“A woman should wear fragrance wherever she expects to be kissed”-Coco Chanel
Laura Reynolds looks at some of the cheapest beauty products available
Which is why the desired effect is always effortlessness. The artfully mussed up hair for that “just got out of bed but actually took hours to achieve” look. The oversized check shirt that looks as if you just picked it off your boyfriend’s floor and flung it on, whereas you actually bought it two sizes too big just to achieve that very effect. No-one likes to admit that they actually spend time on how they look, which is why university can be a difficult place to develop your own look without feeling judged.
As a gawky teenager, I was the very picture of gangly nerdiness, my hair dutifully scraped back into a bun that gave me more than a passing resemblance to a boiled egg, my uniform of purple hoodie and jeans the height of fashion (in my eyes). Discovering clothes, discovering how to make myself look good became important in my life and hair dye, make up and heels were no longer things confined to the beautiful people.
Vintage hair and make-up always obsessed me. The effortless curls, the perfectly arched eyebrow, the phone-box red lips, the slight knowing seductive smile, a turn away from the ordinary, from school, from homework. Each day I turned up to sixth form, I was living my own black and white film in my head, one day a jilted ballerina with elaborate bun and hair ribbons, the next a Victorian schoolchild with plaits and a Peter Pan collar.
University is different. It’s no longer socially acceptable to turn up to a class in a smart pencil skirt and heels, people wonder whether you’re a business manager and have wandered in the wrong door. The sound of heels on a concrete floor attract attention and people automatically yet silently judge. A girl with long hair, lipstick and heels? Bimbo. Feeling as if people are scrutinising you is never a fun thing, and the fear of being branded an overly girly girl leaves you swapping the heels for sensible boots, the lipstick for Vaseline, the long hair tied back.
People’s opinions of you are mainly from first impressions. We all judge, we all make presumptions – how many times have you assumed that someone will have less interesting things to say because they’re more made-up or are wearing a shorter skirt than usual?
Girls these days have a difficult job. We’re expected to look great but not so great that it’s “try-hard”. We’re expected to keep up with the boys, matching them drink for drink, joining in “banter”, laughing at jokes at the expense of our own sex, whilst also trying to be a girl. Breaking out the red lipstick before a lecture may seem “try-hard” but if it makes you happy, then do it. It’s your life, your body and if people judge, let them judge.
I think you make a good point, but the fact remains for me that you feel you have to dress up whenever you leave the house. You describe your love of vintage clothes and looks because it was ' a black and white film' in your head which was apart from the 'ordinary' - i.e. reality. It was a departure, you say, from the 'gawky teenager' of before who didn't understand how to look good.
My question would be, why is it so important to look good? Why were you unhappy with the former you, whose purple hoodie and jeans was as much an expression of yourself as your vintage look is today?
I absolutely advocate your decision to live your life without any care for who judges you. But have you perhaps considered that when you do feel that people see a girl with the hair, the lips and the skirt as a 'bimbo,' it is because of the very time you are evoking when you wear your vintage style? A different fashion milieu in which women had very different social roles, and a time, perhaps that thought women had 'less interesting things to say'?
Girls absolutely have a difficult job these days. But the way out of it is to say, I reject the forms of beauty imposed on me, and I don't need to hide behind make-up or fashion to feel beautiful. Do things that make you happy, but don't let 'breaking out the lipstick' make you feel beautiful; in fact, if we really didn't care what anyone thought, we wouldn't be constantly looking to feel beautiful at all.
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