#celebrities without makeup

Images of female celebrities without makeup is a popular feature in tabloid newspapers and gossip and fashion magazines. Who looks the best? Who looks the worst?Do you recognise these celebrities without makeup?(Yes, always. It’s not really a challenge.)

So, what’s happening here?

These articles, and many of their readers, are simultaneously shaming these women for wearing makeup and for not wearing makeup. By wearing it, they are deceitful about their true appearance, yet their natural faces are just too “shocking” for them not wear makeup. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Occasionally, someone will try to defend these features. They claim these magazines are just presenting reality as it is and thus crushing beauty ideals.They claim these images are empowering women:

See, if even Beyoncé looks like crap, then you’re okay too! It’s all just makeup and Photoshop! No one is really that beautiful!

But if the headlines call these celebrities “shocking” and"unrecognisable“, are these articles really empowering women? Or are they just telling their female readers (and the concerned celebrities) that maybe they shouldn’t ever leave their house without their makeup on? Aren’t they really saying that the natural look just doesn’t work for anyone? And if the natural look doesn’t even work for Uma Thurman, you can’t possibly be fine just as you are, you regular woman reader you! No, they are not empowering at all, they are just encouraging further girl-on-girl-hate.

If you have to drag down one woman (famous or not) in order to empower another, you’re not really empowering her.