My name is Alanna Smith, and I'm addicted to mascara.
I think I've been using it almost every day for about ten years now. I didn't think I had a problem. Or if I did, the problem was my ridiculously thin, blonde eyelashes. They're so invisible, that if I get one stuck in my eye, the trouble isn't getting it out, the trouble is being able to see it, so I can fish it out. As one of my mission companions once pointed out, without mascara I look something like a rabbit. With mascara, I look like a normal person-- you know, the type that has eyes. I thought mascara was the answer to all my beauty problems.
But recently, mascara has betrayed me. Because after ten years of abusing it, my previously-thin eyelashes are now practically non-existent. And after ten years, I've grown to hate how I look without it.
And I've decided that both of those are pretty sad. But really, not being comfortable with how my own face looks is probably the saddest part. It makes me think of Hamlet screaming at Ophelia that the problem with women is that, "God has given you one face and you make yourselves another!" I'm not saying make-up is evil and we shouldn't wear it. But we should be happy in our own skin, too. And I have gotten to the point where I'm embarrassed if someone sees me without mascara glopped all over my poor struggling eyelashes.
So I'm quitting mascara. Or at the very least taking a break. Giving my eyelashes a chance to grow back. Seeing what they're capable of doing. Seeing if I'm capable of accepting what I actually look like. And in the meantime, enjoying those moments at the pool or when I rub my eyes and I don't have to worry about whatever black streaks I may have just smeared across my face.
My name is Alanna Smith, and I'm trying to overcome this addiction.
5 comments:
This is actually what turned me off to the idea of make-up as a teen. Seeing so many friends almost overnight be horrified by their "ugliness" if they dared step foot out the door without slathering everything under the sun on their face first. How was it possible to go from having a perfectly acceptable face to a hideous one overnight? And so I avoided make-up like the plague. Good luck with your mascara effort!
I totally related to your this article. I remember how horrified I was when, about 25 years ago, a doctor told me to go for a month without wearing mascara!!
This is awesome. Good luck to you, my friend.
I'm almost never without eye make-up. I don't consider myself a big wearer of make-up, but I do feel naked (or maybe just not fully awake) without it.
Go for it, Alanna!! We can go mascara-less together if you want! ;0)
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