“Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I am just a girl who wishes for the world.” – Marilyn Monroe.
As a young little girl, I always used to sit on my moms bed in the mornings and watch how she did her makeup and perfected her hair, making sure that her lip liner was drawn on precisely to the shape of her lips, and that every eyelash knew its pasted place. Once my mom had finished perfecting her image, and turned back to remind me to start getting ready for school, the face that stared at me, took my breath away, every single time. I wanted to look as beautiful as my mom did. Growing up I took part in modeling and beauty pageants and photo-shoots and covers for magazine’s and newspapers and the list goes on, I was introduced to wearing makeup at this stage , at a young age and it has just never left my side, or my face.
being 1 out of 5 Elizabeth Arden ambassadors, makeup is my forte, it is what I apply to myself and others, helping improve and enhance their appearance. For my intervention, I will be going 10 full days without a single inch of makeup on my face. no lip liner or lipstick, no eyeliner or mascara, no foundation or blemish stick and no bronzer or powder. I will be bearing my naked face for all to see, many might think it is a small and not so challenging task, but let me just inform you, in my 7 years of wearing makeup everyday, going 10 days is going to be quite the challenge for me personally.
To fill you in from Monday to now…
so Monday morning arrived and if there was ever a Monday that I hated, it was Monday the 18th. I carried on with my daily routine of showering, after which I would usually apply my makeup and then get dressed, but something was very different, I applied my moisturizer, followed by the colorless lip balm and sadly exited the bathroom. I looked dead and lifeless, but nevertheless, made my way to college. I had never been so afraid of what people are going to think at college or anywhere, ever! I arrived and everyone looked at me normally, without any head tilting, I started to question myself, did I do this properly? why are people not noticing? I received multiple comments from people that told me I look the same and that they cannot really see a difference, at this point, I wanted to slap a few , 30% because of the fact that they were not noticing such a dramatic change, and 70% because of the fact that their comments indirectly implied that I was doing a pretty poor job at my makeup for them NOT to notice my change.
Tuesday the 19/05…
Yesterday took a bit of a turn, my property was on show, and there were real estate agents absolutely everywhere in the house and in my personal space, I continued to keep my composure without any makeup and tried to smile as they walked past me, but I just did not feel beautiful at all. I had no confidence in myself and I just wanted to stick my head in the sand, as an ostrich would. I heard young voices outside my window and peeped through the curtains, there were a group of young male real estate agents, waiting to enter the house, I just could not do it, I could not let them see me like this! I paced to my bathroom and applied my makeup after which I greeted them with a oh so friendly welcoming. only after everyone had left, I had a moment to myself, I could not believe how a simple thing such as makeup, affected this girl who oozed confidence, who has certificates for best public speaker and who could take on the world, wouldn’t even let a bunch of strangers see her with nothing but her natural smile. I had never felt so intimidated in my life, I was always the intimidator, always the confident one who would always put herself first, what was happening to this girl with the bear face? I felt defeated.
Woman crush Wednesday? maybe not today…
After spending the day at college and basically looking down majority of the time, I got through the day with the usual comments of “you look the same” or “I cant really see a difference”, I decided to go to the mall to purchase a well deserved chocolate frappe, this would be my first time out in public either than college. I cannot even express to you how anxious I was, the anxiety actually made me nauseas, but then again, no one noticed! I was not used to not having people look at me! I felt so average and so unattractive. I came home for some selfie therapy and proceeded to take over 100 photos, just to find the selected few that would make the cut for social media. I took a step back and looked at these photos and realized that, this is me, this is actually me, with nothing to cover my emotions. it was definitely a reality check to myself of how caught up I have become in this perfected image that I have been portraying for years.
tobearitall 