a dA friend of mine posted a rant on 'natural beauty' on his journal. Basically he thinks that he doesn't see the point of women 'needing' makeup for everyday life, and it's an indication of a need to cover their low self-esteem. He would love to hear your opinion on it. You can read the entire article here [link] I really appreciate that you took the time to read it. Here's the article, copied and pasted for those who aren't inclined to click:
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"(Especially women, but guys too)

This one message board I'm reading through made me think about how so many people seem to hide themselves under all kinds of things. Makeup was the firestarter in this case - someone said they preferred women without makeup. And I agreed. Then a flurry of women flocked the thread and yelled something about us being chauvinistic, telling how should women dress and all kinds of wacky shit considering we honestly just said: "I like natural women, women without makeup." Even when I elaborated that it's just a preference, not a prequisite for what I'm looking for in a girl, it made very little difference.

So. This brings me to this page - I entered searchwords "Natural Beauty" to the search. What stunned me was that the most popular picture was a woman, who obviously had makeup on her face (at least lipstick), not even mentioning Photoshop. Of course the popularity thingy was probably due to the said woman having somewhat biggish breasts - some of us men are such simple creatures.. Anyhow, I did comment the said picture too, saying it was mocking the real natural beauty. As this has occurred less than 30 mins ago, I don't have an answer from the artist yet.

The rest of the results are somewhat less aggravating, with trees, flowers, landscapes and such, but still, I fail to see more than 1 woman without makeup in the first few pages. From a couple of pictures it's hard to tell if the woman/girl is wearing makeup, I'll give you that. And sorry, I'm not trying to offend you in the results if by some weird chance you'd happen to read this journal (Doubt this gets read at all but I'll write for my own pleasure anyway).

I also used Google, and Photobucket. Honestly, I never thought that finding a picture of a woman/girl without makeup would be this hard! So, now that I've padded the way a bit, here's the real rant:

What is it with people these days, why is it really that hard to go around all natural (no, I'm not meaning nude)? In specific, for women, without wearing any makeup? I happen to know maybe one woman in real life (apart from my mother) that can go to the mailbox without putting on makeup first. Why?
For the life of me, even how hard it's been tried to explain for me - I just fail to see the need for using makeup; Save for maybe some formal galas or such. But even then I think people could live without painting their faces.
Of course, some persons derive their self-esteem from it, and well.. I'm just sorry for their self-esteem if it's that low, and kinda pity them - and not pitying in an insulting way. I've been in the position where my self-esteem was so low I was thinking of killing myself and I know it sucks when you have no faith on your own self and looks.
But now I know better.

And no, I don't expect that people would just smack their foreheads and go "Oh! He's right! I've been a silly person!" and throw their 50 pairs of shoes away, or that anyone would magically get their self-esteem repaired to a level they can go about their own business in public without the need to feel ashamed (for what reason, I can never understand.)

But what I find just so damn funny and sad is that it really is women who enforce the use of makeup, not men. Most of the people in the thread who were thinking that without makeup is better, were men. A couple of women too, but unsurprisingly, their opinions were outright ignored by other women.

Also in threads that it spawned, and were active before the first "war-one" it became appallingly clear that women really are the sex that seems to put the preference on looks more than men, despite feminists always mouthing off what kind of perverts and pigs us men are if we happen to find large breasts arousing (for the record, I don't, too much just is too much). Among the things that were listed the most disgusting was balding - especially Androgenic alopecia (look that one up on Wikipedia, I did) - a condition which is something men have no control over, hairloss is genetic, and remedies for it are hazy at best, even if not outright pathetic with wigs.

That hit a weak spot, I suffer from it as my father did. I started gradually to bald at elementary school (somewhere around 8th grade I - or more importantly my schoolmates - noticed my hair had thinned), and even though I still retain somewhat of nice set of hair, I'm pretty sure most of it has been diminished completely by the time I'm 25. That's roughly a bit over 4 years.

Okay, that went on to my "tragic past" -section and not really relevant in any other way that why I got so upset about the whole deal. I'm by the way not ashamed about the fact that I'm going to become bald, since I've known about it my whole life, I've had the time to get used to the idea. But I know that there are many many men in the world that are utterly embarrassed about it.

Well, there were other things mentioned that weren't as personal to me in the thread, but in the end, the list of bad qualities - simply just by in appearance, was huge. I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet it was, if even by an inch, longer than the list of negative personality traits. And I felt like someone punched me in the gut. I really thought that women really weren't that superficial, but apparently that's the case. And yes, not all women are like that. But the sad thing is, apparently quite a lot them are.

It could be, of course, that by some freak coincidence the handful of men in the forum were not that concerned about looks, but more about that the woman wasn't dumb as a brick, and the women obsessed about how long must be the penis of a man be and that he can't be bald. Could be possible, of course. Not counting that one out, since I know lot of people on the forum have come from another forum that is a womens magazine (Cosmopolitan to be exact) -forum.

So. What is it with you women? Why do YOU feel the need to put on your morning makeup so you dare to go have breakfast with your family? Could you even fathom the idea of going for a walk in the summer rain, without waterproof makeup, with the guy of your dreams (or even the guy that's your current boyfriend/husband)?
Please, discuss. If you even dared to read this much.

tl;dr: I just made a bunch of outrageous arguments about women in general. Cue the hordes of wimminz coming at me with knifes in their hands.

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P.S. I know I'm probably oversimplifying and overgeneralizing, and of course my point of view is, at the bottom of it, male."
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As for my personal opinion on this matter, it is echoed by a blog entry by Singaporean blogger Xiaxue [link]

thanks for reading!