“Red - Dangerous”: Why do we impose men's opinions on makeup?
Text: Margarita Virova
A couple of words or a whole sheet on this topic can be found on every forum, in every conditional women's edition, in any branch devoted to psychology, and sometimes in completely unexpected places (a blog for bodybuilders, a portal for farmers, forums for gamers and Orthodox communities). "Girls who love to paint their eyes in intense black, most guys affectionately call" pandas "," - opens the secret cosmo.ru. "Red is dangerous! Most men think about the color of nail polish," they warn us on lady.mail.ru. About why women are painted at all and whether they need to do this, all who feel like it are expressed. The most common conclusion is that some people are too flattering for men: girls are painted to like them.
Women's publications, respectively, are guided by this eternal desire, and articles in the spirit of “What men don't like about makeup” and “What men DO NOT like about makeup” are written all the time, as if everyone had already ordered a generator of such texts to their office. The list items, by the way, rarely change: it regularly includes too noticeable arrows, long nails, dark lipsticks, bright shadows (especially blue and blue, which for some reason invariably remind everyone of an evil saleswoman from a store in the house opposite). And all men like one vote for nude makeup. Red lipstick is sometimes possible for everyone, and always - only Renate Litvinova.
A lot of questions. Where do these men come from? How many people participate in polls? Hatred to wine lipstick is inherited? In fact, such selections not only warm up make-shaming and limit the right to taste, but also support stereotypes about men: it seems that they all like the same slender girls with a nude face drawn in a ruler. It seems to me that it is insulting.
The point is not even in the diversity of beauty, but in the fact that these texts carry the idea of the existence of a clear categorization of the beautiful and the ugly. A lot of cool ideas and undertakings are broken about the argument “it's not nice”, but meanwhile there are such make-art areas where there is no talk of decoration at all: makeup can be conceptual, its main task in this case is to express an idea, not to improve the face his bearer. And it can also be used in everyday life, if a person has an interest in this. Yuriy Bolotov, the editor-in-chief of The Village, believes that experiments in make-up are great because for girls it’s part of self-expression and the search for one’s own identity. If dark lipstick makes a person more confident, this is a reason for joy for him, and not for irritation. However, he himself would have refrained from dark lipstick, simply because he prefers natural skin condition to make-up.
Red lipstick means that a woman is active, loves attention and is looking for a man. Failed eyes mean that a woman wants to look mysterious and seductive and is looking for a man. Oriental perfume, wine-colored lacquers, shining cheekbones - all this means leading to one unchanging goal. Advertising of cosmetics and perfumery used to very often appeal to a situation in which a lonely suffering girl was transformed with the help of a magic tool and within thirty seconds finally found the Man of Her Dream. This, in particular, was the reason for the emergence of a whole camp of men and women who despise the cosmetics and beauty industry as a whole - it is too obviously associated with some set of tricks for a speedy search for a partner. Now, it seems, everyone more or less understood that cosmetics exists primarily for those who use it, but the antediluvian ideas are still with us.
The worst thing is that fortune telling is generally popular entertainment. It is believed that in our country women, in principle, like to be overly beautiful (remember all the countless jokes for 300 about how to recognize a Russian woman on the beach), and in some places I managed to read what they are doing from a hard life. Ostensibly, makeup is a mask under which something is hidden: from skin problems to problems at work. And such stereotypes are not formed at all by Orthodox forums, but by popular glossy publications, for which, it seems, education in such matters is one of the priority tasks. Speaking frankly, such a belief system is nothing but the most common discrimination. With which we all seem to be trying as far as possible to fight. The hairdresser-stylist and our author Anastasia Yekimova express the following point of view: make-up is about self-expression, and about art, and about creativity. But he becomes about it all only when the boundaries of the type "goes-not go", "many-few", "appropriate-inappropriate" and when a woman begins to freely use different colors and different textures in different places are erased.
Perhaps the problem raised here for life in general is not so important, but it comes into contact with key questions regarding self-esteem and self-confidence. There is a huge difference between being beautiful for someone and being beautiful for yourself. Learning the second is at least useful, because you need to study your face and body not in terms of their compliance with replicated standards, but taking into account individual features of appearance that cannot be bad or good — they are just yours. Extend or limit the field of experiments under such conditions can only you.
Focusing on the opinions of men participating in countless polls, it is simply inappropriate. First, it is possible that they do not exist anywhere at all, except for the collective unconscious. Secondly, they do not exactly appreciate the trend for metallic and the power of blue lipstick. All fashion trends really exist for internal use, and with due attention and understanding they will be treated among the enthusiastic. Looking for some approval from the community, for which makeup and other aspects of the relationship with the appearance are considered secondary and shameful - it is at least strange. A rare man may not find it difficult to answer the question of what Smoky-Aiz is - so why ask him at all about it?
The desire to please someone is not criminal, but, probably, it is not necessary to prove the thesis that it is impossible to please everyone (and even those mythical 70% of lovers here). In my environment a lot of men who like very different types of appearance and, accordingly, different techniques in make-up. Someone is crazy about black lipstick and short haircuts, someone likes wide-open eyes, like in a silent movie, someone really loves and even notices the skillfully executed "make-up without make-up". And a million weaknesses brought up by everyone - from the first love in the kindergarten to porn and anime. And this, again, does not usually mean anything either: ideas about ideal-looking women remain in the section of fantasy or aesthetic preferences. As a rule, everyone remembers that under lipstick and shadows is a man of flesh and blood, not a mannequin for cosmetics. And attempts to focus on someone else's opinion are a very bad motivation in any business, including such an innocent thing as make-up.
The photo: Milk Make Up