Questioning My Not-So-Natural Beauty

I can’t recall the last time I saw myself “au naturale.” By that I mean without make-up, hair products, clothing, and anything else that masks my true self. I recently realized, when going though my twenty-seven-step-before-bedtime ritual—washing face, applying under eye cream, wrinkle cream, anti-aging cream, pore minimizing cream, skin brightening moisturizer, and several other steps—that I don’t even go to bed au naturale, never mind leave the house. I have a staff of millions working overtime on my face to make sure I wake up looking younger or at the very least, no older. And they’re getting paid well.

It doesn’t stop at the face. There are millions of products that are marketed to and bought by us women to conceal, cover up, and change our natural selves—as if the skin we were born in wasn’t good enough. There’s a billion dollar industry pushing us to realize that we’re decreasing in good looks every day and prodding us to buy more products to forget this. And we fall for it, groomed head over Gucci heels. We—myself included—stock our bathrooms and closets with maximizers and minimizers, and adhere to this societal standard that “natural” is a polished look that requires seven steps and as many products. We must be lifted, smoothed, tucked, plumped, slimmed, and so on. I must be lifted, smoothed, tucked, plumped, slimmed, and so on.

I’m a user. I color my hair, use several kinds of facial cream, get bikini waxes, use plumping lip-gloss, and wear make-up. I’m not preaching from a macrobiotic dieting, organic facemask wearing, vegan shoe shopping, cosmetic-free pedestal. I’m just frustrated at the beauty trap I seem to be caught in.

When I feel resistant to my beauty routine, I ask myself: was Cro-Magnon woman worried about the unsightly hairs all over her body? Did Viking women fret those extra pounds hanging out of their steel-plated battle vest? Though Roman women painted their faces, did they despair that their voluptuous bodies and plump faces were a sign of wealth, not over-eating and laziness? How did we get here? And why, if we choose not to take part in these rituals, are we savages? Then I proceed to even out my skin tone with my foundation sponge.