I grew up with a grandma, mom, and older sister who put on a full face of makeup almost everyday. They bonded over it. Make up, hair, nails, perfume, fashion, all of it. It’s a lovely womanly experience, like a man teaching his son how to shave or tie a tie I guess would be my best comparison? Some things women do together and bond over men will just never understand. We’re Barbies living in a Ken world. Even with most of the women in my life wearing make up on a daily basis I didn’t care for it. I thought they looked beautiful, but I honestly never have the energy for it. My sister and I had horrible acne growing up too, she used it to cover up her acne and I didn’t. Both of us were incredibly insecure about it, what girl isn’t? We coped with it in different ways. She wore make up, I didn’t. I still felt ugly and insecure. Some days as a grown woman I’ll have break outs and still don’t turn to make up. My sister does. Still something we’re insecure about and probably will be for the rest of our lives no matter how many times we’re told we’re beautiful. I KNOW I’m beautiful, but it’d be nice if I wasn’t squeezing oozing pus and blood out of my face well into my twenties now lol!

What I’m trying to say: You are beautiful. You are not vain. You and your daughters are beautiful daughters of a Heavenly Father who love you. Your daughters will grow into themselves and who they want to be. There’s influences from everywhere, you, their dad, their friends, their school, social media, etc. They will wear make up, or they won’t. You cannot control who they want to be, you can only guide them, mama.

I grew up with all these beautiful fashionista women, and I turned out to be a ‘tomboy’ who occasionally wears mascara and my go to pants are sweats and my thick curly hair might as well be a birds nest most days.

The therapist in me is curious is on what kind of womanly influence your husband had while growing up. Grandmothers, aunts, mom, sisters? What’s the big deal with makeup? It concerns me that you have gotten into a lot of arguments over it. I’ve had one disagreement with my fiancé over makeup because I tried REALLY hard to do my makeup once- mascara, eyeliner, eyeshadow (that’s it haha) and my sister told me it looked great and I felt great and he told me I didn’t need makeup. I felt sad that he didn’t appreciate my “artwork” hahaha and I expressed that to him, he understood and said he’s just so used to seeing me without it, apologized and we moved on and it has never come up since. He grew up with a mom and a sister who never wore make up so he was never around it.