The harmful drug here is society’s unrealistic expectations of women. The harmful drug here is media’s influence in making women feel like they’re not good enough. Being able to visually express yourself is not harmful. I love my makeup. I love to create and blend and explore colour palettes and I love to put it on my face the same reason you love to wear your favourite shirt. You feel good wearing that shirt and it also gives others a feel for your personality. Expressing yourself is not harmful; belittling women for their right to do so is.
Of course makeup is used as a tool to enhance beauty and can therefore have negative effects on one’s self esteem, warping their perception of beauty and in effect their own self worth. However instead of tackling that issue, some women feel the need to lecture others (almost always condescendingly) on what makeup is, what it does, when to wear it, how and why. Not wearing makeup doesn’t make you any more morally superior than the next person.
