This morning on the Picadilly line, a normal-ish looking guy kept staring at me, unapologetically, and without stopping. ‘Is it my florescent Cramps Monster T-shirt or my luminous pink lipstick he’s looking at?’ I wondered to myself. Maybe he was just thought I looked a bit mental – that happens a lot. He was non-threatening and sort of cute, so it didn’t seem to matter.
But then I remembered that last week, another guy freaked me out by staring at me the whole tube journey in a much more invasive way. I jumped out two stops early and walked home as I felt him edging towards me. ‘Tube freaks…’ I explained to my flatmate Lorna when I got home.
It made me think that beauty (in whatever way) really is in the eye of the beholder. Post-modernist theory discusses ‘The Gaze’, which focuses on who is doing the looking, plus the power, cultural, ethnic and gender balances that come into play within that gaze. It just made me think, would I have been flattered if the creepy guy looked like Johnny Depp? And what in Lagerfeld’s name does this have to do with beauty, eh?
I’m working on the basic assumption that we all like to be looked at, or at least appreciated when we’re looking good. Generally speaking, we know when we're being looked at and how to court this gaze, so does this affect our make-up choices? I think it might, even if we’re not consciously aware of our decisions. Or it could be that it’s just me. Here is a crude beauty-meets-philosophy model I devised.
I’m sat at my dressing table and its chaos: heated rollers on the floor and dried-up pots of fluidline and open, running lip glosses all around. I go to apply my make-up and think…
Q: How do I want to look today?
A- Natural.
B- Not natural/other
C- None of the above
A.Natural
Do I want to blend in with the crowd? Am I uncomfortable with wearing lots of make- up? Do I want to look as though I’m wearing no make-up? Who am I doing this for? Do I just like simple make-up? Do I want to look 'appropriate' for my age, setting or workplace?
B. Not natural
Do I want to stand out and court the gaze of others (which could be both good and bad.) Do I care if people know I’m wearing make-up? Do I wonder who my make-up will attract (or repel!)? Who am I doing this for? Is it more for creativity or attention? Am I influenced by music, fashion, art or a subculture?
C. None of these matter
I just want to look nice, in a way that I define and deem as acceptable for myself. I am influenced by none of the above in any way.
I realise this isn’t to do with the gaze itself, but the outcome of what make-up we apply could determine what sort of gaze we receive. The Mail recently said that 'Millions of men think women wear too much make-up and prefer girls who adopt a more natural look.’ So if we wear too much obvious make-up, we receive the wrong gaze and if we wear natural make-up we’ll get the right gaze? I know first-hand from shoots that the natural look takes a similar amount of make-up per application as a more colourful look, plus a truckload of beautiful lighting and all kinds of photoshop wizardry.
What I’m trying to say is the girl-next-door, fresh-faced look is a fabrication and it probably dupes more men and women than we think. I hate the girl –next-door – she's a phoney and I bet she's shit to hang out with.
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