Goodbye foundation
Yesterday some of the bloggers I read religiously began “No Makeup Week”. Not as a protest, but as an exploration of beauty, makeup, self-esteem and the status quo. You can read their posts here & here.
Skin care and makeup is a timely subject for me. My skin at the moment is absolutely radiant. So much so that it is fooling (much to my delight) people around me into believing that I am well rested, healthy and stress free. I am getting comments like ‘Gee pregnancy really agrees with you’ , ‘Look at you, you’re glowing!’ & ‘You look fantastic!’
No, I am not well rested. Yes, I still vomit every day. And I am certainly not walking on sunshine. But you would think so or why else would my skin look so nice? For some reason society has trained us to believe that healthy skin is the holy grail. Skin takes a beating when we are tired, stressed, run-down, not eating well, ill with the flu, on medication, exposed to polluted air. ’Good’ skin is hard to achieve it has become an unconscious barometer of how we are ‘doing’. With the odds against us most of us have given up entirely on healthy skin and instead invest in serums, foundations, concealers, bronzers, primers, shimmers, recovery gels and the list goes on.
Makeup was originally designed to enhance a woman’s natural beauty. Skin care was designed to maintain our natural complexion. Somewhere along the way we learned that a flawless matt finish constituted beautiful skin. At some point we began viewing freckles, lines, god forbid wrinkles as the enemy. And some clever marketer convinced us that to look ‘natural’ we needed 12 different products.
My glowing skin was not inspired by a marketing campaign, a beauty editor or retail therapy. I simply wanted to feel more feminine. I wanted to do something for me. I chose skin care that was natural and that would feed my skin in a deep way. My whole skin care routine cost less that $70. As a result I am getting no end of compliments (after 1 week of usage), I really do feel more feminine and I have stopped using foundation entirely.
