How Makeup Made Me Feel Insecure

Today’s blog post is a personal story about my makeup insecurities, that I finally feel confident enough to share with you: how I wanted to wear makeup to feel more empowered and ended up feeling more insecure!

Wearing makeup has been labeled in the past as a sign to hide your own insecurities and flaws. But to be confident with or without makeup is a whole other story, and today I will not be talking about makeup shaming. Today’s blog is instead about having an healthy relationship with makeup and with my story, I hope to inspire you to experiment, to learn, to practise “try and error”, and above all, not to be obsessed with a specific outcome. Here’s the story of my makeup insecurities.

Social media struggles

We have to be honest: in some instances, Instagram and Youtube makeup tutorials might seem unattainable. Don’t get me wrong: I take makeup photos and videos too 🙂 and I am aware of the amount of effort and hours of work that go into getting the perfect setting and lights…but my provocative question today is: are we exaggerating? don’t we pass on a false idea of what our makeup should look like? Well, this is what happened to me and it made me doubt my own skills.

The blame is, first of all, on me: I have struggled with insecurity in the past and perfect social media postings have unfortunately exacerbated these negative feelings. I was constantly comparing my results with other content creators, and instead of being positively inspired by them, I was aspiring to a degree of perfection that does not belong to the everyday life. Soon, I felt discouraged and overwhelmed. I thought that I was not good enough, and that my face features were wrong. Then, finally, my mindset switched.

I am enough

I had to remind myself of two key things. First, people will always judge you, regardless of how good or bad you are at whatever aspect of your life. I am me and I am enough and that is it. Second, makeup is something that I love and it should always be fun and never a source of stress! I realized that feeling anxious and insecure was the opposite effect that I was trying to achieve with makeup. For this reason, I had to stop replicating every single makeup trend and trying to make it perfect. ( I am a perfectionist too :P).

Nowadays, we are “exposed” to our physical appearance constantly: mirrors, photos, videos etc. We can literally watch our image for hours, and even if we say to ourselves that it is fine to look natural, pride will kick in and push you to find the best angle and light.

That is why the Makeup Guide is not only an educational tool, but it reflects who I am and how I live my makeup routine. The Makeup Guide allows you to understand what it is best for you with your own timing and the colors your prefer. You have the right to change look and style and to experiment with makeup in your own terms.

My makeup insecurities

Makeup made me feel insecure in so many ways. First of all, as mentioned, wearing makeup made me feel insecure of my own face features. I started to question every inch of my face! My eye shape, my face shape, everything looked wrong to me! I also felt anxious and started questioning my own makeup skills. When I went out with my friends, all I could think about was if I had applied my makeup correctly. I would even check on it every time I could.

Eyebrows

Every couple of years, we can see a new Instagram brow trend coming up. But I feel that how a person decides to do their eyebrows should be more personal. I think that the classic well-groomed eyebrows with a medium thickness is the look I tend to go to and that it makes me feel good.

Contouring

Although you might be familiar with those very popular contouring charts that you can find online, contouring and highlighting depend on your facial features! Trying to replicate them 1:1 might look unflattering on your face. You might not need to contour all your face features 🙂

Blending

Blending is so important and rightfully so! I felt insecure about my blending skills in the past, and I have found a solution that works for me. If I am unsure, all I need to do is to “double check” my makeup both under artificial and sun light. In so doing, I am confident enough that my makeup will look flawless.

Eye shape

We all have different eye shapes, and even though we can categorise them, it might still be unclear for many. First of all, embrace whatever eye shape you have, and never think that you cannot rock a specific kind of look just because of that. Feel free to experiment in spite of this!

In conclusion, if you have been feeling the same, I hope to inspire you to change your mindset. I would like to encourage you to leave all those makeup insecurities behind and to start having fun with makeup again!