Natural makeup involves applying just the right amount of makeup, so that it appears that no labour was involved in achieving the look. Within celebrity magazines, this serves as the antithesis to the over-styled, overdone and ridiculed face of the ‘slutty’ working class woman who wears too much makeup, and the ‘rough’ face of the ‘lazy’ working class woman who wears too little. As such, ‘natural’ beauty uses makeup as a form of enhancement, emphasis, and correction of natural features, rather than as a method of disguise or masking. Negra (2009) also notes the de-emphasis on the visibly made up face, with women under obligation to efface the signs of their own labour.

The ‘immorality’ associated with the
representation of working class beauty cultures as excessive and overly sexual, or
insufficient and lacking, is countered by the framing of natural beauty as morally
right, decent and respectable.