Texas Teens Go Make-Up Free To Redefine Beauty

A group of teenagers at the Colleyville Heritage High School in Texas have decided to fight back against unreasonable beauty standards by appearing in public one without makeup for one day each week. How rebellious!

The student club, Redefining Beautiful, was started by several girls who were sick of feeling like they had to always look done. They got t-shirts printed with “Redefining Beautiful, One Girl At A Time” and pledged to forgo all makeup every Tuesday. They got the idea from the website OperationBeautiful.com, which encourages people to post anonymous messages in public restrooms and other spaces for others to find (example: “you are beautiful” is probably the most popular statement).

At the beginning, the project didn’t go so well, according to one of the original members, Caroline Tessler. “It was was awkward the first couple of Tuesdays when there were just 12 of us. People would ask, ‘What are you doing?'”

However, since then it’s really picked up steam. The enterprising teens ordered 25 t-shirts to start, but they’ve had to place another order now that almost 200 girls have signed up to participate. And now they’ve got quite a bit of media support. After making it into the Texas papers, Styleist picked up the story, then the Huffington Post. We imagine Redefining Beautiful will soon have more members than they can outfit.

Despite my slight snark, I really do believe what they’re doing is worthwhile. As one girl explains, they’re not against wearing makeup, they are just “really against girls feeling like it’s a shell to hide in.” And this is a good thing. However, it’s a little disheartening that going without makeup one day a week is considered a noteworthy act at certain schools. But since our cultural standards are so fucked up—and so obscenely far from reality—it’s gonna take a really long time to truly redefine beauty, and every little bit helps.

Colleyville Heritage Girls Give Up Makeup For Beauty’s Sake [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]