Made up!

I find it very funny when people wear make up. Ofcourse its one's very own prerogative to do so but I can't understand why, when the beholder can very well make out that the face is 'made up', take all pains to make it look more artificial?

Dark or fair, smooth or wrinkled, clear face or pimpled, I like faces as they are. I mean, it makes the person look all the more natural and pleasing. You know that when a person wears make up, the seemingly impressive face is not original and what's the point in showing up a false image? I can understand people using cosmetics for health reasons like maybe oil, sun screens, moisturisers and the likes but those garish coloured lipsticks with a one-inch thick pancake, added with thick eye liners, mascara, bleached hair, waxed face, threaded eyebrows - hmmm.. at times these people are no different than mannequins. And can't understand why that more than men, women are obsessed with cosmetics.

Looks like marriage is the occasion of a lifetime for a girl - the time when she could literally try out all beautifying(?) techniques with a whooping bill! I remember how my cousin had cashed out about 5000 Rs. for her wedding make up! And since the wedding took place in a small town, she also arranged for the beautician to come down from Madras - so boarding, lodging, travel costs exta. All this just makes me wonder - is this fuss worth it at all? And in all the snaps, you only see the bride as a pale while ghost - too much painting to make her appear as her original self! Do these girls realise that their close ones love them not more or less for the extra powder dabbed onto their skins?

Considering the thriving businesses of foreign cosmetic industries here, its sad to note that all the traditional, home-made beautifying techniques are being shunned. The traditional ones are not only good but do not have side effects either. The effects of oil, shiyakkai, turmeric (anti-fungant, natural bleach, hair remover, what not!), kadalai maavu and the likes can be replaced in lieu of the artifical, highly chemical-based modern cosmetics. I think its more 'hep' and fashionable to say that "I use XYZ shampoo" rather than the more safer and effective shiyakkaai.

I continue keeping my hopes alive for people to realize and appreciate our own native treasures rather than filling the foreigners' coffers and that too at our own cost?