Beauty Without Borders: Why there are no more rules in makeup
Text: Moore Sobolev
By the end of 2015, the world has progressed noticeably, that beauty standards are a convention invented by industry and taken up by society, and everyone should set the rules for themselves and for themselves. Moore Sobolev, chief editor of Fierce & Cute blog and owner of blue hair, tells why makeup is no longer “good” and “bad”.
Blue shades, eyelashes that look like spider legs, regrown hair roots, fuchsia and sparkles - in recent years, everything has turned from a nightmare of women with conservative views on makeup into bold trends. In the outgoing year, the last bastion of the notorious “taste” fell - almost all progressive brands, from Jeffree Star to large Urban Decay, released their own version of brown lipstick. The trend was initially declared nostalgic: brown lipstick was in a terrible fashion in the nineties, and even then it was harassed by adherents of beauty and elegance. Now, I want to believe, everything is different.
Because twenty years have passed and the concept of "good taste" in relation to beauty has become much more vague. Fashion and beauty are now dictated not so much by fashion designers and glossy magazines as street, blogs, and popular living people with their own ideas about beauty. Now designers are pulling up for trendsetters - and they release models on the catwalk, whose makeup denies all the canons of the “right” beauty honed over the years. The fact that recently was the indisputable rule - a clear lip contour, no more than one accent on the face, neat arrows - becomes only an option, but not a dogma. Glitter and glitter from the category “once a year for a holiday, if you are not older than fifteen” have moved to the area “sprinkle over”, including hair roots and beards. Now it is better not less, yes better - as you want, so better.
Over the years, a whole generation of cosmetic brands has grown up that declare makeup as a means of self-expression, rather than concealing flaws or a way of seduction. The ideal advertising images with photo-smooth smooth women have been replaced by various images, like life and beauty itself, and make-up bloggers do not stop at what cosmetics offers them, and with plastic make-up is enthusiastic. We live, perhaps, in the period of greatest freedom in matters of fashion and beauty: now you can go out with a completely naked face or with full contouring, wear bright lipstick or a transparent balm, draw Smokey or glue rhinestones on your face - and any image will be confirmed by an inspirational picture with Style.com. Good and bad in make-up no longer exist - and despite the fact that every season we try to highlight some specific, the most relevant trends, now we need to really try to avoid any of them. Beauty standards that tightly regulate the appearance of women are inexorably a thing of the past.
Nevertheless, in a society, especially one as conservative as ours, there is still a strong fear of looking vulgar, and stereotypes are flourishing. Blue shadows are for saleswomen. Red lipstick symbolizes excited labia, and therefore for prostitutes. Bright shades in make-up are permissible only in adolescence (after thirty years it is generally desirable to turn your eyes towards the cemetery, and after forty you should resolutely send your feet there so as not to look “ridiculous”). Texts about "mistakes in make-up" remain journalistic hits, although a mistake in make-up is an oxymoron: a person does makeup for himself and according to his own ideas about beauty, we don’t know what he wanted to achieve in one way or another, so decide for him where is the error, we can not. However, most celebrities, especially those who usually look conventionally beautiful, are condemned for any deviation from the general canon - even the innocent blue lipstick Lupita Nyong'o at the Star Wars premiere caused outrage among fans.
And as a result, while forming our own image, we constantly look back at the mythical "public opinion" - although, by and large, it should not matter to others what we look like. Usually this is the case - people, especially in a megapolis, rarely pay attention to someone else’s appearance: it’s one thing to look at photos of actresses from the red carpet and discuss their images at leisure, and quite another to tell the neighbor on the carriage between Mayakovskaya and Belorusskaya "that she should change her lipstick." Sensible people, if they admit the discussion of someone else's appearance, still rarely go from theory to practice. And this is an amazing discovery that makes any woman who decided on an unconventional make-up or hairstyle: it turns out that everyone does not care! At the same time on social networks, such a woman is constantly faced with admiring bewilderment on the part of those who "would like to, but are embarrassed because it is indecent, too bold or not due to age."
The restrictions that we are used to imposing on our own appearance are rapidly becoming a thing of the past by 2016 - fashion is promoting them, and indeed society is becoming softer. And if you want to try brown lipstick or sprinkle thickly with sparkles, then it's just a shame and wrong not to allow yourself such a small joy. Makeup can always be washed off, and good taste, like beauty, is only in the eye of the beholder. Let us look at the world more broadly and rejoice as much as possible.
Photo: Amelie Pichard, Opening Ceremony, Rochas