Is It Unprofessional To Not Wear Makeup

Over the past few months, I've read several essays linking makeup and professionalism. Written past fashionable women working in corporate America, these articles insist that daily makeup application is a must for working women, and that going without it may dethrone your image of competence and reliability. They inevitably cite a contempo written report, the results of which indicate that women wearing just the right amount of makeup announced more than trustworthy and likable to most observers. And they send readers scrambling to Sephora to upgrade their stashes.

I never experimented with makeup as a girl and didn't fifty-fifty learn to pluck my eyebrows until I was 30. The older I go, the more I detect myself relying on cosmetics to define and conceal, shape and highlight my features. And although I'd rather spend my precious minutes reading or sleeping or kissing my husband, I don't actively resent my ever-expanding makeup application routine.

I practice, notwithstanding, resent the implication that a woman without makeup doesn't belong in the workplace, or that applying makeup is essential to career success. And hither's why:

Laws versus policing
I encourage my readers and clients to select clothing that fits their figures and broadcasts their confidence and self-respect. I believe that dressing is a social contract and that understanding the norms surrounding appropriate dressing choice for various life situations will ease homo relationships. But I am as well aware that there are laws about clothing. Actual laws that utilise to both men and women. To become about in public and not be fined or arrested, humans must exist clothed. And in my opinion, since we've got to get dressed anyhow, we might also do information technology expressively and in ways that feel good. Since dressing is social, we can also brand style choices that will make us appear polished, impressive, and self-enlightened. Then, in my view, acquiring an agreement of how to dress is both benign and required.

In that location are no laws almost wearing makeup. Makeup is entirely optional everywhere. Although some men clothing makeup, the majority of makeup consumers and wearers are women. And to tell these women that they should experience obliged to apply makeup on a daily ground in lodge to garner the respect and admiration of their colleagues is to police their behaviors based solely on social norms. To say that makeup is essential to workplace achievement is to promote the belief that the functioning of traditional femininity is the only route to professional success for women. To insist on a ready of grooming-related behaviors that doesn't remove dirt or odor, doesn't brand something that is naturally messy await neater, and really just serves to "enhance" or "amplify" sure facial features is to remind women that their concrete selves are never going to exist acceptable in their natural land.

I understand that there are enough of voluntary behaviors that man beings engage to further their personal goals, enough of things nosotros do because they're beneficial though not required. And withal this case is so focused on forcing women to be and expect ane specific way, I can't assist but experience information technology is more than near reinforcing existing social norms than it is near ensuring the professional success of women every bit a group.

The fine line
But what about that report, you ask? Well, first off, it was funded by Procter & Gamble, a company that manufactures and sells makeup and was undoubtedly thrilled to see results linking makeup and trustworthiness. But perhaps more chiefly, the results emphasized that while barefaced is also little, "glamorous" is likewise much. If you apply just the right amount of eyeshadow and blush, yous appear more capable, reliable and amiable. But overdo it and "there may be a lowering of trust."

So not only are you being asked to spend coin on cosmetics and spend your time and energy applying them, you must be very careful not to apply too trivial or too much or yous risk ruining everything. Without makeup, y'all're unprofessional, inexperienced, a hippie or a child or a socially oblivious loser. With as well much makeup yous're unprofessional in an entirely different way, withal socially oblivious merely more on the sexualized diva end of the spectrum.

There are parallels to dressing, hither, of course: Women are expected to dress in ways that aren't too dowdy or too slutty. Fall also far on either side and you chance ridicule and censure by the lady-policing machinery built into modernistic society. This is zero yous'll ever hear me defending. But again, wearing wear is required by law and since yous've got to get dressed anyway, choosing to align your lawfully required garments with social expectations may work to your benefit. Makeup is optional. And if y'all aren't naturally interested in it and yous ARE going to exist judged negatively should you lot fail to employ the exact correct amount of information technology, why carp at all?

Focus on accomplishment
I give presentations on professional wearing apparel and preparation to college seniors and women'southward leadership programs, and so you'll never hear me say that how you nowadays your physical self in professional person situations is irrelevant. Simply hither's a tidbit that goes into every single lecture I deliver: Comportment, demeanor, apparel, grooming, and overall appearance constitute the first levels of information about ourselves that we offer to the observing world. They may non be the most important, but they are the first, which makes them worthy of effort and attention.

What I hope to convey to my audience members is that blending personal style and comfort preferences with environmental expectations tin help you create looks that feel swell and allow you to forget all about what you await like so you can focus on your bulletin, your piece of work, your passion. I also remind them that badly applied makeup is generally considered to be worse than no makeup at all, and that it's completely fine to skip information technology. I want them to feel confident and empowered, and I want them to think more about their goals than their shoes.

By telling women that a perfectly applied face up of makeup is a prerequisite for career success, we are telling them that how they look is more than important than what they know or what they have accomplished. We are telling them that their natural faces will distract people, that being pretty is necessary regardless of circumstance, that performing femininity in exactly the correct style isn't just helpful, it'southward essential. Insisting that makeup become integral to a professional adult female's daily life subtly tells her that if she doesn't look right information technology won't matter how smart or creative or innovative or capable she is. And that is patently untrue.

Since I've admitted to being a makeup novice myself, I realize I may sound defensive. And maybe I am. When I read this spate of makeup-career articles, the underlying message I got was, "If y'all don't clothing makeup, you don't await like a grownup to other grownups." And that sentiment makes me want to break things. Some developed women wear makeup and others don't. Learning to apply makeup is a rite of passage for many, simply it is non a skill set up required for acceptance into the Grown-Donkey Woman Club. Any more than than having children or going to college or losing your virginity or working exterior the home or any of the other capricious markers of so-chosen "real" womanhood are. Being a woman can be washed in space ways, and forging a successful career path can play out in infinite ways. Accomplished, professional, grown women can take on the world at whatsoever age, at whatsoever stage, and in any way they see fit.

And they can do information technology with or without lipstick and foundation.