in conclusion: makeup is weird
Apr. 29th, 2013 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trueloveI have been experimenting with makeup, lately. It's been -- interesting, definitely. For a variety of reasons, I don't care for subtle. I want it to be *obvious* that I am wearing makeup, that I have chosen to paint my face. I'm not super keen on conforming to the standard forms of femininity, so my lipstick by preference so far has been black and green.
But I picked up a couple shades of red that are -- well, they're pretty damn bold. One's called This Corrosion, it pretty well IS the colour of rust. The other's Undead Red, which is a dark plum that's almost brown. But they are in the red palette so I can get away with them at work.
The thing that's interesting about that is, my work manual says makeup must be subtle. Subtle? Subtle this is not. And most of the women who work here who wear makeup don't wear particularly subtle makeup.
"Subtle" here actually means close to the established norms of femme makeup. How close? Who knows. I mean, black lipstick would be too far of course. But a painfully obviously unnatural shade of something-vaaaguely-red is A-OK, so basically what the fuck. Beauty standards are completely bizarre.
(The other thing that was disconcerting as fuck was being completely thrown by a compliment on my lipstick. I -- was really deeply uncomfortable with the implication of praise on buckling down and conforming to feminine beauty standards. I, uh. I have some dysphoria on that score, sometimes.)
But I picked up a couple shades of red that are -- well, they're pretty damn bold. One's called This Corrosion, it pretty well IS the colour of rust. The other's Undead Red, which is a dark plum that's almost brown. But they are in the red palette so I can get away with them at work.
The thing that's interesting about that is, my work manual says makeup must be subtle. Subtle? Subtle this is not. And most of the women who work here who wear makeup don't wear particularly subtle makeup.
"Subtle" here actually means close to the established norms of femme makeup. How close? Who knows. I mean, black lipstick would be too far of course. But a painfully obviously unnatural shade of something-vaaaguely-red is A-OK, so basically what the fuck. Beauty standards are completely bizarre.
(The other thing that was disconcerting as fuck was being completely thrown by a compliment on my lipstick. I -- was really deeply uncomfortable with the implication of praise on buckling down and conforming to feminine beauty standards. I, uh. I have some dysphoria on that score, sometimes.)