Make-Up Meditation

  

Make-Up Meditation

I have started to prefer my own face to the china doll look that I used to have when I was made up. In thinking about it, made-up means "invented" or not real, right? So, I was inventing my face. If you're really good at putting on make-up you can be almost anything you want...even unrecognizable...

While I don't think I was ever unrecognizable in the past, I do remember having fun with creating a persona with my look when I sang at restaurants. Every week, I was someone different...an Ice Princess with shimmery white eye-shadow or Miss Moody with shades of dark blue. I could be whoever I wanted to be.

Now I just kind of want to be myself. I went through "natural" phases in the past, too: particularly during Covid. I used to ask myself what the point was in making myself up. Who for? It made me realize that I was using make-up to impress everyone else or to be someone else...the "me" in me didn't care.

But is being natural a phase? Isn't it natural to be natural? I've never worn a lot of make-up on a day to day basis, anyway, but this stems from pure laziness and the aversion to cleaning up in the evenings. I mean, I have so many other more important things to do in my life than long daily preparations or lengthy face processes in the evening.

I also hate the feeling of gunk plastered on my face. If my skin is clear and soft like recently, why would I want to cover it up, anyway? Perhaps because I feel better about my face and my health that covering things up is just not an issue right now. I put on the bare minimum to look "put together" or a bit more when I want to "dress up".

There is a doctor who reads faces on the internet. (Why The Face on YouTube.) He says he doesn't trust people who wear a lot of make-up. "What do they have to hide?" he wonders. Indeed. What are we hiding when we do up our faces? 

In any case, it's been a while that I've been toning many things down in my life. I just want more simplicity. And clarity. I want a clean face and clear eyes to look at the world (and be seen by the world). I want to be real and for others to sense that so that they can be themselves around me, too.

Photo: Mariangela Ienco

Text: Kristen Mastromarchi