Bloggers WITH Makeup Day.

One of the first things I read when I woke up this morning when I set down at the computer with my the first dose of personality in a cup (coffee) is that today is Bloggers Without Makeup Day.

Sorry if you're participating, but...
What a bunch of redonkulousness!

Apparently the premise of the whole thing is that you, dear reader of blogs, are not seeing the 'real' author of the blogs you read because in their profile picture or whatever they are wearing makeup.

huh?

For the record, I, for one, have not ever been in the act of reading a blog and suddenly started wondering what the blogger really looked like under her makeup.  I have never once thought to myself, "gee, that was a terrific post I just read by one of my favorite bloggers but, ya know, I'm not sure I can trust what she was saying because in her picture she clearly is wearing blush".  

And what's with the 'really' thing?

I can get someone to take my picture one morning at the exact minute I wake up; hair piled on top of my head and all confused and bleary-eyed and use it as my profile picture - because once a day that's what I really look like.

Or how about a picture when I'm cleaning my house?  Sweaty and disheveled in that ancient, holey t-shirt I wear when cleaning and post it as my new profile pic...because that, too, is what I really look like sometimes.

Better still, why not a picture of me at that time once a month when I'm a raving, crying lunatic who may or may not be simultaneously gorging on salt and chocolate?  I'm really that person, as well.

I'll take this even further and say that the "real me" has hairy legs and underarms if I don't shave them and might even have a Frida Kahlo unibrow if I didn't pluck/wax that area. 

So, next up there should be a Bloggers Without Shaving Day?   

Ugh.

What's so wrong about wanting to present your best self to the public? 

I happen to adore makeup.  I'm obsessed with mascara.  My eye makeup is 'smoky' which involves the application of several shades of shadow and a good deal of liner. 
This is my 'look'.  This is how those who know me, know me.
(And if I didn't have to hide out from my stalker behind my Kissy Lovestuff pseudonym I would be proudly sporting my full-makeup profile picture here)

However, very often I actually do go without foundation or mascara or liner but that's a choice usually based on something like being lazy or wanting to get some sun and is not at all based on me trying to make some kind of pointless statement.  I'm not a feminist (but that's a topic for another day - no emails, please); I have no problems whatsoever with all of things out there that are available to enhance and beautify.  I love how they make me look and how they make me feel and all that is stirred together in the pot of stuff that makes up the real me. 

Bloggers Without Makeup Day and other such proclamatory days that involve sheep mentality group participation feel to me like an ever-so-slight erosion of credibility and individuality.

Kind of in the same way that something like Hawaiian Shirt Friday does, you know what I mean?

Please forgive me if you are at work reading this today, Friday, 

and are wearing a Hawaiian shirt so that everyone thinks you are a 'team player'.

"When you look at me, I want you to see the real me."
Good Lord, that sounds like a line straight out of a soap opera or cheesy romance novel.
Call me crazy, but if I'm thinking that by showing you a profile picture in which I'm wearing makeup that I am somehow not showing you the me I want you to see, then I should just take a picture with no makeup, upload it and call it a day.
No?
Too understated?
Too undramatic?

In revolt of all of this nonsense, I am proclaiming today to be Bloggers WITH Makeup Day.

In fact, you know what?  I think I'm going to channel my inner Mimi and wear extra makeup today just to prove a point!

Viva la L'Oreal!  MAC!  Clinique!  Maybelline!  Revlon!  Lancome! etc...