By Emily Binns
staff writer

The stereotypical teenage girl comes to school with designer fashions, a Vera Bradley bag clutched in her hand and the inevitable pound of make-up that is caked on her face. The idea of make-up has grown immensely from a way to cover up a few pimples to completely remaking a young girl’s face.

For me, make-up is usually an ‘if I have time’ kind of thing, but I often feel the need to swipe on some mascara, just to make it look like I tried to fix myself up in the morning.

However, if you look around the halls of DHS, you’d see mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow, bronzer, lip gloss and tons of foundation on the face of nearly every girl around you.

The views on the use of make-up and how much it should be used vary some, but a lot of girls have similar opinions on the topic.

“Make-up just makes girls feel more confident in themselves,” junior Hyejoon Kim said. “We feel more comfortable and it’s easier to approach people because we are less shy.”

For some, like Kim, make-up is just a ‘safety belt.’ It isn’t a necessity.

“I wear make-up as an accessory; for fun,” sophomore Sabrina Orbeck said.

Kim agrees in the thought that using make-up for fun, or just to hide little blemishes is exactly what it was made for and that is what it was meant to be used as. She does have some concern for those who see it as an essential thing to have on them at all times, and I agree with her. Make-up should be used to enhance someone’s natural beauty and boost their self-confidence, not create that confidence.

“People use it to hide themselves,” Kim said. “Kind of like a mask, and people act totally different, in my opinion, with that mask on.”

The pressure society has put on young girls to wear make-up has also had a great influence on the amount that they feel they need to wear. Television and, magazine ads and other types of advertisement show women of every age wearing make-up. I myself feel like if I don’t put it on in the morning than people are going to assume that I was lazy to not put it on or that I woke up late and didn’t have time to.

This need to ‘fit in’ or meet societies standards has taken a role in every girl’s life in one way or another whether she wears make-up or not.

“I only wear make-up on occasion but I see other girls wearing it all the time,” junior Rebecca Johnson said. “Make-up is just fine, but not if you cake it on.”

For those who do wear make up all the time, it becomes quite a hassle.

“It takes me 20 minutes to do my make-up in the morning,” Price said. “My make-up takes time because it is partially caffeinated.”

The pressures of wearing make-up will never go away but hopefully we, as a society, will learn to value more what teenage girls and women look like without make-up on.