Why I Don’t Wear Makeup to the Gym

Trying to embrace #NoMakeup in the South

Grammy winner Alicia Keys didn’t wear makeup to the MTV Video Music Awards last month. The Twittersphere nearly imploded. World comes to an end. #Bam. The cause of the chaos? Cosmetics. Or lack thereof. #NoMakeup.

How dare a celebrity show up on the red carpet with a naked face, lacking the typical two hours of professional prep time? The result: insanely gorgeous. Keys looks beautiful – comfortable in her own skin. Yet people have the audacity to criticize and tell her she “needs” to cake on the war paint, almost as if it’s a requirement. Of what? Being a woman? I’m not sure which is more disturbing — this coming from the women or the men.

“Wait a minute,” she says, moving closer, inspecting my face with intensity. “Are you not wearing any makeup to the gym?”

So if someone like Keys, who’s also an actress, author and entrepreneur – all probably before lunch – is willing to ditch a $50 lipstick, what’s that mean for the cosmetic industry, which is dominated by U.S. sales. Which, by the way, are expected to hit $62 billion this year. Too bad we can’t just point to corporate greed as being the source of the #NoMakeup hype, but that’s not the case, at least not here in Texas.

The message seems to be beauty over brains, how it makes a lady. It confuses the hell out of me. After two decades of living in the Lone Star State, I still struggle to understand the importance of female appearance in the South.

Illustration by Breanna Cooke