How To Boost Up Your Self Esteem

How Makeup Can Improve Your Self Esteem

Self esteem simply means how you estimate yourself, that is, what opinions you have of yourself and how much value you put on yourself. A person with healthy self esteem is one who is comfortable in his or her own skin, situation in life and with what are other’s attitudes towards him or her. We all struggle with self-esteem at some point in our lives. Some struggle more than others. Our negative self-perceptions are usually caused by what others say about us. Self-image is the commonest area of low self-esteem. We are constantly facing images and messages from the media that tell us we need to better ourselves. We need to be thinner, we need to be fairer, our hair needs to look “Salon perfect” all the time. Also, right from our childhood, people comment on the way we look, the way we dress and the way we present ourselves. Some of us get compliments all the time, while most of us have been criticized over some aspect of our appearance, at some point in our lives.

Not only should we learn to take such comments in our stride, we must always remember that, how we look is how we were born and, despite wonder products and cosmetic surgery, we can’t ever look like that unrealistic ideal we have set for ourselves. Makeup is a great method for teaching us that. The main mantra behind makeup is to enhance what we already have. Makeup is not a mask to hide behind, nor is it something that only the “beautiful” should do. A lot of women with low self esteem simply decide to avoid makeup altogether, thinking that by not caring about their appearance they will learn to be comfortable with who they are. But, most of these women just don’t know how beautiful they can be if they put in effort to look their best and boost their self-confidence in turn. Here are some of the ways in which makeup can help us all in having self-esteem.

We Use Makeup for Ourselves, Not Others

It is a misconception to think that the way we present ourselves should be based on how we want people to perceive us. People with low self-esteem are those more often than not people-pleasers. They always put others before themselves, even believing others over their own judgment. Makeup helps you in putting yourself before others. As you apply that liquid eyeliner, don’t you love how gorgeous your eyes suddenly look? And you had those eyes all along, it only took some eyeliner for you to see how beautiful they are. Every makeup item we use is one step towards making us see how beautiful we are. Your foundation should not hide your natural skin color. It should only even out those little imperfections. Your blush is to give you a healthy glow, which would emanate anyway as you believe how nice you look. Your mascara-ed eyelashes, your luscious lips…every makeup routine is like an ode to your own beauty. Celebrate it! If you can celebrate your professional and personal achievements, then why leave out your appearance? Also, men commonly complain that women wear too much makeup, that too, in order to please men. Well, the answer we should give to them is: a resounding NO. “Girls just wanna have fun, and makeup is fun.” It is in our DNA to be attracted to that electric blue eyepencil we suddenly spot at the makeup counter. Pleasing men is the last thing on our minds when we are makeup busy. And what is “too much” makeup? I can think of too many biceps and too much hair gel, but too much makeup? Beats me!

Makeup Doesn’t Hide Your Flaws, It Makes You Remember They Aren’t Flaws

So you have acne. Pigmentation. Scars. Dark circles. Big deal. Is that something that makes you a bad person, someone unlovable or unlikable, or someone who is not attractive? The answer is, no. A stomach upset is not a flaw. Neither is asthma. Then why let your acne get the better of you? If you are feeling upset about your acne or scars, just look for images of celebrities without makeup on the Internet. You will hardly find a celebrity with perfect alabaster skin sans makeup. They have nice features and they use makeup to enhance those features. You can too. Nearly every such skin problem can be carefully covered with makeup. As long as you treat your problem(like use an eye-cream or an anti-acne cream) like you would treat a case of high temperature, you can easily rely on makeup to get you through the day.