Isn’t it insane that a woman of a certain age who chooses to wear her face without makeup, or just minimal makeup, shamelessly showing the world her face which has not been altered by chemicals or surgery for cosmetic reasons — remains a huge, revolutionary role model, even in 2023?
Recent trend pieces celebrating former Hollywood A-listers going grey and showing off their faces without makeup has become catnip for those of us who wish to believe the world is becoming a less horrible place for women.
In part, it is. This so called “pro-ageing” movement ostensibly celebrates the ageing process – but only with women. We don’t see click-bait pieces marvelling at George Clooney’s grey streaks, or Steve Carrell’s salt and pepper beard. Why? Because as men age they just become sexier, we’re routinely told.
Indeed, it’s not lost on anyone that brands promoting the idea that looking your age is aspirational while charging $450 a bottle for lift-firming serum is a mind-bending yet ordinary paradox of existing as a women in today’s society.
Things have shifted for feminists in recent years; we have always armed our fists against a host of injustices (reproductive rights, gendered violence, pay inequality…just to name a few) and yet when it comes to the idea of beauty (wholesalely created by men) it appears that showing up to a public fashion event at 56 without makeup can be seen as “an act of courage and rebellion.”
That’s how Jamie Lee Curtis described Pamala Anderson, who attended Paris Fashion Week a few months ago sporting a “makeup free” look.
The press went wild. They went wild again last week, when she rocked up to the Fashion Awards in London without makeup. We’ve come to a point in time where articles titled “Pamela Anderson Makes Another Makeup-Free Appearance on 2023 Fashion Awards Red Carpet” can inspire other articles, like Glamour UK’s “Pamela Anderson Going Makeup Free Is Not An Act of Rebellion” and another in Forbes, titled: “Here’s Why We All Need To Pay Attention To Pamela Anderson.” (Answer: “Pamela Anderson, stepping out au naturel is a powerful reflection of the growing desire for authenticity.”)
In August, Anderson was interviewed by a fashion magazine about her stray away from conventional beauty aspirations, preferring to embrace a make-up free lifestyle which she said has been “freeing and fun.”
“I think we all start looking a little funny when we get older,” she told Elle. “And I’m kind of laughing at myself when I look at the mirror. I go, ‘Wow, this is really…what’s happening to me?’ It’s a journey.”
Last week, she told another magazine, “I’ve always been in the [fashion] world and I’ve always been photographed. I can look at the past, but I like to always move forward. I just want to keep on moving forward, keep on doing new things and challenging myself and challenging beauty.”
Anderson described the noise she created when she showed up to Paris Fashion Week with minimal makeup.
“Everyone was asking me about it,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “ I didn’t know anyone was even going to notice it. But I was doing it for me. I felt like … ‘Am I going to continue this makeup thing for the rest of my life?’ I mean how much more makeup could you put on someone?”
“I just peeled it back. For me, it’s either no makeup — or a showgirl. You know, like something for a character for a film or a photo shoot. Like, I love makeup. I love to play with that. But it’s not an everyday thing and so for these things that I’m promoting and where I’m working, but being me, I just don’t see the need for it.”
She went further in another interview, expressing her wish to coin an alternative description to the word, ‘ageing’. “I like to say the word ‘life-ing’ instead of ageing,” she said in a TikTok interview. “Chasing youth is just futile. You’re never going to get there, so why not just embrace what’s going on? And since I’ve really just walked out the door as me, I feel a relief, just a weight off my shoulders. and I actually like it better.”
Sarah Jessica Parker gave a candid interview in July about “missing out on the facelift”.
“I think about all of it. I ask people all the time, ‘Is it too late?’.” I mean, I’m presentable. I don’t really like looking at myself… I think I’m fine.”
The 58-year old went on to describe the double standards women face when it comes to ageing.
“There is so much emphasis put on, especially women – and primarily women – about looks.”
“Even last year when we first went on the air with the new season [of And Just Like That…], there were so many endless articles about ‘ageing’ and ‘ageing gracefully’, and you know, ‘Sarah Jessica’s hair is grey’ – and I was like, first of all it’s not, but who cares? I’m sitting next to Andy Cohen whose head is covered in grey hair and you’ve not mentioned that at all.”
More recently, she told Prevention “It’s important to me that someone is minding my skin versus somebody who is like ‘I can make you younger,’ which is of no interest to me and isn’t a reality.”
Other female actors have joined this bare-faced movement including Helen Mirren, 78, Andie MacDowell, 65, Michelle Pfeiffer, 65, Jennifer Aniston, 54. Last December, the Herald showcased midlife celebrities “embracing the no-make-up selfie”.
Then there’s the pro-greying champions who’ve spoken out about wanting to let their hair evolve the way nature intended.
If your whole professional artifice is based on looking reasonably youthful and conventionally put together, then it can’t be dismissed that showing up to a public event without all the conservative trappings of ‘beauty’ is a fantastic and gusty move.
But let’s not forget too that these women are all white, abnormally beautiful and lithely skinny. A win for a few female celebrities does not shift the sexism and ageism ordinary women face.
We are subjected to more pressure to look a certain way — more of us worry about ageing than our male peers or partners. A recent survey of over 2,000 Americans found that 70 per cent of men report feeling unconcerned with ageing, while just over fifty per cent of women report feeling the same.
The same survey found that while an overwhelming majority of women had no trouble equating old age with beauty, just 65 per cent of men believed in this idea.
A higher percentage of women than men report changing their hair style and hair colour to look younger. Bottom line is that women spend more money, time and energy to looking youthful, hairless, and pristine. We are more complicit in the pursuits towards extreme beauty ideals that are asked of us under patriarchy. We still live in a misogynistic society – a society that “insists that a woman’s appearance is of paramount value,” as Jia Tolentino write in 2019.
It might be a small victory to see a woman who was once considered the sexiest woman alive to reject the use of makeup. It would be an even bigger victory if such acts signified a larger move away from equating a woman’s worth to her physical appearance.