Live and Let Lipstick


Recently I've been a lot more active on Twitter. It's just a place I can go and surround myself with people I don't necessarily know in person but who fill my feed with good vibes and positivity. I actively try to follow people who inspire me to be a better person and to keep on grinding. And it's really fucking cool. Literally random strangers complimenting each other and boosting each other, it's probably one of the best decisions I've made.

That said, I have noticed something a lot more since becoming more active. Sitting there, intertwined with the girl gang awesomeness and fun times, lies something insidious and frankly quite dangerous. The other day, a girl who I love, an artist who tweets constantly about girl power and female fabness, retweeted another girl who was ragging on somebody for 'over-contouring' (whatever the hell that is). And this reaaalllyyy annoyed me! How could somebody who is usually such an advocate for girl love and ending girl hate, retweet and agree with something that demonises something that girls love?

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Let's put this into context a little bit. There is quite an unfair and irritating trend in our culture that usually looks something like this:

Females: Take an interest in thing
Thing: Becomes a super popular trend
Media: IF YOU LIKE THIS POPULAR THING THEN YOU ARE STUPID
Females: Feel ashamed for liking the thing

You don't want to be like those other stupid girls, right? Good, so here, why don't you take to Twitter and call out your fellow ladies for their interests. Go you!

Well, no. Actually, by giving a negative or snarky comment on what other girls find fun and interesting, and heck, go out of their way to produce content about to share their joy with other like-minded people about, you are just as bad! I see so much hate for contouring on a day to day basis on my social media feeds. Or girls calling other girls out for having bad eyebrows, or not doing their make-up 'right'.

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A few things, then. Firstly, why does what another person does to their face have any effect on your daily life, so much so that you would go out of your way to tweet that said thing annoys you. Why? It literally has no bearing on your existence whatsoever, and I guess if someone's make-up really is offending you that much then just...look away, I guess?

Secondly, make-up is all about expression and art, when you really look at it. And how one experiences art is all down to personal taste. So if you don't like contouring but another person does, that's great! The world would be a very boring place if we all agreed all the time. The trick is to not be an arse about it!

Lastly, don't act like you don't scroll back through your Facebook tagged photos and reel in horror at your 5-years-ago eyebrows. Because we all do. But think back to that time. Didn't you think you looked cool as fuck? Of course you did! So that annoying girl who pissed you off with her contouring so much you had to tweet about it is probably feeling herself right now, and who the hell are you to rain on her parade?

Please stop getting so offended with how others choose to present themselves to the world, and finally, do me a favour. Take a photo of yourself right now. Go on, take one. Bank it away. Then, in five years time, take a look at that photo. I guarantee there will be one thing about your current look that'll have future you going 'girl, what in the HELL were you thinking?!' And that's fine, because right now you've presented yourself to the world how you wanted to today because you think how you look now is cute. And it's true, you do look cute now, because you get to decide what is cute on you and what isn't, not social media or any other bullshit person trying to tell you otherwise.

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Talk later xoxo


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