Fionnuala Jones: Comments about how my skin looks on a video make me want to scream

Fionnuala Jones: 'My decision to mostly abandon beauty regimens is also a symptom of hustle culture.' Picture: Gareth Chaney

I am pretty sure 16-year-old me would be horrified at who I’ve become. Back then, I was committed to my morning makeup routine. I’d set my alarm early so I could get at least 30 minutes of application time before school, depending on the look I wanted to pull off that morning.

More often than not, it involved reams of kohl eyeliner and enough Elizabeth Arden compact foundation to power a small town.

Nowadays, you’d struggle to call any part of my day a routine, particularly when it comes to beauty. Gone are the days of frantically copying YouTube makeup tutorials or filling my basket with new eyeshadows. Instead, I’ll find 10-minute scrambles of time to apply a face where absolutely necessary.

From my early 20s, I felt confident enough to know I didn’t need the makeup to do anything or be anyone — rather, it was a fun passion to explore when I wanted to.

How I looked no longer preoccupied my thoughts. I showed up on camera bare-faced, not as some radical move, but just as something I did in everyday life (although in the early days of social media, it was something I was, bizarrely, complimented for doing).

The lockdowns rolled around and I felt even less inclined to show up on a Zoom call with any makeup or any semblance of a hairstyle. Don’t get me started on fake tan — the thought of spending an hour slathering myself in Digestive-scented juice and risk looking like a human tiger loaf was a gamble I was no longer willing to take.

Fionnuala Jones: 'Gone are the days of frantically copying YouTube makeup tutorials or filling my basket with new eyeshadows.' Picture: Bríd O'Donovan

On television, there is an expectation to look a bit above average that remains which I oblige, obviously. But now, in the moments I have to get ready for something, it feels like a real chore.

For years, really, I was getting away with something that I wasn’t able to name. I think I’m only able to now because I’ve turned 30 (you know, that milestone that people talk about as if they’re harbingers of death). I had stopped paying the appearance tax — or “makeup tax”, as it’s sometimes called — the idea women have to spend extra time, money, and effort to look presentable to the outside world. Not only had I stopped paying, but I was deeply in arrears.

I’ve recently lost a few work opportunities that I desperately wanted. The feedback was good, with just the usual “we want to go in a different direction” given as an explanation. But as I watch time change my (bare) face, I can’t help but wonder about the conversations had about me in rooms I’m not in. Was it because I hadn’t tanned? Should I have blow dried my hair? Was my makeup too smudged thus forcing them to declare me an unemployable dirty minger?

When you’re younger, you can afford to stay out of the beauty rat race, because youth is on your side.

Now that my skin is lightly wrinkling, I have even more to hide by societal standards.

Now, if I’m being honest with myself (and you, dear reader), my decision to mostly abandon beauty regimens isn’t just related to adult confidence gained. It’s also a symptom of hustle culture (isn’t everything nowadays?).

Fionnuala Jones: 'In the moments I have to get ready for something, it feels like a real chore.' Picture: Alison Miles /OSM PHOTO

How can I allow myself the time to put on a full face when there’s money to be made and work to be done? Toxicity aside, time is money as money is time and women are short-changed when it comes to both.

Recent research shows that a woman will spend more than €21,000 in her lifetime on her face alone.

On the flipside, truly what does it matter what shade is on my lips when it comes to actually doing my job, or most jobs, for that matter?

Every month, when I have to sit down and schedule the beauty appointments I still make, the resentment bubbles in me.

No man in my industry spends as much time as I, or any other woman, does in the salon chair, to be deemed socially acceptable looking. I would let myself go fully grey tomorrow if I could guarantee I wouldn’t get comments about it, but that would never happen.

Look, I know that there are men that care deeply about their appearance who spend time and money on how they look, as is their right. I’m also under no illusions that I still benefit massively in the culture because I’m straight-sized.

This is also not a flagrant attempt to fish for compliments, like when you’d post on Facebook back in the day looking for ‘HOs’ (honest opinions) from your mutual friends.

This is just an external sigh — an explanation on why comments about how my skin looks on a video I’ve made reviewing a TV show make me want to scream. No one’s existence should be smokey eye conditional.