10 things I hate about make-up

1. How you get suckered into buying all sorts of unflattering make-up in a bid to break out of your ‘boring’ old look. Consequently, you end up only using a twentieth of your make-up while the rest goes to waste. Also, blue mascara does not look good — even on Katy Perry.

2. The expectation that it will somehow transform you.

3. The only thing it is useful for is drawing attention to yourself, not making you look good. But when you  actually need a little help, it’s best to go barefaced and lie low. Make-up is thus entirely superfluous.

4. And while on the subject of how utterly useless it is -  let’s remind ourselves of all the times that it’s accentuated eyebags, drawn attention to laugh lines and made even 15-year-olds look older than they really are. Make-up ages you.

5. Makeovers. The notion that if you only change a few things about your daily make-up routine, you can look sooo much better — not only is this idea endlessly, depressively iterative, it basically implies that you look like crap as is.

6. It’s fundamentally dishonest and self-loathing. You’re presenting yourself to be something you’re not.

7. How ridiculous you look putting it on. Mouth open when putting on mascara, sucked-in cheeks when putting on blush. What the hell is going on?

8. The false promises. Everlasting foundation will not even last eight hours — you’ll break into a sweat as soon as you put it on and it’ll all melt away. And that non-clumping mascara that thickens your lashes 10 times over? It clumps.

9. Wearing a lipstick will not turn me into a siren, putting on mascara does not make me invincible, can we please stop pretending otherwise?

10. The names. Kissyfit, In the Nude, Black Honey and Tenderheart don’t tell me anything about the colour I’m buying, and are more than slightly kitschy. If it’s a peach lipstick, just call it Peach.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2010.