3 Years without Makeup! My thoughts...
I woke up this morning with the sole goal of cleaning out my toiletries cabinet. I have so much stuff in there! We just moved last June so I have touched everything in there at least once in the past year - while moving. But just because you have the space to keep something doesn't mean you should.
Megan - why are you talking about your toiletries cabinet? I thought this was a post about living without makeup for the last three years.
Why did I stop wearing makeup?
Let me back up a minutes and start with the obvious question "Why did I stop wearing makeup?"
I had been wearing makeup since college - I did not get into wearing makeup in high school - maybe I should have, my husband mistook me for a boy while looking at old photos. My routine varied from full face to just mascara, but never without mascara!
After moving to Switzerland I developed seasonal allergies (AGGGHHH)! Living the majority of my adult life with absolutely no allergies and now suffering from seasonal allergies was quite a blow. I didn't even know what I was allergic to!
Fortunately my symptoms coincided with my spouse so I surmise that I'm allergic to hazelnut trees.
I took that same over-the-counter medicine that he did and it seemed to help, however, when the season peaked I wanted to just claw my eyes out of their sockets. There was absolutely no way I could wear mascara. I could barely get my contacts in.
It was anyway about the same time I started to evaluate my daily routines and the time it takes to do repetitive tasks every day. I realised that putting on my makeup in the morning and then taking it off in the evening added up to about 30 minutes a day.
That equates to over 7.5 days every year to just put on and take off makeup.
At that point, I had basically stopped wearing all makeup except for mascara. Oh boy I couldn't give up the mascara... then came the allergies.
Giving up mascara is easy when you know that you look like shit anyway and applying mascara will only make you look like a demon clown before 9AM. That was three years ago, at least. I didn't write the day down but that feels about right.
After the allergy season was over, my eyes were clear and looked great. So by comparison of my allergy self and my post-allergy self I was HOT even without mascara.
I should interject here that the my spouse never cared if I wore any makeup, although he did say that I looked good with mascara. I always thought that without mascara I looked sick and tired. Hello Allergies! Now I had a new version of myself to compare and it wasn't so bad to be completely bare faced.
So just as I was getting comfortable with no makeup at all, my skin started to break out a bit. Seems counter intuitive, right?
Well I had always been very good about removing all my makeup at the end of the day with a cleanser. Once I stopped wearing makeup I didn't feel the need to wash my face *I didn't have anything to wash off right?* WRONG.
Once I figured out that I needed to at least wipe my face down with a warm, wet cloth, my skin started to clear up.
I can tell you how amazing it is to not have to think or worry about makeup. Is it running, caking, smearing, etc.?
I do tend to still wear some mascara but not so frequently - only when I have the inclination and a few minutes to spare.
Back to the toiletries cabinet
I hauled out all my makeup, untouched really since June when we moved. I started by swatching some lip colors on the back of my hand. That lead to checking which foundation matched my skin tone best, which lead to trying out the eye shades, and so on until the falsies came out to play.
After being all decked out and taking some selfies for posterity, I decided to write this post.
How do I feel like wearing so much makeup after wearing none for so long?
I'm now remembering that everything that brushes past my face will be left with a token reminder which will need to be washed later. My eyes are stinging ever so slightly. I've gotten lipstick on my water glass. Frankly I'm over makeup...for me.
I will still use mascara occasionally but I think I will let go of most of my makeup.
What is slightly ironic is the time that I now save by not applying makeup, I watch other people applying makeup on YouTube. I love watching people transform themselves using makeup, some of my favorite channels are Laura Lee, Jeffreestar, and Madeyewlook.
