Defined by Make Up

As much as I love make-up and trying new products and reviewing and getting myself all glammed up, my make-up is not all there is to me. I feel that I have finally come into my own and realised that I do not have to wake up early to do my make-up for work if I don’t want to. I can leave the house with a hair out of place if I can’t be bothered to fix it. That’s ok. Growing up in America I felt a great amount of pressure to always look perfect, that I could only go out in public if I was camera ready. From a very young age I gave into the societal pressures to look a certain way and felt that my worth was tied to how I looked. At the same time feeling that caring too much about my looks made me shallow and insecure. So how are we to choose between being worthy and shallow or being unworthy and secure? It has taken years and a lot of massive life lessons to show me that my worth is not defined by looking like a model 24/7. I am not defined by how much effort I put in to erasing every red patch and dark circle. I am not defined by my make-up, I am enhanced by it. I am comfortable in my own skin and beautiful with or without painting my face. Being interested in make-up and experimenting with how I can change my appearance does not make me shallow or insecure. It makes me creative and curious. It makes me an artist who carries her canvas with her to show her work. I can shadow, shade and highlight a canvas to create a masterpiece to be interpreted individually, some may like it, some may not. Like with all art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That in-and-of itself is beautiful. Although I choose to spend time working with make up, I know that I am beautiful without it, there is more to me than the shade of my shadow. My make-up does not define me, I use it to define myself.