Beauty blogging with brains.

 

So a tweet from myself last night  has proved to my post popular tweet ever, with almost 100 likes. I know that in the grand scheme of things, 100 likes means comparatively little, but it was the subject that struck a chord with me and has seemingly resonated with so many of you.

The tweet was about being able to love makeup whilst also being an intelligent person. To quote it exactly, ‘One thing that annoys me about makeup is people think by wearing it you lose brain cells. I am intelligent AND I love lipstick’. 

I wanted to touch more on this because clearly so many of you felt the same. As it turns out, enjoying makeup and being intelligent are not mutually exclusive - rocking a red lip does not make your IQ decrease, and indulging in night cream doesn’t mean you don’t care about anything else. I don’t want this to turn into an angry, Germaine Greer inspired rant (although maybe?), but I think the root of the problem stems from makeup and beauty being stereotypically associated with ultra-feminine qualities. A 1950s housewife might powder her nose before serving her husband dinner, but this is 2016 and I can wear makeup whenever I want and still intellectually kick your arse. To be taken seriously in a traditionally masculine environment, do you have to set aside your love of beauty? Makeup can be a tremendous source of comfort and strength for a great deal of people, as well as it being an incredibly creative medium and I simply don’t accept that you must compromise

As someone who, obviously, writes a beauty blog I sometimes feel when I explain it to other people that it gets dismissed. Would it be so readily ignored if I had a blog about politics, or music, or sport? Yeah, thought so. A lot of people in my personal life don’t really care about me blogging about beauty, and just see it as frivolous. To which I ask why? It’s not the only thing I talk about, but when beauty does crop up in conversation, it’s often met with eye rolls or subject changes.

I know that I blog about beauty, a lot. This doesn’t mean that beauty is the only thing rattling around in my head, and I doubt it’s the only thing currently occupying your thoughts. Being able to tell your Russian Red from your Ruby Woo at 50 paces is something to be embraced, not to be scorned.

You know what? Fuck anyone who questions, judges or belittles your love of beauty. You are beautifully intelligent. 

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