I grew up with makeup. Our relationship began at my first dance recital when I was five years old and continued as I fell more and more in love with dance over the next nine years. Dance recitals, even for children, involved copious amounts of eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, blush, and lipstick. In addition, my sister used me as her own real life Barbie doll, convincing me in my young naive years that it would be fun to let her give me a makeover. By the time I was 10, makeup was a staple in my everyday life.

My relationship with makeup did not come without some cringe-worthy looks and phases especially throughout my middle school years (of course, I had to go through these phases during an already infamously awkward time of life). First, my pseudo-goth phase. This was spurred by a “coming-of-age” trip to Nordstrom’s after the end of the 5th grade so I could get makeup for middle school. Being the angsty, emo preteen I was, I chose dark eye shadow colors and made an effort create the perfect “dark and mysterious” look for the majority of middle school. When high school came around, I laughed at my old “emo” self and instead flipped sides to a bright, colorful look, that when paired with bright blue braces, definitely explains why I wasn’t attracting the crowd of boys my sister did at the time.

During the summer between my freshman and sophomore years, something in me changed. I reflected back on years of makeup-wearing and wondered why I needed it. It consumed so much time and money, and for what? So I could temporarily try and blend away all my acne and blemishes, and hide the asymmetricity of my eyelids? No matter what, I realized, I’m stuck with these imperfections for the rest of my life, and the more I try and cover them up, the harder it's going to be for me to accept and love myself. I knew I didn’t love myself, especially my physical appearance, but I wanted to. Of course, I wanted to, everyone wants to, right? So I decided to stop wearing makeup completely. I threw away some things or gave them to my sister, and stored what remained so I wouldn’t even be tempted to touch makeup.

And for the rest of high school, I lived each day makeup free and fought the insecurities that plagued my mind as a result. I hoped that the approach of teach-someone-to-swim-by-letting-them-drown would work for me learning to love myself. It certainly didn’t happen overnight, but it actually ended up working for me. Sometime around my senior year, I began to really feel confident and beautiful for the first time.

Before I knew it, senior year was coming to an end and prom was right around the corner. I already had the dress, but I realized I didn’t have any makeup and would need some for prom (over the years I did make special exceptions to my no-makeup rule for special occasions). First and foremost, I was determined to find the perfect Hollywood red lipstick to match my dress. This lead me on a far and wide search back into the world of makeup, and I ended up buying a lot more than I originally anticipated even though I told myself it was just for prom. Prom came and went, and big surprise, I gradually began to wear makeup again. Not a lot, nowhere near as much as my middle school and early high school years, but some.

The funny thing is, over the past year I’ve read a lot of articles like “I tried wearing makeup for a week and this is what happened” or “See how off these ladies were from guessing how much their makeup costs” and have mocked them endlessly. I could not for the life of me understand 1) why women spend so much time putting on makeup or even just wear it in the first place and 2) why women spend so much money on makeup. I judged women who wore makeup as giving in to society’s sexist desire and pressure to have women wear makeup. Looking back, I’m disgusted that I thought these thoughts because now I realize how judgmental I was being.

My on-and-off relationship with makeup and my development into a more tolerant human being has taught me that whether or not a woman wears makeup is her choice, and her choice alone, and regardless of what she chooses she does not deserve to be made fun of or mocked for that decision. I still believe that makeup started and can be reinforced today as a sexist ideal, but I also believe that women are empowered, independent thinkers who choose to wear makeup for their own reasons, whatever they may be. I don’t know where my relationship with makeup will go next, but I know that now that I love myself makeup is just a fun way for me to experiment with my natural beauty.