insecure

Some good makeup can make you look fly even if if you like yourself
It's not so cut and dry as that
- Can it make an overweight, depressed, self loathing guy in his late thirties feel fly? Asking for a friend.
  
  Yes. Source: experience
  For real though. I did rocky horror picture show a while ago with some old friends who did theatre, and I dressed up as a gender bent version of Columbia in the gold sequin jacket. They contoured my face, gave me cats eyes, and dyed my beard bright red. I felt fly as fuck, I look damn good in fishnets and makeup. I also got to experience feeling hot; that night I learned that my body type has a number of admirers in the gay community, and quite a few people in attendance made sure I knew it. All around one of the best things that has ever happened to my self esteem
  
  It doesn't have to be makeup, but caring for how you look can help you feel fly, too. A haircut that fits. Face treatments or creams with nice scents feel good. Finding the right products for you can make you feel good. I helped my husband find the right soap and shampoo for his skin and hair type, got him to use moisturizer and better shaving products. His acne that he had for years vanished completely, his skin is nice and smooth now and he feels so much better because all the dry skin was uncomfortable. He also goes to a barber shop now that massages his head and gives him a haircut and beard trimming and he loves having a little spa time.
  It won't magic magically cure your depression or reduce your weight, but it will help you feel better in your body.
  
  No, because the thing that makes a person feel good when they wear makeup is the anticipated reaction of their peers. Per modern grooming standards, straight men (assuming you are straight here) are expected not to wear make up, and thus will garner quizzical or negative reactions from the average person. You already know this, and if you didn't, it would quickly become apparent once you started interacting with anyone. And once you noticed others' negative judgement, you would not "feel fly".
  Instead the way to "feel fly" is simple, if not easy - hew better to culturally agreed-upon beauty standards. Cultures and subcultures differ in exactly what this entails. But common things are wearing clean clothes without obvious wear that fit well; getting a good haircut; taking care of your skin; eating a healthy diet, getting exercise, and sleeping well to improve mood and energy levels; unabashed self-expression within cultural constraints through clothing choice, haircut, hair color, tattoos or piercings, or accessories. And, most importantly, by not being overweight.
  
  If it makes you feel more confident and happy about what you see in the mirror, then yeah it’s going to help.
  You’d probably get some detractors who won’t be able to help making remarks but all they’re really telling you is they’re not your friend.
  You can also do something natural looking that most guys don’t recognize as ‘makeup’ but helps improve your look.
  There’s more men who do this than you might realize, e.g. anyone behind a news desk on tv
  
  Go to the gym, it will make a world of difference. Lifting weights is not even difficult (like cardio, I hate cardio and never do it). But the extra muscles will help burn fat and make you want to eat better to get nice gains.
  You are not going to be depressed when you start to get a nice body.
- Fair enough, there's most probably some room for ethical consumption of cosmetics and make up. But by far, the large majority of this industry is driven by the capitalist need for consumption and misogyny
  
  Why would the capitalists want misogyny? They don't care about women's self esteem - just their money.
- it's like trimming your beard to accentuate your face (yes i know men are physically able to wear makeup), it's not necessary but i quite like looking in the mirror and making finger guns like johnny bravo

For some women maybe. But there are plenty of women who use makeup to express themselves creatively. They study the art either formally through school or informally online, such as through videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram etc.
When explored creatively like this makeup becomes a hobby and potentially a career. It’s a valid form of expression using your face and/or body (hair and nails as well) as the canvas. It can be simple or it can be taken to the level of an art form!
- Right, but what's the ratio? Are there enough people who just use makeup creatively to support the global cosmetics industry?
  
  As it is right now? I doubt it. But the actual percentages are unknown to me. It’s not something that’s particularly easy to track.
  But then what do we do about it? The wider issue is with social media and its effects on girls and young women. How do we change it? Young girls especially are vulnerable to social comparisons, starting around middle school age. We can try banning social media for young people but the effectiveness of that strategy is not yet known since we’re still early in the process.

Hot take: women aren't insecure about their bodies because of advertising campaigns. They are insecure about their bodies because of real social consequences they face from the people in their everyday lives.
People treat you better when you look nice. This isn't morally "right" or "fair", but it is true. Intuitively or explicitly, women recognize this, and put effort into meeting society's expectations of them. If all women woke up tomorrow and said "I am completely at peace with how my body looks", the beauty industry would likely be largely unaffected, because they would quickly be reminded of the second order effects that their negative self image was driving them to achieve in the first place: a good partner; a better job; more, cooler friends.
- This.
  If I don't cover up my very natural dark under circles and acne scars, I am treated differently at work by customers.
  Wearing light makeup is professional, like wearing a collared shirt is professional. Society has decided this for me.
  Some men at work don't even realise I wear makeup because I choose natural looking application without eye-shadow. They only notice when I don't wear it ("Are you OK? You look tired/sick")

I was going to go off on a tangent about other industries that shouldn't exist, but people are having reasonable and productive conversations in the comments, so I guess I won't. Damn you, level-headed Lemmy users! Damn you all to hell!

A lot of healthy women wear makeup and nice clothes cause they like it, not because they feel ugly
- But there's nothing inherent about that. If society had deemed that wearing a tarp and smelling of fish was fashionable, then they would do that for themselves.
  So let's change society so that "nice things" are less shit for the world.
  
  I feel like there needs to be a name for this fallacy. The one where you say "society did X, and I don't like it, so we shouldn't do X!" As if you can just decree it and make it so, despite the fact that all social constructs are enourmously complicated and deeply ingrained in a culture.
  
  Theres nothing inherently inherent about that.
  
  Well yeah they used to. I’m sure ancient women liked their men coming home bloody and covered in hair.
  There was a time when not a single man wanted anything to do with a thin woman.
  It’s always changing. We want to look good for ourselves and each other, and we use what we ourselves perceive as attractive. We all wanna get banged and we all wanna look hot. As someone who has been around a while don’t worry, it has gotten better. Even back to the 80s look at how much people used to peacock, now half of us are wearing Mom jeans and track pants. As you get older you start to give less of a shit about all that stuff.
  Gen z doesn’t seem as interested in all that stuff which is nice. I notice their generation is more chill than ours, they rather code and stream than go to parties like my generation did

Personal grooming and appearance matter. As much as I hate dress codes there is something about dressing professionally and looking nice that does give you a little boost in confidence.

Women like looking prettier (and there's a side to makeup that's more self expression and art than vanity too), and more so than the average man does. That much, I think, it's not really debatable. However, it doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't already think she's pretty or alright or whatever that doesn't get into the self-hating territory. Maybe I don't hate my body and I think I'm alright but I wouldn't mind lowering my body fat percentage, lol.

"I love my body how many industries would go broke" -women

If they woke up with their mind changed, then they can wake up the next day with it changed back. The machine is hungry, and its propaganda is relentless