I wear makeup most days. It’s not because I have something to hide. For me, it’s because I have something to show. I put on makeup in the morning before I go downstairs and face the day. Usually there’s one or two kids in the bathroom with me, telling me a story in drawn out fashion or asking for a synopsis of the day’s planned events. (So cute how they still think I have a plan for every day.) They watch me putting on my makeup and in the early days they would ask what it is.
“It’s war paint,” I’d reply, making a funny face as I finished my eyeliner.
“Why do you need war paint?” they’d ask, genuinely curious.
“Because I’m going to war.”
Every morning that I wake up I go to war.
I go to war against laziness.
Against perfectionism.
Against pride.
Against culture’s currents.
Against chaos.
Against dinner time.
Each of us wake up to war. Our battles are usually different and usually spread across multiple fronts. Some are apparent, others are waged covertly. How we prepare ourselves for the day, how we present ourselves - both to others and to our own reflection, how we speak to others and how we speak to ourselves, even how we present our homes and work spaces…all of these things are, in a sense, war paint.
Body paint was widely used among the numerous sovereign nations native to the Americas. The methods, colors, meanings, and restrictions on use differed from one people group to another but the practice was common. Body paint was used in celebration and in mourning, as rites of passage and rituals of war. The color, location, and symbols of paint used all communicated something.
Specifically when used in preparation for war, the paint was used to both strengthen the one wearing it as well as send a clear message to the one seeing it. Within a sovereign tribe, the colors clearly communicated various things such as rank, past victories, willingness to fight to the death, etc. A tribe’s distinct color palette also performed in the same way as a sports team wearing the same uniform - it united them and made them more formidable to an enemy. You knew you were fighting the group, not picking off individuals.
I digress a little, but only because the subject fascinates me. There's a manuscript's worth of chapters I could write on the different messages we are sending, intentionally and unintentionally, but I will focus back onto this one language of makeup for now.
When I put on makeup in the morning (typically a 10 minute process consisting of healthy SPF concealer, eyebrow fill-in, foundation powder to set and blend, touch of blush, highlighter, eye shadow, liner and mascara) I am communicating several things.
Those few minutes in the morning remind my own heart that I am worth a bit of self-are. It also reminds me that I am not the tired, frumpy, middle-aged, stay-at-home mom that my brain tells me I am at times. I am tired, in my middle-age years, and have chosen home management and child raising as my career but I am not frumpy. This isn’t a life that is happening to me. This is the very thing for which I prayed. I am choosing today, rather than letting it happen to me. Mascara helps me remember that.
Your war paint might not be makeup. Maybe it’s your hair, your outfit, your morning tea or coffee, a workout or run, or any other numerous things that you do to declare to yourself and to the world: win or lose, I’m showing up intentionally today.
Another Aspect of Makeup as War Paint:
My eight-year-old daughter who desperately wants to be grown would constantly ask if she could wear makeup. Every time she asked we would say no. And the asking continued. One day God was gracious and gave me wisdom beyond my own. Watching me finish my daily ritual in the mirror she asked again if she could wear makeup. I paused and turned to look her in the eye.
“Do you know what this is for Mommy?” I asked.
“War paint,” was her ready reply.
“Exactly,” I said. “And I am putting it on because I am going to war today.” I went on to explain some of the things (in a very macro view) that Mommy has to face in war that day.
“Well,” she responded thoughtfully, “I am going to war today too.”
“I know you are. What kinds of wars are you facing today?”
She proceeded to list off a few small things that were actually big things to an eight year old. School work, dealing with her brothers, having to clean out the dishwasher, not being able to drive.
“Those are some big things you’re facing,” I told her. And then, boom, God-moment insight. “...do you remember a story of another kid who faced big things?”
Her eyes lit up as they always do when she exultantly knows the answer to a question: “David in the Bible! He faced Goliath.”
“Correct! And when David was preparing to face Goliath, he was just a kid. King Saul was a grown up. What did David say when King Saul offered David his armor to help him defeat Goliath?”
“He wouldn’t take it.”
“Why?”
“Because they didn’t fit him,” she said slowly, thinking over the implications to her response.
“What did he use then?” I asked.
“What he already had. A slingshot. Something he already knew how to use.”
I put down my mascara wand and put my hands on her shoulders.
“Exactly. You are already equipped with what you need to handle today. It would be a poor mommy who gave her daughter armor that didn’t fit her and sent her off to battle. One day you will be older and the armor of makeup will fit you and help you in your wars but right now it would only hinder you. I’ll train you how to use it when it’s time, but for now you already have what you need.”
Y’all. Truth sank in. We had a moment, hugged, and off she went. She hasn’t asked for makeup since. There have been a few special occasions where I have invited her to join me at the bathroom mirror and have a little highlighter on her cheeks or lip gloss or a bit of blush. And each of those little things have meant more because she and I know that she is growing into a woman who will have makeup in her arsenal if she chooses to use it.
Putting on my makeup has become almost a prayer time. Looking at it in this way has changed my view of it which has in turn changed my use of it. It’s an internal thing, a perspective shift, that no one else would be able to notice. But it has had an effect on me. And, by God’s grace, it may have left an impression on my daughter that will hopefully continue to help guide and direct her as she grows and fights more and more wars of her own.
Side Tangent:
You don’t have to agree with me, but I don’t think it’s wise to let young girls wear makeup out in public. Playing “dress up” at home is one thing but when we allow them to wear it in public it communicates something. Consider the harm that can come to a soldier who wears the markings of a superior above his rank, without the training to handle the situations that superior would be likely to face. I’m not saying it falls solely on the girl to make sure she is not a “temptation” or a negative influence. Each person is responsible for their own thoughts and actions. But with that truth, that we are each responsible for our own thoughts and actions, it also means we are responsible for the messages that we are sending with how we present ourselves - good, bad, sexy, or ugly. Through posture, dress, word, deed, appearance, tone - we are advertising our strengths or trying to disguise our weaknesses.
Why set young girls up for a battle that they shouldn’t have to face yet? Let them have childhood. Let them grow strong and formidable in the knowledge that they are enough, that their own beautiful, bare face is enough to turn toward their own battlefields.
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