“Should I start wearing makeup?”

I think every teen girl asks this eventually.

Starting in sixth grade, some girls wore lip gloss. A few started with eye shadow. Then others started wearing some blush or eyeliner or concealer in seventh. But the first day of eighth grade, it was like BOOM! and I realized that about half the girls in our grade were wearing full-blown makeup, with foundation and mascara and all. Some were pretty good at it, and others wore way too much. But it made me think.

I don’t wear makeup, unless you count the occasional tinted lip balm when my lips are chapped. Even then, the color matches the natural color of my lips, so it just makes my lips shinier; you wouldn’t notice unless you stared at them.

I think part of the reason is that I’m horrible at applying it. If I ever try to use concealer to cover up a pimple, it doesn’t work. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but you can still see the pimple and you can clearly tell that I’m wearing concealer. And last year, I was in my school’s production of Seussical the Musical. The makeup crew would do my foundation and blush and eye shadow (we had to wear it in crazy colors, because it was Dr. Seuss), but we all had to apply our own lipstick and mascara. Easy, right? I got the mascara in my eye. After that, I stopped putting it on by myself.

I also don’t like the feel of makeup. I feel like something is caked on my skin. And because I never wear it, if I do wear it, I feel awkward. I feel out of place, almost.

That’s my personal opinion, though. And I personally do not think that you look any prettier with or without makeup. But at the same time, I don’t think that makeup makes you look “fake” or whatever. It doesn’t make you “uglier.” It’s a girl’s, or guy’s, choice whether he/she wants to wear makeup. If you want to wear makeup, go ahead. A lot of people say that we spend too much time and money on our physical appearance, and that society is evil for telling us that we all have to wear lipstick and get plastic surgery. I do think that society plays a role in telling us that we aren’t good enough; but still, if you want everyone to abandon their eyeliner because we’re all beautiful (which we are), you might as well be saying that we should also all dress the same, or stop wearing clothes altogether. Don’t clothes also play into physical appearance? We all try to dress decently at least sometimes.

I think that makeup can be used to enhance your natural beauty. It is a way of expressing yourself. Some people take it too far, yes. I don’t think that we should spend hours applying makeup and obsessing over whether or not it is perfect, or spend hundreds of dollars to buy the absolute best brands. Honestly, though, makeup isn’t evil. It’s great, if used for the right reasons. If wearing makeup feels right to you, wear it. If it makes you feel more confident about yourself, wear it. If you want to wear it, wear it. And if you don’t, don’t. It’s your choice. You do you.