Is makeup a form of catfishing?

[qwertykeyboards]

Okay hear me out. Before I start this thread I just want to say I’m NOT bashing women who wear makeup - I myself love makeup and wear it regularly. I’m just really interested in other peoples opinions.

Lately I’ve just been thinking about whether a full face of makeup could amount to cat fishing of some sort. I myself look completely different when I have a full face of makeup on. In fact when I wear makeup I am constantly catcalled and stared at by men. Whereas when I go out with absolutely nothing on that doesn’t happen as much. Sometimes I even think, “if only you saw me when I woke up this morning!” 😂

I was speaking about this with a couple of my friends who admitted that their boyfriends have yet to see them without makeup! That’s crazy to me! What if the person you’re with ends up totally not into your fresh face and the makeup kind of tricked them into thinking you look like something that in reality took a bunch of makeup and an hour at the mirror to achieve.

Just a thought.

YABU - don’t be so stupid!
YANBU - to an extent makeup can put out a false image

In fact when I wear makeup I am constantly catcalled and stared at by men. Whereas when I go out with absolutely nothing on that doesn’t happen as much

Same thing happens to me but its dependent on my hair!
If I wear my naturally very curly hair, I wont be cat called or looked at as much.
If I have my hair straightened or long loose waves...I will get much more attention and whistles I wear make up every day. Men are weird.

@qwertykeyboards

Everyone is missing the point

No, they aren't. They are quite reasonably situating the question in a social context where men demand women look a certain way to be attractive and then claim they are being deliberately deceived when presented with their ideal by use of makeup because most women cannot look that way without. OP, as a feminist I suggest you need to ask yourself why you have been led to think anything is an underhand deception perpetrated by you or indeed women in general. Frankly this is in line with some of the more misogynist of incel talk and thoroughly poisonous.

No I don't generally but I do think make up can be an art and there are people who can completely change their appearance with make up

This is rife on tiktok. Girl posts a video of her applying make-up and the comments are all "omg catfish!", "this should be illegal!", "imagine going to bed with the 'after' and waking up to the 'before' 🤮". I honestly think it's misogyny at its finest. Women have been conditioned for decades (centuries? I don't know the history of make up) to buy and spend time applying a number of products to their faces and now that we do, even from before puberty in some cases, it's thrown back at us as a form of lying/deception. Not to mention the irony that the make-up-less look is deemed ugly/unacceptable. It's just another way that women simply cannot win.

I don't agree that makeup is catfishibg but it does reminds me of this story

I think if you look as though you spent ages getting yourself gussied up to attract men (whether or not that is actually your motivation) they will assume you would welcome attention and act accordingly,

I’m a WYSIWYG type of girl but I doing make sure it’s all looking as good as I can get it without artifice - diet exercise and grooming.

@NeverDropYourMoonCup

It's only catfishing if you're an incel/MRA/misogynist.

Yes, this accusation is levelled at women a lot on incel/MRA forums. How curious.

“Psychological suffering” 😂 she does look like a different person though!

@mrurddhasabitpart

I don't agree that makeup is catfishibg but it does reminds me of this story

You 100% would walk past her in the street and not recognise her.

And I think a lot of men would actually be surprised at how much makeup lots of women are wearing. If it's just what you see, it's just how people look.

That's true. My flatmate and I had both been ill, and as we got better we'd agreed to host a meeting in our flat for an event our club was planning. Everybody turned up and said didn't she look unwell, and they hoped I'd been looking after her.

She'd had a cough, I'd had a full-blown chest infection and had ended up coughing up blood and being given steroids! But because I barely ever wore makeup and she always wore quite a lot, people noticed more of a difference in how she looked when she didn't wear it.

I think it puts out a false image but it's also obvious you're wearing makeup, like wearing heels. Whereas putting an edited or false image online no one knows its false.

*CounsellorTroi

Some people do look drastically different with a full face of make up, to the extent they are unrecognisable bare faced. I'm not one of them but then again I have only ever worn a little very basic make up. Never contoured or put false eyelashes on or anything.

I've seen this on TV, but not in real life. Would you really walk past someone in the street if they didn't have their makeup on?*

Quite possibly. Used to work with someone - a long time ago - who wore fake tan and thick makeup on top. I never saw her without makeup, but some people who had said you wouldn't recognise her.

I'm pretty sure this thread will get a lot of abuse hurled at you, @qwertykeyboards out of knee-jerk defence, just based on the votes. Haven't read any comments yet but I understand what you're saying.

I can't speak to the intention of the wearer but I think it can be used as a form of catfishing depending on the type and level of makeup. I've seen many before and after images and videos of people who look completely different. I've also seen people like this offline. If you saw them at different times - one with makeup and the other without, there's no way in the world you'd know it's the same person. So I imagine people like these could catfish successfully if they wanted to.

That said, a lot of makeup wearers still look like themselves even if it's heavy. They just look heavily made-up.

Personally, I admire heavy makeup as art and I think extras like contouring, highlighting, etc are part of the creativity but not for me, especially the nose contouring. I prefer subtle makeup in person and that's what I do half the time when I feel like it, mainly because I like my eyes darker. Other times, I'm 'tidy-and-bare-faced'.

It depends on how much makeup. I wouldn’t say eye or brow makeup is cat fishing. However, heavy contour definitely alters faces. I’d say heavy contour and heavy foundation is cat fishing.

@ILikeTheWineNotTheLabel good analysis

I remember standing in front of the mirror at a night club waaaaay back in the 90s, and the girl next to me saying “I have fake tits, fake lashes, fake hair, lots of make up, underwear that holds my belly in, bloody hell everything about me is fake” we had a good giggle about it . She said I must be very confident not to wear make up. I said I did not know how to apply it

Am still crap at it.

I think there is nothing wrong about enhancing your appearance. To me it often denotes good self esteem, that you think you’re worth the time and effort.

@User133847

Catfishing is the wrong word.

A full face of make up, for example in your OLD photos, is the equivalent of the bald man who wears a hat in all his, or always a full beard to cover a weak jaw/chin.

The hat, yes (does he wear it when not having his photo taken and how long was he planning to keep it on for to hide the baldness?) but the beard - no (more of a long-term fixture). I view makeup like I view magic tricks. Done well it can be impressive but if one overdoes it such that you can see how it's done, it loses everything.

OP, it is rather sad that your friends lack the confidence to go without makeup even in the privacy of their own relationships. Assuming of course that these relationships aren't brand new.

I thought that the newlywed who sued his wife after discovering a "stranger" in his bed the morning after their wedding was Algerian. Though there was also a Taiwanese man who accused his wife of having had an affair when she bore him three very unphotogenic children. It turned out that she had had plastic surgery before they had met, though that again is a little more permanent than makeup.

If you are attracted to men with tattoos you know the tattoos are not natural but you still like them. Some men just like heavy makeup on women.
But tattoos are permanent though, you aren't going to wake up in the morning next to a very different person to the one you went to bed with.

Suppose iv never thought about it. All relationships or even early dates have seen me without my slap on nearly from the start.

@ShrinkingViolet9

Sorry, you lost me after the second " I myself..."

I'm sure the OP will get over the loss

Is tattooed on make up still a thing? I know it used to be.

I also think using makeup as a cover for insecurity is a whole other issue that makeup won't solve - at least not permanently. It would be better if it's seen as a fun accessory you can choose to wear or not but not as a defence mechanism, and sadly many makeup wearers fall under this latter category.

How is it any different to cutting and dyeing your hair? Painting your nails? Wearing clothes that make you look slimmer?

And if I wear makeup for 10 hours a day, every day - who is to say that it's "not how I really look"?

@CounsellorTroi

Is tattooed on make up still a thing? I know it used to be.

It is for brows. After seeing a friend’s I decided I’d stick with my eyebrow pencil.

I am not sure of the dictionary definition of catfish and dont really care either but i get your point and have thought similar myself before.
I am not into the overly made up look with fslse tan, false eyelashes, false nails, false hair extensions, contouring, highlighting etc but i do wear make up especially when going out and love the way it evens out my skintone, emphasises my eyes etc. I am quite small chested and have a specific bra that really enhances things. I sometimes think to myself (jokingly) that its like false advertising!

So yes in a way when someone is overly made up its hard to see what they actually look like, what you would be waking up beside every morning

I get what you're trying to say.

If you watch TikTok, there is a trend where woman show natural face and then w/makeup and how they're catfishing, so the term makes complete sense b/c some women obviously feel that way... or society makes them feel that way.

Makeup can make someone look like someone they wouldn't look like without it. That's the point though. I'm not sure people would go to the effort if they looked exactly the same.

Rightly or (imo) wrongly, attractiveness is something society often judges people on and what one person finds attractive, another does not. Its pervasive in advertising, television, movies, and bleeds into every day life. You have magazines/designer lauded for showing "real faces/bodies" and also boycotted for the same reasons. You really can't win.

I don't wear makeup simply b/c I'm too lazy. I wear it for important occasions, job interviews, or if I have some time to kill I'll do something crazy, but otherwise... way too lazy. My husband doesn't care either way.

So to answer you question, I don't think it's a form of catfishing simply because most of the time you're just putting your best foot forward and not trying to "catch" ("trick") anyone. But I also don't think it's fair to tell someone they can't feel like they were tricked if they relied on that made-up face for whatever reason. Society probably told them that's the norm and sometimes society sucks.

There is an episode of Big Bang Theory where Sheldon says ' explain to me how makeup isnt lying'.

That always annoyed me--- not because makeup isn't usually hiding something or creating something which isn't naturally there, cos it is. It annoyed me cos of the implied judgement.

I think anyone who believes make up is catfishing, has a problem with women. And usually would be one of the first to slate a woman who doesn't fit their 'standards' for looking a certain way too.