How Does Ambivalence Appear in Women's Relationship to Cosmetics?

Some studies have subtly demonstrated the existence of a tension of ambivalence in women's subjective feelings while wearing makeup. This paper consists in analyzing how feelings of ambivalence towards cosmetics appear in women, and how women feel when they remove or put on cosmetics. The study consists of an online survey and a walk-along experience. The survey included 261 women, among these 229 cosmetics users and 32 non-users. It used the double-blank method while asking the participants to express their feelings about various situations evoking their facial appearance, such as looking at their face when being in front of the mirror. A multiple case analysis of four selected survey respondents has also been done in order to compare 2 regular users and 2 non-users in regard to their way of dealing with tension. The walk-along experience included interviews and observations in the following conditions according to the groups: 1. Removing makeup (for regular users) / wearing makeup (for non-regular users) in front of a mirror; 2. Walking outside in public; 3. Wearing makeup again (for regular users) / removing makeup again (for non-regular users) in front of a mirror. Our findings showed that ambivalent tension (in most users and non-users) was mostly visible through a divergence going from positive feelings (such as feelings of satisfaction) to negative, contradictive feelings and that some similarities were present between users' and non-users' tensions despite the context differences. Ambivalence is shown not only toward the "masked" face (i.e. face with makeup on it), but also the natural face. Makeup is therefore not necessary to experience a tension of ambivalence towards one's own face. However, the tensions revealed themselves as being rather minimal, as the "mask" is minimal itself. An interesting possible direction in future research would be to explore the origin of this ambivalence about the natural (unmasked) face, especially with regard to the appearance of facial skin including the worry about facial flaws such as acne spots.