Mom and Makeup

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone!! Okay so makeup is a huge hobby of mine and I love it. My mom is super supportive of me wearing makeup, but only traditional stuff. I'm allowed to wear as much as I want, but only of certain colors. For instance, my mom hates it when I wear red, purple, pink, or any other color eyeshadow other than brown. She says that with my blonde hair and blue eyes, browns look best on me and the other colors look terrible. I don't know how to tell her that I don't really care about what "looks good on me". I just want to experiment and have fun, and I feel like she's holding me back. Advice please? Like I really love my Modern Renaissance palette and I wear it frequently but she hates when I wear it and doesn't mind telling me so (because of all the reds, pinks, purples, and oranges). What should I do to get her to lay off and let me do my own thing? 

Thanks, 
L (I'm 15 by the way and buy all of my makeup with my own money)

[stephfefe]

Hi Lucyw37, I completely understand where your coming from, I was dealing with the same thing a few years ago when I was your age. In my case my mother didn’t support me wearing makeup but she never stopped me, because I paid for it with my own money. Though that didn’t stop her from always criticized my makeup and at the time I always wore colorful makeup like you currently want to. I come from a family where people wear/ have a “normal” amount of makeup. No one in my family had the love and passion for makeup like I did which made it even harder because I had no one to defend me. My mother would say cruel things about how my makeup made me look i.e clownish, trashy, etc. and at the time it really hurt my feelings/annoyed me. When I was about your age I finally got to the point where I couldn’t deal with it anymore and I spoke with her. I explained that I love makeup and it’s away for me to express myself and yes I may look back in 5/10 years and think wtf was I doing but at least at the time it made me happy and I was able to experiment and be care free. I also let her know how her comments made me feel and how I was hurt by some of the things she said because I felt judged for expressing myself. Speaking with her really helped the situation, she still didn’t approve of my makeup choices but she kept her comments to herself and eventually she actually started asking me for makeup tips. I’m now in my 20’s and both my sister (who never judged me and always supported me) and my mother use me as their own personal beauty guru/ Sephora store. A year ago my mother even told me she was truly sorry for not supporting my love of makeup as a child and not understanding how I saw makeup as a form of art. She even said at the time she didn’t mean for those comments to come off as hurtful and was sorry for saying those things. I would suggest you speak with your mother and let her know how you feel and how her comments make you feel. Be very honest and open, she might be like my mother and not understand how her words are affecting you. After speaking with her if nothing changes then just do what makes you happy if you want to wear colorful looks you should do that. I sometimes look back at my old photos and laugh because I did look funny in some of them but I also look happy and if I could do it again I would still do the colorful fun looks. Makeup is art and art is suppose to be fun, exciting and wild. Don’t let anyone or anything hold you back. I hope this long rant helps you! 🙂

[Anonymous]

I totally get it, I was in the same situation. I explained to my mom it was almost more of hobby and expression of creativity rather than just enhancing my features. That it's fun for me. Then I just act unaffected (still respectful) when she would say she didn't like it. If she hated my eye makeup I'd just say "oh I really like this neutral lip gloss though" It took time and was frustrating for sure, but with time she realized how much I loved it and started pointing out the things she did like. Everyone's different though- but I hope this helps! 🙂