How long to apply makeup each day? How much energy spent shopping for beauty products? Looking in the mirror? For several people with whom 24 hours discussed Choosing to stop wearing makeup is a way to free yourself from this mental burden.
• Read also: Wear makeup to find your identity
“Makeup” is a time-consuming ritual in a person’s life that is done every morning. But beyond the time devoted to exercise, it is the relief of no longer having to think about it that especially strikes the people questioned by the 24 hours.
For them, choosing to no longer wear makeup has increased their level of happiness in addition to reducing the mental load on a daily basis.
mental load
“Having to plan to put on makeup so be less spontaneous, having to be careful with my mask, feeling less confident when I’m not wearing one,” explains Juliette Dupont, 24. “All that has disappeared since I stopped doing makeup.”
The mental load is all the upstream work: anticipating, planning, organizing. It’s also doing something — like a job interview — while thinking about something else — “do I have lipstick on my tooth?”
And this cognitive load carried in large part by women requires time, energy, and causes stress and exhaustion.
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The pressure to be perfect
“By taking the pressure off of being perfect, of having to adjust my makeup often, I’ve even decreased how often I look in the mirror. I give priority to how I feel rather than what I look, ”says Noémie Eclipse.
The 32-year-old tattoo artist recently decided makeup wasn’t for her, “and that’s fine,” she confesses.
“I am relieved to attach less and less importance to my appearance, and to no longer try to correspond to the image of the woman that society projects to us”, continues Noémie.
“You look tired”
For her part, Valérie Tanguay, 33, gave up makeup after confinement and maternity leave. According to her, society often forces women to present themselves in their “best light” and it is sometimes confronting to assume the dark circles of a bad night’s sleep.
“The administrative assistant at my work, when she doesn’t wear any makeup at all, people tell her ‘sweet you look really tired'” she underlines.
“I myself often thought that I had to put on a little makeup just to take my son to daycare, otherwise the world would think I was overwhelmed.”
But not anymore.
“The make-up, I simply decided to give up on it,” she says. “I decided that I felt just as presentable without.”
Related: “Wearing Makeup to Find Your Identity”