A makeup free lockdown is just as acceptable as a makeup wearing lockdown. And here’s why.
I’m seeing a lot of posts recently. About how to wear your makeup for a Zoom work call.
I think it’s great. If makeup is 100% your bag and you love wearing it for no other reason that you love makeup, then great, there are a bunch of videos out there on how to do your makeup for camera. I’m sure I will even create one at some point. But if makeup isn’t your thing then don’t feel pressured in to wearing it at home.
Our homes are our places to feel comfortable in our own skin, even if we aren’t able to feel totally comfortable outside of the house. Working from home has now sort of stepped on our safe place and turned it in to the office. With that in mind, we need to make sure to take care of our mental health as well as our physical health.
Don’t get me wrong, I have switched on a zoom call and thought – Christ I look dead! but you know what, I don’t look dead. It’s usually the terrible lighting or my crappy webcam (is it still called a webcam?). My point is, looking at ourselves under bad lighting every single day or feeling like we can’t be ourselves in our own homes is going to have a negative impact on our minds. I should know, I literally spent the best part of a decade suffering from body dysmorphia. I went to work every single day in a studio with overhead lighting a mirror pointing right at me for 8 hours at a time.
Perhaps this new lockdown should be a time for us to create some boundaries between the work space and the home space. To move away from feeling as though we need to wear more makeup than usual to feel comfortable on camera.
If you’re not totally ready to go all in and bare faced today, perhaps tomorrow, leave off the lipstick, and then next week, maybe the eyeliner. Maybe one day we can be comfortable wearing just blush, a bit of lipstick or nothing all. My best advice for day to day wear on the skin, is to get a good oil. Or in fact, just a face oil in general. I love this one but it’s on the pricey side. This one is much more pandemic friendly.
Honestly, the biggest tip that I can give you, if you feel uncomfortable with the way you look on camera is to change the angle that you’re sitting at. It’s best to face directly in to the natural light, so have your laptop so that you are facing out towards your nearest window and voila, instant brightener. Harsh side lighting can age us pretty quickly so ensuring that the light is nice, natural and not overhead will make all the difference.
I can almost guarantee that no-one will notice if you aren’t wearing makeup. I can also guess that half of the people on the call will only be wearing day-appropriate clothing from the waist up. Do whatever makes you comfortable regarding wearing makeup, but just make sure that you are doing it because you love makeup, not because of any misconceptions that we have about the way we look.
Let’s just try to have a makeup free lockdown, where we grow to become comfortable within our own skin and in our newly acquired office/home.
You can check out some of my barely there makeup looks on my makeup portfolio.
