Full face of make up and hair done for the gym???

[PromTwink]

Yes, I am being old and grumpy and judge before anyone says.

I've just got back to the gym after about 6m off, I stumble in with hair in a greasy ponytail and no makeup - because why would you, you're going to get sweaty and gross.

But it seems like a new species of gym goer has appeared in my little infancy gym. I swear, some of the younger women have full makeup on including lippy and contouring.

Wtf? Why? Are these Instagram people? Why would you bother? I look like a shiny tomato after the gym, doing 50 mins cardio followed by some weights.

It appears that some people now go in dolled up, do 15 minutes of fuck all, and then take photos of themselves standing with heavier weights than they used to work out.

Stop sitting on the fucking machines just to take selfies, I want to actually use them!!!

Ugh, I'm so old and grumpy.

Oh dear. I probably walked in to the gym looking like that as I’d just come from work Didn’t look like that after tho with a big beetroot face

To be fair some of them will have come straight from work. I go to the gym straight from work with make up on, I'm not faffing on trying to take it off in the car to appease judgy people. My hair goes up in a ponytail though.

I haven't returned to the gym yet - I suspended my membership last year as they weren't sticking to the rules - but the gym's Instagram page seems to be full of youngsters (teens/20 somethings) posting photos of themselves posing in front of the changing room mirrors. I really have no great desire to see a picture of Bruno or Chloe showing off their ripped muscles half naked. I'm not jealous - I'm old enough to be their Grandmother - and I only exercise to keep myself fit and healthy not to look like an insta sensation. But if I go into the changing rooms I really don't want to encounter people taking photos.

I wear make up to the gym. Not my going out face but a lighter version.
1.I love wearing make up and it makes me feel ready for the day. Just part of my routine.

1. I do weights so don't sweat a lot.
2. I usually have to rush home to do a scheduled work video call, so at least my face looks ready!

I understand influencers do this type of thing and make a living from it which I don't mind. I enjoy looking at 'lifestyle' type features. But me and DH do have also have snigger together occasionally about 'vanity' gym. It's not just about makeup but also the 'non functional' muscles developed disproportionately and shown in muscle shirts etc because people like the look but it leaves them looking so ungainly and hardly able to move naturally in some cases. Yes, we're bitchy runners...

Most tiresome people have disappeared from the gym since Covid but I notice two types creeping back

• late middle aged ladies arriving in pairs and chatting through their “workout”, except it’s now at higher volume because they’re not allowed on adjacent bikes/cross trainers/rowing machines. They definitely put more effort into their conversation than their exercise.
• admiring girlfriends who arrive with their bloke and spend their time watching him lift weights and listening to him pontificate. Occasionally they’ll half-heartedly do something but mostly stand about adjusting their bra straps and texting their mates. They’re obviously there for decorative purposes only.

After some weeks I’m pleased to have found a time where most of the gym goers are sensible, don’t hog machines and just get on with keeping fit with no fuss or unnecessary chat, so I’m happy enough.

@PromTwink

Get ready to call me a bitch again, but I genuinely find it quite sad the lengths women go to these days to look a certain way, it seems so much hard work with lots of make up/contouring/eyelashes/completely covering and changing their own skin tone and appearance. I often look at young women and think I bet they'd look lovely without all that camouflage.

But what do I know, I'm old and invisible.

This is probably the equivalent of when my mum used to bemoan me wearing jeans/dungarees and say I'd look lovely in a nice ladylike frock.

Isn’t it funny we’re all about bodily autonomy and doing what you want until it comes to make up and it’s perfectly acceptable to shit on another woman because you don’t like how something looks. I sort of sympathised with your original post as having worked in a gym it can be annoying having to police these petty incidents and deal with the social users clogging the place up not actually doing anything but this post lost you any sympathy. You’re not complaining about them hogging the machines you simply just want to tell the world you’re so much better because you’re a “natural” woman and these “camouflaged” “certain type” of women are scum.

Is how “these” women look impacting you in any way? No. Then many stop being so awful about how other women chose to live and look.

And no, it’s not touched a nerve because I’m a fat fuck who can barely put concealer on properly, I’m just fed up of twats who think it’s ok to slag off other women based on nothing but their looks.

Why don’t you just ask them to move or how long they’re going to be? You’re an adult I assume, it’s how adults function in most places I’ve been to…
Or if you’re such a pansy tell on them to the staff. Starting a bitchy MN thread isn’t going to help you get on a machine faster… but i suspect you quite like the bitching otherwise you would have done the former and gotten on with life.

I don’t have Instagram but I wear makeup to the gym because I like makeup. Sometimes women just like wearing makeup.

I do get your frustration about the Instagrammers. Yes they are annoying. Whenever I need a machine and someone is doing their duck face selfie on a machine I would like to use I stand their quietly watching them. Then ask them how many more pics before I can use the machine. Make sure you say “how many more pics”.
Not reps. It’s hilarious and they get instantly embarrassed.

*there

proopher
I don't think you're the person OP would be talking about though as you go to the gym to actually work out. Lots of us will go to the gym after work and have make up on. Most of us don't leave work with a full face of heavy contouring/Instagram duck face style make up though, nor pose at the gym taking selfies.
I don't think the OP's talking about some women at the gym who happen to have some makeup on whilst actually working out.

I went swimming with my toddler at 10am yesterday. I also got up and brushed my hair, it’s long and styles easily so probably looks “done”. I put on a sweep of powder foundation and lip balm which I always wear to protect my lips and a bit of blusher. I never leave the house without those. So I guess I looked “done” for no reason. It’s about confidence for me. I wouldn’t have taken him swimming otherwise. I don’t do Instagram or take selfies

People go to the gym for different reasons at different ages.

It's fashionable now to have a strong look and working out in on trend so it's not a surprise really. That's very different to those going who need to exercise for weight management.

But agree it's annoying!

Couldn't agree more OP. The Kardashian clones at my gym wear such skimpy tops that there's no way they can do any proper cardio. They also take mirror selfies in the changing room. Am I really old-fashioned for not wanting people to use camera phones where I take my clothes off?

Plenty of instawanker men as well - all looking and acting very steroidy, most with huge arms and chicken legs, and all seemingly unable to lift weights without grunting, screaming and throwing them on the floor at the end of a set. Pathetic.

doadeer
But the central point of going to the gym is to exercise.

Over the years I've used the gym as part of rehab and physio for injury recovery, to train for half marathons, to catch up with friends by trying a new class, to let off stress at the end of a stressful week, and more. Someone else might be there for weight training. Someone else might be there recovering from an operation. Someone else might be doing some forms of graded exercise therapy. Someone else might be there to lose weight. Someone else might have got into gym workouts because it's fashionable.
What we all have in common is we are exercising.

The selfie crew sitting on their phones and posing for photos aren't exercising. They're using the gym as a backdrop for their photos, which is why it's a little irritating.

Lola

I agree but I'm just observing that for younger generations the gym is a social space now.

doadeer
Yes, but for most (at least in my gym) it's a social space... whilst working out.
It's fairly common to see friends in a pair working out together, one on the machine, the other waiting and swapping over. It's common to see friends giving each other tips on form. It's common to see friends having a coffee after. There's women in their 40s or 50s having a coffee after a class, men in the weights area together who are having a shake after in the lounge area. Social isn't a problem.

Gyms aren't photo studios for vain people who want to prance about. They're exercise spaces. That's why people find the selfie types annoying.

Gyms aren't photo studios for vain people who want to prance about. They're exercise spaces. That's why people find the selfie types annoying.

Actually gyms are money making businesses. A friend of a friend owns a gym (a “lifestyle space”) whose entire business premise is for people to socialise and to take photos to post to Instagram rather than exercise.

If someone is paying the exact same as someone else and hasn’t signed up to terms that explicitly say they should be exercising every time they enter then who is to say what they are doing is wrong? Annoying maybe, but not wrong.

This would annoy the shit out of me too op 🤬🏋🏻‍♀️🏋️‍♂️🏋🏽🤸🏻‍♀️🤸

The thing I’m getting from this thread is the sheer number of people suggesting that gym goers in makeup might be coming from, or going to work. Add in all the pps who say that they go to the gym in makeup because, again, work. It is entirely possible to undertake paid employment without makeup, the vast majority of men seem to manage it, as do many women.
If a woman chooses to wear makeup for work that’s absolutely fine, what makes me feel a bit uncomfortable is the underlying message that work = makeup essential.

ShirleyPhallus
It would be good if the posers could make their way to the nice new lifestyle spaces then and leave the gym equipment free for people who want to exercise in a gym.

Most gym users seem to understand that a giant room full of exercise equipment is an exercise space, just like most gym users understand that the lounge area is to relax in after. The majority understand how it works.

Yeah there's a strong whiff of internalised misogyny here.

I don't think it's entirely a particularly modern phenomenon. In the early 90s you used to get the thong leotards over footless tights / cycling shorts, full makeup and carefully arranged heavily hairsprayed 'tousled' pony tails with head bands. If you look at Cher's old workout on YouTube her 90s outfit is like lingerie- to be expected really!Not so many photos but lots of posing in front of the mirrors! I did wear makeup then but always felt a bit shit and far less 'done' than these women. I'm just more confident now I run and rather than feeling shit I just don't give one!

A friend of a friend owns a gym (a “lifestyle space”) whose entire business premise is for people to socialise and to take photos to post to Instagram rather than exercise.

How utterly depressing.

@TherightsideofHERstory

The thing I’m getting from this thread is the sheer number of people suggesting that gym goers in makeup might be coming from, or going to work. Add in all the pps who say that they go to the gym in makeup because, again, work. It is entirely possible to undertake paid employment without makeup, the vast majority of men seem to manage it, as do many women. If a woman chooses to wear makeup for work that’s absolutely fine, what makes me feel a bit uncomfortable is the underlying message that work = makeup essential.

See I disagree, I wear makeup because I like it. On the days I work from home, like I said upthread, I don't wear makeup because I like a few of my colleagues have gotten into the awful habit of rolling out of bed and turning our pcs on.

I wouldn't describe makeup as a work essential, more of something I like to do for myself...