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imomusWhen it comes to human faces, I have two marked preferences: I prefer feminine faces to masculine ones, and I prefer women without makeup to women with.
Here's a shot from the BBC Sex ID test which told me I preferred feminine faces. I selected the face on the left as more attractive. And here's a Daily Mail feature entitled "Would you dare to go bare?" which shows women before and after makeup. In every single case, I prefer the before picture.
And -- although I was once paid by a cosmetics commercial to write a song for Kahimi Karie that went "Put some makeup on your face / Make this world a better place" -- I actually couldn't agree less with "Joe" in this Times feature entitled "Giving your makeup a makeover": "I think that all women should wear a little makeup. There is no such thing as an ugly woman, only a lazy one. My wife has a demanding job as a lawyer and has three children under the age of four and still manages to make an effort." Ugly women are only lazy ones -- women who haven't worked hard on their makeup? What preposterous misogyny!
In English we don't really have a positive word ("lazy" doesn't count) for a woman who doesn't wear makeup. In Japan, they do. The word is suppin: a fresh-faced, makeup-free woman. I think all the women I've ever dated have been suppin women. I'm not used to kissing lipstick. It would just feel wrong. The girls I find attractive are girls like this American Apparel ad girl (I think she's Mexican):
I'm not quite sure where my preferences come from. Maybe it's some kind of puritanism. "My [Pakistani] father went mad if he saw even a hint of mascara. Freedom for my friends at university meant trying drugs and drinking. For me, it meant lipstick," says Saira Khan, describing an Islamic fundamentalist upbringing probably not too different from the fundamentalist Calvinist upbringing my father had in Scotland. Then again, maybe it's just good taste.
One thing's for sure. The women spending £1000 a year on cosmetics are wasting a great deal of money if they think all men like it. We don't (although the men making and selling the stuff -- Mr Max Factor, for instance -- must love it).
I asked Hisae if she was wearing any makeup. "No," she said, as if I were crazy even to ask. So who, in Japan, wears makeup? Mostly, H told me, people who work. If you turn up at work without makeup on, the boss is going to think you woke up late and didn't have time to paint your face. Also, some girls refuse to let their boyfriends see them bare-faced. They think that, without that mask, nobody will love them. They're wrong.
I suggest we strike a blow against the cosmetics industry, and against those bullying newspaper features that try to terrorize women into buying makeup. Here's the news: many men think you look much better without it. Those men -- like me! -- believe that a positively-charged word for bare-facedness needs to be introduced, perhaps a loan word from another language (since we don't have one). I suggest suppin.
Here's a shot from the BBC Sex ID test which told me I preferred feminine faces. I selected the face on the left as more attractive. And here's a Daily Mail feature entitled "Would you dare to go bare?" which shows women before and after makeup. In every single case, I prefer the before picture.And -- although I was once paid by a cosmetics commercial to write a song for Kahimi Karie that went "Put some makeup on your face / Make this world a better place" -- I actually couldn't agree less with "Joe" in this Times feature entitled "Giving your makeup a makeover": "I think that all women should wear a little makeup. There is no such thing as an ugly woman, only a lazy one. My wife has a demanding job as a lawyer and has three children under the age of four and still manages to make an effort." Ugly women are only lazy ones -- women who haven't worked hard on their makeup? What preposterous misogyny!
In English we don't really have a positive word ("lazy" doesn't count) for a woman who doesn't wear makeup. In Japan, they do. The word is suppin: a fresh-faced, makeup-free woman. I think all the women I've ever dated have been suppin women. I'm not used to kissing lipstick. It would just feel wrong. The girls I find attractive are girls like this American Apparel ad girl (I think she's Mexican):
I'm not quite sure where my preferences come from. Maybe it's some kind of puritanism. "My [Pakistani] father went mad if he saw even a hint of mascara. Freedom for my friends at university meant trying drugs and drinking. For me, it meant lipstick," says Saira Khan, describing an Islamic fundamentalist upbringing probably not too different from the fundamentalist Calvinist upbringing my father had in Scotland. Then again, maybe it's just good taste.
One thing's for sure. The women spending £1000 a year on cosmetics are wasting a great deal of money if they think all men like it. We don't (although the men making and selling the stuff -- Mr Max Factor, for instance -- must love it).I asked Hisae if she was wearing any makeup. "No," she said, as if I were crazy even to ask. So who, in Japan, wears makeup? Mostly, H told me, people who work. If you turn up at work without makeup on, the boss is going to think you woke up late and didn't have time to paint your face. Also, some girls refuse to let their boyfriends see them bare-faced. They think that, without that mask, nobody will love them. They're wrong.
I suggest we strike a blow against the cosmetics industry, and against those bullying newspaper features that try to terrorize women into buying makeup. Here's the news: many men think you look much better without it. Those men -- like me! -- believe that a positively-charged word for bare-facedness needs to be introduced, perhaps a loan word from another language (since we don't have one). I suggest suppin.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-18 11:34 pm (UTC)Power and Faciality (bitesize Deleuze..)
Date: 2008-01-19 12:02 am (UTC)b) The face is the Year Zero of signification
c) The face of a corpse is so troubling because there is nothing before Year Zero
d) “The face digs the hole that subjectification needs in order to break through; it constitutes the black hole of subjectivity as consciousness or passion, the camera, the third eye.”
e) Before the camera there were only warlords, the face gave us dictators
f) The face reterritorialises power, the camera puts us over and within power
Re: Power and Faciality (bitesize Deleuze..)
Date: 2008-01-19 01:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 12:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 01:29 am (UTC)I once dated a girl with very hairy legs (below the knee). She started seeing another guy who wasn't as accepting (loving, even) of this hair as I was. We had a big conversation about his attitude. "He doesn't love you for who you are," I said. It didn't stop her going off with him instead of me, but I have to say the relationship wasn't very successful and didn't last very long. And she still has hairy legs.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 02:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 02:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 12:33 am (UTC)The examples that you have used are all examples of woman with make up on going for a natural look vs woman with makeup on going for a a more made up look. Here is a video that demonstrates how a natural look is accomplished. I count that she uses six products in order to achieve the look you are talking about.
Also, all of your examples of beautiful makeup free skin are from skin types completely genetically different to the Anglo skin you are championing. How often do you hear Anglo people say what beautiful skin Asian woman have?
I think all women use cosmetics of some sort. Ask Hisae if she moisturises or uses an eye cream, face scrub or lip balm.
-Marc.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 01:25 am (UTC)Eye cream, no. Face scrub, once a month or so if she thinks she needs to. Lip balm we both use -- I just use petroleum jelly direct from the tub.
On the racial point, I could well have added a third distinct preference to my first paragraph; that I prefer non-Caucasian faces to Caucasian ones.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 06:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 07:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 07:18 am (UTC)to an extent
Date: 2008-01-19 07:26 am (UTC)i do agree with you to an extent. makeup is not so fashionable these days and i do not find it as attractive in the way you have described it,,, but at the same time i think that there maybe cases which will be exceptions.
native american and african face painting seems very nice to me. or for another version, face painting for children. this relates alot to makeup involved in high fashion today i think.. i mean hippy is in and i like it alot, but i dont know how far it should be taken.. it is a trend after all. i fancy myself dressing like a hippy prepster (im male btw) and i think that makeup would be wonderful but ofcourse i cant wear it because job issues and all of that. anyhow, to a certain extent i think that lame styles of makeup that dominate popular culture are bad, but maybe not makeup in general.
ie mac sells 24k gold eye shadow.. best, anonymous
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 04:50 pm (UTC)most people don't have that, she'd need makeup for the photo too - wouldn't the lighting have washed her out? where are the under eye circles ?
That aside, I prefer people in 'natural' makeup too. For myself, I am both way too lazy to put it on (unless I'm going for a job interview or going to visit family in which case I put some stuff on in an attempt to look healthy and well rested) and also scared that people would grow so accustomed to my 'made up' face and find me absolutely ugly and unrecognisable if I were ever to not wear it.
And quite possible because I like to make no effort in appearance, in the hopes that my personality will make up for an 'ugly' face.
Ofcourse, for other people, makeup is a mask, a mood modifier, an art, and that's cool. Same thing as clothing and or accessories.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 05:04 pm (UTC)But you're also one of the few people who can make lipstick look great too:
As for the eye shadow, more in your case is... well, more:
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-19 05:20 pm (UTC)I guess I'm not very skilled at putting it on. the lines are always uneven so I have to add more. and more. and more. ahahahaha!
webcam makes your features look really nice. it's like an inbuilt make-up-put-on filter. So the pictures are lies. all lies!
bare truth about bare faces
Date: 2008-01-20 02:44 am (UTC)"Ladies pinch, whores use blush!"
Date: 2008-01-20 08:28 pm (UTC)I think there's also a claim to authenticity at stake, or bragging rights. If you have to use make-up etc, you are not as really/authentically beautiful blah blah...there are bragging rights invovled if your mate looks beautiful, 'naturally'. I assume it's the same basis for the origin of that 'do the carpets match the drapes' joke and preferring real blondes to dyed blondes (even though I know you don't prefer blondes at all, Momus!)
But I agree, there's a world of difference between the no make-up make-up look and the drag queen look. The no-make-up look takes a lot more time, effort and money though.
I'm partial to the Sixties black eyeliner swoop though.
Which do you prefer (using Marc Jacob's latest muse, Irina Kulikova as an example):