"What do you think?" Wednesdays - Can you judge someone by their makeup?

Makeup, like clothes, is a way of expressing yourself, who you are, your personality and your creative flair. It makes sense to believe that someone would only wear makeup that they like the look of, right? Does that mean that you can judge someone by their makeup? Are there any stereotypical judgements that can be made? Does their makeup (or even lack of) reflect anything about their personality?

This is something that I find fascinating, because the simple fact is that we all judge whether we are aware of it or not, and to a large extent we are often right with our judgements.

Here is an example - When I take a step back and look at all the females in my life, for 90% of them their makeup choices reflect their personalities. There are the no makeup girls whose approach to life is practical, down to earth and no-fuss. There are the minimal makeup girls/natural girls (like myself) who wear a little bit of everything but rarely dare to be bold or take on a trend. Once again, our approach to life is balanced, sweet, comfortable but not too luxurious, full of routine and knowing what is next. Then there are the bright-lipstick-wearing-green-eyeshadow-loving girls who are full of fun, excitement, spontaneity, joy and craziness. Then in the smaller categories are the bronzer/tousled hair beach-goers, winged eyeliner/red lippie retro lovers and heavy eyeliner/dark shadow music fans who are all people I know and love. The girls I've mentioned aren't even the beginning of all the makeup styles people adopt and of course no one can be labelled accurately no matter how many labels we develop. When I think about it, the girls in my life really do use their makeup as a way to express who they are and what they love, so I can come to the assumption that I can judge a person by their makeup.

Wrong. The other 10% of people are those who are very much chameleons and to a degree this is where I fit in. We are the people who can rock any look and often confuse people as to where we belong and which label they should stick on us. During the week my makeup is very, very minimal but on the weekends I tend to really dress up my eyes with a smoky look, or slap on some hot pink lipstick or a bright blush. Such huge changes in my makeup has really, really surprised people in the past who have stumbled across me at the shops, having only seen my minimal look before! I'm not nearly as outrageous as some of the others I know, but I can certainly change up my look according to how I feel or where I am going.

The conclusion I have come to after really thinking about all the ladies in my life, is that people do use makeup to show who they are but they also use it as a tool to be someone else for a night, or get a taste of something else that they want to experiment with. For this reason I do believe that you can get a great deal of understanding in terms of their personality or lifestyle simply by checking out their makeup, but it is easy to be tricked!

I think there needs to be an understanding that judging someone by their makeup is a bad idea. If you want to write off a possible friendship with someone simply because they have electric blue eyeliner and coral lipstick whereas you are more of a heavy eyeliner and plum lipstick girl then that is your mistake because for all you know they could be the perfect friend. I do, however, think that you can understand a person from their makeup choices and get a small insight into their life because the chances are that they are wearing their makeup how they like it, and therefore it represents a small part of who they are.

What do you think? When you look at your makeup choices do you find that they reflect who you are? Are you a chameleon who changes their look on a daily basis? Let me know whether you think accurate information can be gained regarding one's personality simply by checking out their makeup!