Okay, so today was the first day of what I am calling my “Face Fast”. I have decided to go for 7 days without putting any product on my face. This means no makeup, no base, no concealer, no moisturizer, no toner, no NOTHING…

I am allowing myself to wear lipbalm, because if I don’t my lips get all chappy and gross, so thats okay. But I justify it because lips aren’t the same type of skin as the rest of my face so thats what I’m doing.

Anyway, today was the first day. It is almost embarrassing how difficult it was to get out the door without doing it. As I looked at my naked face, I seriously felt almost ashamed that this was the face I am presenting to the world today. It was bad. Why should I feel obligated to wear makeup? And the truth is, people often think I DON’T wear make up. That is to say, that even though I wear make up to work everyday, it is seriously light and natural, meant only to cover blemishes and open my eyes. On the weekends, I am pefectly comfortable sweeping some lose powder on my face, and a few swipes of mascara only. But today, nada.

I don’t know if it makes me angry, or if it makes me laugh that all day, 4/5 people I ran into at work (which is a high school, by the way) asked if I was either a) sick? b)tired? or c)angry?

Why must I be in some state of disarray just because I don’t have artificial colorization on my face? To be honest, I am pretty surprised how much it irritated me. I guess our society has just really decided that makeup makes a “put together woman”… I don’t know.

Someone today at work actually made the comment that I looked less “professional” today… isn’t that interesting? That from the outside, I look less prepared/capable of doing my job because I don’t have any makeup on. I found that intriguing.

It was pretty funny though when I told my students, because I said, “Hey guys, I’m really sorry to have to do this to you, but I’m not wearing makeup all week… so, sorry about that.” They laughed, and said they couldn’t tell the difference… little punks.