After surviving the braces and bad perms that marked her junior high existence, DePoe blossomed as she entered her teens. Her mother enrolled her in modeling classes. "I think for my mother it was kind of an investment," DePoe says. "She had paid for me to have braces. I was tall and skinny, and I was the right age."

As a sales representative, DePoe believed the lighting in the store made customers appear less attractive. She also thought that the white lab coats saleswomen wore tricked customers into thinking makeup providers were doctor-like. A woman with severe acne once visited DePoe at the Clinique counter. She was already using five different pre-makeup products on her skin and wanted more. The $90 oily skin package would have paid for two visits to a dermatologist, but the woman was turning to makeup. "She expected me to know exactly what would help. When I told her to stop using all the products we had sold her and try water for a while, her face lit up," DePoe recalls. "There was a lot of trust put into us." After three months, DePoe quit because she couldn’t handle the guilt that came with selling products she knew wouldn’t help.

Kilbourne says that in order to sell makeup, two things need to happen. First, women need to feel they’re required to wear it. "If it weren’t, you might have one eyeliner that lasts for two years," she says. Second, it needs to fail to some extent. "If it worked, we wouldn’t be spending as much."

According to The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, the number of cosmetic products on the market increases 15 percent annually. Makeup advertising boosts those numbers, in part by focusing on the supposed health benefits of cosmetics. Words such as "protective," "hydrating," and "nutritive" describe cosmetics that were developed in "spa laboratories" or "pioneer institutes." Cosmetics companies tout the supposed medical benefits of the products, and put everything from vitamin A to placenta in their formulas. "For the most part, makeup cannot achieve what it promises," Kilbourne says. Representatives from cosmetics companies did not respond to requests for interviews.

Women turn to makeup for more than just physical beauty. For many women, the time spent applying makeup is the only part of the day they spend on themselves. Cosmetics ads play on themes of relaxation, often depicting women laughing and lounging, with confident, calm expressions.

Makeup application was never relaxing for DePoe. She didn’t realize her dependency until she fell in love with a man who encouraged her to stop hiding behind a daily mask of face paint. The first time she left the house without makeup, she wondered if people thought she was a heroin addict because when she looked in the mirror she saw only baggy eyes and pale skin. Such self-criticism may seem excessive, but it doesn’t surprise Kilbourne. "We learn to look at our own faces and the faces of other women in a more critical way," Kilbourne says, noting that our culture does not hold men to the same standards of physical perfection. "Anything that is considered a flaw in a woman’s appearance detracts from her, not just from her beauty, but from her value. Anything that makes us conform to this ideal lowers our self-esteem and sets us up for disappointment."

After she made the decision to wear less makeup, DePoe was unsure if her less-made-up self would be accepted. She even apologized to co-workers for not looking better. In a culture that views makeup as a tool of professionalism, putting down the mascara can be challenging. "It’s really brave and difficult to not wear makeup," Kilbourne says. "Especially in the professional world." DePoe soon realized that aside from a few questions about whether she felt tired, nobody noticed. After some time, DePoe decided that if others did not fixate on her appearance, she shouldn’t either.

DePoe now wears concealer, powder, mascara, and the occasional lipstick—a lot less makeup than she used to wear. When she goes out with friends, she’s likely to put on makeup that will attract attention, like glitter. She tends to wear makeup more to impress women than to snare a man. "Women wear makeup for each other. It’s like showing off," she says, adding that she feels sorry for women who wear as much makeup as she once did.

DePoe wishes she could tell her teenage self to stop spending so much time, money, and energy on makeup. She wishes she had used the 300 hours a year she once spent applying cosmetics on developing intellectual pursuits or doing something productive. An acquaintance of DePoe’s, who describes herself as "vehemently pro-mascara," worries about a world that encourages such an obsession with makeup. "My mother used to call it ‘putting on your warpaint.’ I wonder—what kind of war am I in that I need makeup to have an advantage?"