes, my ripped jeans, my funky, ever-changing haircolor, and no make-up…at 32 years old, I no longer give a shit what others say or think…if they don’t like the way I look ‘au naturel’, then they can shut their fuckin’ eyes and not look at me if I’m so hideous…
The whole make up thing is . . . well, out of my range of personal taste. I mean that quite literally. I understand that for some women the act of “improving” their appearance is a good exercise in building their self-image, and confidence. I certainly understand that the choice is of no possible concern of mine in any woman with whom I have no personal relationship.
But in a close loved one, I have a specific objection, based entirely on my own personal habit of interaction within intimate relationships. The stuff tastes terrible.
OK, more information about me than you wanted. But it is true, that in the very few cases where I care at all about make up, that is the overwhelming factor in my preference.
I hate it when these bitches decide to inform me how much better looking I would be if only i were to wear makeup, lose weight, chop off my breasts, and dye my hair. The proper response is, “Fuck you!” but that doesn’t go over well at work. I once said to a woman undergoing a divorce who had just given me this advice unsolicited, “Gee, and just this morning my husband told me I am beautiful as he brought me my coffee.”
You will find people with true class or style do not go about giving unsolicited advice on others’ appearance.
I like to be both casual and dressy. Depends on my mood. What gets to me is, “You know, if you only do this you’ll make me happy.” or
“If you would just try to please me, we could get along better.”
Someone trying to change the way I am inside is much more irritating to me than them making a suggestion about my outward appearance. Although that can really tick me off, too. Unless it was, say, Audrey Hepburn. Everyone could take a hint or two from her.
Eve, I don’t think the hostility is towards people who wear lipstick, et al, but against people who decide everyone needs to. It’s the unsolicited advice that is pissing people off. I have no problem with anyone who wants to dress up, so long as they don’t start deciding that it’s right for me, too.
Hi Eve. No, it wasn’t direct at you at all. Women like you with true style have sufficient intelligence, self-confidence, and sensitivity not to worry about how someone else choses to dress or to judge them by whether they wear enough make-up. It’s the insecure little fashion plates who’s entire universe is caught up in how they look to other people who are likely to act like those born-agains who know they’ve found the only answer, and you could have the secrets of the universe if you’d only validate their choices by agreeing to be just like them.
You realise, that in their mind they are being nice and offering constructive criticism.
They have no idea what that kind of talk can do to a selfconcious person.
Unfortunately, they would probably be devastated if you said: “Now why would you say something like that? did it ever occur to you that I might like the way I look? And, that I don’t give a rats ass what you think?”
I’ve decided I’m sick of wearing makeup, and I rarely do anymore. I wear my hair long and straight so I don’t have to curl it. I hardly think I’m a hideous hag http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=232296&a=2449136&p=17724425, yet my sister both are always carping at me to color my hair or wear more makeup. I don’t care what anyone else does, and I do the fancy hair and makeup thing sometimes, but why does anyone else have to comment about my looks? It’s not like it effects them in any way.
I’m with ya’, lucie!
And Eve, if I thought I could look like you do, I’d get up three hours early every day and do my hair and makeup! You look great!
** lucie, ** while I agree with Pizzleboy, SOME people think they are being helpful, HOWEVER, to tell the difference between those who truly are and those who are messing with your head has to do with how well you know the people making the comments.
I salute Eve, or anyone who wears things or makeup with panache, I’ve never been able to pull it off personally, and yet I would hear about it constantly from my mother in law. There comes the time for just acceptance. This is who I am, this person doesn’t like the FEEL of makeup on my face, I bite off the lipstick, and THAT looks a great deal worse than not having any on at all.
THAT is the nicest thing about growing older. At forty seven, no one cares anyway. It really is about kindness, and thoughtfulness, all the rest fades away.
This remark reminded me of a woman I used to work with. We were talking about how long it took to get to work (started out talking about traffic & construction delays) and it got to the point where she said she had to leave at 8:00 to get in to work at 8:30, which meant if she had to leave home at 8:00, she had to get up at 5:00!!!
I was floored that she would spend 3 freaking hours getting ready for work. Well, ok, she **looked **like she spent hours and hours doing her hair and make-up, you know the type. And the first thing she did when she got to work was go in the bathroom and check her make-up. And after lunch, she would be in the bathroom for a good 20 minutes primping. And of course before she left, she would fix her make-up and hair AGAIN!!!
And she was one of those who was very free with the fashion advice. A constant stream of “if only” I would cut, color, style, perm, etc. my hair or wear more make-up or a certain brand of make-up (she sold Mary Kay on the side), wear a certain style of clothes or this color or those shoes, blah, blah, blah, then I would be so much more attractive, etc. I got soooo sick of hearing it.
Makeup is ritual for me, usually I wear it only if I’m going night-clubbing or somewhere else that would cause me to dress up… I love it. But I have no use for anything more than a quick smudge of eyeliner during day to day existence. My normal “getting ready” ritual from shower to door is about an hour and 15 minutes, the deluxe ritual can take as long as 2 hours. I can’t even imagine 3 hours of daily maintainence - yikes!
I don’t wear make-up myself any more, although I used to wear some when I went out on the town. I think it looks good on lots of people, the ones who know how to wear it (not caked on, colors not matching(?); I’m no expert but I like the way it looks on some people better than others).
My mother told me when I was growing up that the trick about using make-up is to apply it so that it is difficult to tell whether or not you are wearing it. This was back in the sixties, before glitter eye shadow and a lot of the pretty stuff they have now. And Mom was wearing a fairly bright lipstick shade as she was telling me this, but that was the style then, I guess.
About the OP, I usually think that everyone who is kind to other people is good-looking, and someone telling someone else how to change their appearance is not truly kind. But, as was said previously, maybe they thought they were being kind.
I always wear makeup when I go out at night. Some shimmery eye shadow in puddy form (it’s neato), mascara, eyebrow pencil, concealer around those dark circles, lip liner and lipstick. And cream-form blush in the winter when I am pasty. I’m a freak. I also have curly hair which takes a bit of encouraging to look curly and not frizzy. So if I am attempting to look my best, I can kill an hour and a half easy.
However, there is no one at work I ever wanted to look my best for. OK, maybe when we had a cute intern ONCE, but that was just lipstick and mascara. The hair gets brushed straight and pulled into a pony tail, and I go. It’s WORK, for God’s sake, not a runway. I once worked in an office with a bunch of harpies. It was a cubical farm, and in one overheard conversation, one of the shrews said “I just don’t understand people who leave the house without makeup. I mean, lipstick and mascara, how hard is that?” I was unsure if I was intended to overhear this, but wanted to pop my head over the cubical and say “I just don’t understand people who feel they NEED to wear makeup to work.”
