#americanmakeup

This week, we continued to study differences in cultural makeup, by taking a deeper look into the beauty standards of the women of France, and the ways they desire to enhance their features. After doing research, Maria, Liz and I found that the French focus on doing their makeup in order to simply enhance their natural features. In order to do this, I kept things very simple and created what Americans would call a no makeup makeup look—which is typically what I prefer to do myself.

I started by cleansing my face and adding a nourishing moisturizer to rejuvenate my natural skin. After doing so, I applied a light bb cream all over my face. This enabled me to achieve an evenness throughout my skin tone, while still allowing the imperfections of my natural skin to show through. Once doing this, I very lightly concealed under my eyes and any larger blemishes on my face. Once I felt my skin looked like itself, just slightly better, I moved on to enhancing my features. In order to keep everything looking as natural as possible, I used a small amount of bronzer to slightly contour my cheekbones, and a bit of cream blush in order to give my cheeks a naturally flushed color. I then added the slightest bit of highlighter to give a natural shine to my complexion, and filled in my eyebrows a bit in order to make them look fuller. Lastly, I used a bright red lipstick, as is so commonly done by the French to enhance their lips.

After creating this French inspired makeup look on myself, and not only seeing but also experiencing it, I felt quite comfortable—aside from the bold lip, that is. Through the popularity of this technique, in which one enhances the face’s natural features rather than applying heavy amounts of makeup to drastically transform the face, it can be assumed that women within French culture may have higher overall senses of self-esteem. In fact, this is quite a common difference between genders, as men statistically tend to have higher self-esteem. Within my own personal experience, as well as those of friends’, we as women often compare ourselves to one another. So much so, that we even compare the nitty gritty differences in the features on our faces, such as the length of our eyelashes. This has lead to excessive trends within American makeup, which prevent it from being used as simply a means of expressing oneself through enhancing their natural features. Instead, makeup can become the means to transform these features entirely. Today, this is seen with women, but even more drastically in men as well.

However, rather than using makeup to completely transform what appears to be the entire structure of one’s face (as often done in America), the French embrace and enhance the natural structural features they were given. Perhaps through this expression of what makes a person beautiful within French culture one can argue that the differences seen in genders, specifically in regard to self-esteem, may be less drastic. Moreover, this greater sense of self-esteem may also correlate to the culture’s high levels of independence amongst its people. 

Since I was little, I have always been fascinated by makeup. When I was young I often played with my mom’s products and attempted to doll myself up to look and feel beautiful. Now that I am older and have studied different techniques and styles of makeup, that fascination has turned into a bit of a passion for me. As I have done individuals’ makeup for their proms, weddings, etc. I like to consider each person’s face a unique canvas. Along with this, I find the different styles of makeup done throughout different cultures quite interesting. So, to dive deeper into the differences in standards of beauty across different cultures, Liz, Maria, and I decided to try to create different cultural styles of makeup, and therefore observe differences in what different cultures consider beautiful.

To start off, I had Maria be my model, while Liz took pictures. We started with a popular Japanese inspired look. After watching several tutorials on makeup inspired from this culture, we found that the overall objective is to make the face look as doll-like as possible. To do this, I kept Maria’s skin very matte with bright rosy cheeks and eyes. When applying these colors to her eyelids I kept my brush strokes in a downward motion, in order to create a drooped eye effect. Along with bright colors on her eyelids, I used white on the lower water line in order to really open the eye up and create the illusion of a larger eye. This Japanese makeup look also uses contour beginning under the cheek bone and taken all the way down to the jaw line in order to create a v shaped face. Lastly, this look also emphasizes straight and short eyebrows at an attempt to narrow the face.  

The style of makeup which is achieved within this Japanese look truly represents the interdependent personality, as it strives to present a childlike and doll-like effect. The makeup look presents this personality type because it portrays a young, innocent, and dependent individual through its enhancements of childlike features. Through this, Japanese culture appears to see beauty as young and vibrant.

After creating the Japanese look, I then moved onto the American style of makeup. In America, we often like to keep the skin matte, yet add definition and color to the skin with highlighter, contour/bronzer, and blush. Americans tend to use a subtle amount of peachy toned blush just to the apples of the cheeks to bring some color into the face, along with a large amount of highlighter to the cheek bones and nose. When it comes to contour however, the American and Japanese techniques are very different. Rather than starting under the cheek bone and taking the contour down to their jaw bone, Americans strive for the look of a strong shadow directly under the cheek bone. To accomplish this, I placed contour directly under Maria’s cheek bone, and then went back to sharpen up the line using setting powder. Now for the eyes, I created a warm and bronzy look all over Maria’s eye. When applying this, I kept my brush strokes in an upward motion in order to enhance the eye and really lift the structure of the face entirely. Lastly, and most importantly of course, the eyebrows. American makeup puts great emphasis on full, arched, and long brows, to also lift the features of the face all together.

One of the things I find to be most interesting in comparing these two culture’s styles of makeup, is that the Japanese tend to desire that their face look small and petit, while American’s wish to lift the structure of their face entirely to create and more defined look. This really shows the more independent personality seen in Americans because it strives for a strong, mature, and bold appearance.

I was the makeup model this week, as Madison was the artist and Liz the photographer. We did some research on common Japanese makeup standards then attempted to recreate a popular look. Japanese face makeup often trends towards bright colors on the eye lids, as well as rosy cheeks as achieved by the use of stains instead of blush. Since we did not have access to stain, we used blush instead. Eye liner and fake lashes are often used to help create a very doll like look in the face. As far as contouring goes, Japanese women often contours lightly to stress a v shape in the face. For their lips, more pigment is preferred in the middle then lightly extends outward. Since I do not have a very fair complexion thanks to my Italian roots, the pigmented cheeks were difficult to recreate on the face. It was interesting to see how different cultures highlight different parts of the face, which obviously has to do with skin tones and facial features that are unique to the culture. But we did our best to recreate the look, as seen below...

After attempting a Japanese makeup regimen, we then recreated what we would describe as an American makeup look. American makeup often stresses well-groomed eyebrows, with an emphasis on the arch. Plump looking lips (with either a bold or natural color) and heavy contouring under the cheekbones is common. Highlighter is also utilized to provide a nice shine above the cheekbones and on the nose. For eyes, we went with a darker neutral colored look, which involved some shimmery eye shadow. We also used some eye liner, as well as fake lashes. Lash extensions are growing in popularity in America, but since none of us have extensions, we settled with false lashes. After Madison did my American style makeup, I felt very confident and pretty, which I did not personally feel while wearing the Japanese makeup. This really made me appreciate how different cultures use makeup in different ways to feel beautiful!