Why Do I Wear Makeup?

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has heard the phrases "girls who wear makeup are fake" or "wearing makeup means you're hiding the real you". 

I really can't stand and frankly just don't understand these phrases nor the point of saying them. Firstly, these phrases automatically indicate that a persons identity and thus the judgements made about them have to be spawned from their aesthetic appearance. For a judgement that implies we who wear makeup are insecure about our appearance, it sure does a lot to imply that how we appear (and how "natural" that appearance is) is indeed so very important. 

I'm not going to lie and say that wearing makeup doesn't make me feel better about myself sometimes, but at the same time I can't say that without it I'd hate myself and how I look, because I don't. I accept myself and I accept what I look like with nothing on - and this is something I strongly encourage every one to feel.
Nonetheless, I still enjoy wearing makeup and it still makes me feel a little bit more put together sometimes just like a suit can make someone look and feel little smarter.

These factors don't mean that I am insecure, and they certainly don't mean that I am hiding myself from people. I thought it wasn't all about what the cover of the book looked like, yet it seems like if that book doesn't look the "right way", it's fine to judge it before reading a little further...

I find it foolish for people to feel lied to or even betrayed by a persons appearance when they take their makeup off - I mean, you can clearly see when someone has makeup on, especially when it's a more extreme look - so why on Earth are you surprised that a person looks a little different after taking it all off? 

More to the point, why do you even care? Why does a person wearing makeup affect you so much? Makeup for me is a way of expression, it's a way for me to change up my look without any permanent commitments and it's a way for me to match my mood a certain day to my outward appearence. Of course that makes me feel a bit more confident but so does any act that makes a person feel happy or makes a person feel like they can express themselves. And that's okay.

People also forget that a person can still hide who they are without changing things about their appearance - people can hide behind far more things than a bit of eyeshadow or a spot of lipstick. At the end of the day, if it makes that individual happy and if it's not harming another, why is it such a bad thing, why must it be perceived so negatively? Why must a person conform to the beauty standards that say their look is too "fake"? 

I don't hide behind my makeup, my makeup enforces who I am and who the real me is - if makeup is anything, it is simply an outward extension of myself, not a barrier hiding that.

What does makeup mean to you?