http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/fashion/alicia-keys-no-makeup-beauty-movement.html 2016-09-14 19:39:59 Alicia Keys and the ‘Tyranny of Makeup’ When the pop singer put down her lipstick and eye shadow, she shook up the internet. === It was the Friday before Labor Day, and “You’re all crazy,” said Ms. Keys, swabbing Ms. Hall’s cheeks. “This isn’t even what it’s about!” “It” is #nomakeup — a meme, a movement, a cri de coeur — that has been In the months that followed, Ms. Keys was seemingly everywhere — always without makeup, always beautiful — That’s a nice story, right? Inspiring and kind of sweet? Feh. “Makeup-gate 2016,” as Late last month, Swizz Beatz, Ms. Keys’s husband, took to Instagram with Don’t be surprised that this is news, said (Ms. Pogrebin said that while she was reading Ms. Keys’s essay, an ad popped up for some kind of skin cream.) Why is it, wondered Linda Wells, founding editor of Allure magazine, that fashion is considered self-expression and makeup is self-absorption? Or something more pernicious? Ms. Wells recalled Furthermore, Ms. Wells said, Ms. Keys’s gesture is coming at a particular moment, when the internet is flooded with YouTube videos on how to best present yourself … on the internet. “It’s Whose makeup is it anyway? In the late 1980s, Once introduced, the Nakeds broke all sorts of sales records, she said, and sold out over and over again. Hundreds of women wrote her in gratitude, Ms. Robinson said, including Jean Harris, who wrote her from prison: “She thought we had the right idea, that women should not overpaint themselves, and use their simple beauty.” For the record, cosmetics executives aren’t worried that #nomakeup will have women hurling their lipsticks into the Dumpster. “It’s a makeup moment,” said Jane Hertzmark Hudis, group president of the Estée Lauder Companies, adding that her industry is experiencing “explosive growth,” with “prestige” makeup sales up 13 percent last year, Just ask Bobbi Brown, the makeup artist turned cosmetics mogul who built a company, as Ms. Robinson did, around nude makeup, and whose corporate manifesto right now is “It takes a lot of guts to face HDTV without makeup,” Ms. Brown said of Ms. Keys. “But I get it. It’s all fine. Choose who you want to be. Personally, I like to have a little concealer. But obviously it’s more than about makeup. I don’t think people understand how difficult it is for women like Alicia Keys to worry about the way you look every second. It is the ugly internet we live in. Let’s be nice to people, and not be so judgey.” There is a sense you just can’t win. When Kim Novak appeared on the Academy Awards in 2014, there was It’s just complicated, said It was 2012, and the 16-year-old was taking home two gold medals for her performances, but much of the conversation around that Gail O’Neill People who do things outside the herd scare people who are in the herd, said In her book, Ms. Kreamer noted that in the 1950s, fewer than 10 percent of women dyed their hair, as compared with 40 to 75 percent in the mid-2000s; she also surveyed some 400 women, of which 15 percent said they’d had some sort of plastic surgery. As she wrote, darkly, “Extrapolate the trend line, double the available technologies, and imagine the choices and pressures our great-grandchildren may face.” In 1983, Ms. Pogrebin wrote an article called “The Power of Beauty” for Ms., the magazine she helped found. She was galvanized to do so when a friend had a chin augmentation, and then blossomed, emotionally, as a result. What’s the proper feminist response, Ms. Pogrebin asked herself, to such an extreme renovation: to offer congratulations, or wincing disapproval? If a feature distracts people from what they feel is their true selves, how can you argue with their alteration of that feature? But then again, as Ms. Pogrebin pointed out, whose notion of attractiveness motivated the change? “We can argue about what is attractive, but not that we wish to attract,” she wrote. The solution to not making ourselves crazy, she suggested, is to propose a broader definition of beauty, one that celebrates its impact but reduces its tyranny. Meanwhile, the churn about women’s looks continues. Last week, after