According to a recent radio survey, apparently one of the top five things that Malaysians can't live without is makeup. So what is the deal with makeup? How many of us, as women, feel that we are not ready to face the world unless we "have our face on" and carry some basic essentials in our bags? At the very least, an ever-loyal lipstick and face powder to prepare for the unexpected meeting with an acquaintance, a potential "love interest" or an ex-boyfriend.

While makeup can be a lot of fun, and adds colour and creativity to life, when taken to the extreme, it can also mean that we are apologising for the faces we are born with. Ask yourself this question, do you feel naked, inadequate and even unattractive if you do not have any makeup on? Have you ever had this doubt before you were experimenting as teenager with your mom's, aunt's or best friend's makeup kit? Why is it that when we enter into womanhood, one of the first rites of passage necessarily includes altering the way we look because we are made to believe that we are just not beautiful enough?

Most of the women role models presented to us through MTV, Hollywood or Bollywood are wearing makeup. Magazines and advertisements tell us that we have "problems", "blemishes" or lashes that are not up to par which we can fix for say, RM39.90 with their products. Teenage magazines inform our adolescent girls that there are a million and one things they can do to themselves to look glamourous or more attractive. Little girls learn by watching the adults around her that putting on makeup is what being a grown woman is all about. Some employers and companies even insist that their female employees show up to work with makeup, without which they are being "unprofessional". Hang on, isn't work about what we do and not how we look? If a woman is clean, presentable and neat, shouldn't it be her choice whether she wants to put stuff on her face or not?

This, and countless other similar messages convey to us that without makeup we look tired, washed out and not making the effort. That we are supposed to mask our true face and emotions with artificial colourful products that you could just sink your teeth into.

The sub-context is also this: that women will be judged primarily by how she looks, and that she is supposed to conform to an impossible ideal notion of "femine beauty". This completely denies the multiple dimensions of a woman and places her dangerously on the plateau of being nothing more than an object to be seen and admired.

Makeup is a multi-billion dollar industry. According to current estimates, the cosmetics and toiletries industry is put at over US$45 billion to US$66 billion yearly worldwide (Cosmetics and Body Decoration, 22 October 2002). This means that women all over the world are spending at least 180 billion ringgit per year just to make themselves look different than how they are. That makes women a very critical consumer market force. Just when women are starting to make progress into the public world of having careers and gaining economic empowerment, we are informed that we have to spend a third of our salary to buy the latest overpriced lipstick range. No wonder advertisers and makeup producers spend millions in packaging and marketing their products so that they firstly, tell us we are imperfect, then show us how we should look like with their well-posed supermodels (which would be impossible unless we have an entourage of professional makeup artists, lighting crew and starve ourselves silly), and finally how easily we can do it with their products if we were to simply part with our cash.

Arguably, what these cosmetics company have done is exploited and capitalised a human character of beauty. Historically, civilisations have evolved intellectually through decorating themselves. Go to any museum and you will see a display of ancient jewellery and evidence of aesthetic practice through the use of flowers, plant, ashes, and iron ores to paint or tattoo their bodies. It was a sign of creativity for both men and women, and had a cultural and religious symbol in addition to beauty and power. But this meaning has been somehow lost or diluted in modern application of makeup to define beauty. It has instead been used as method to reduce women into one-dimensional creatures with perceived imperfection through almost homogenous mass advertisement by cosmetic multinationals.

Does that mean we should now throw away our makeup bags and our favourite stick of lipstick and eyeliner?

No, this article isn't aimed at telling all women to abandon their makeup kit. As mentioned earlier, makeup can be a lot of fun. It has the power to make a statement of belief like the Iranian women who protested against fundamentalist anti-makeup Islamic laws in the 1990s through scarlet lipstick and nail polish. Makeup can display a cultural identity of beauty and be used to explore creativity. Just be aware the next time you step towards a makeup booth, are you there because someone is telling you something negative about yourself, or are you there on your own terms?

Jaclyn Kee
18 May 2003

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