Whenever we feel that a friend is making an unwise decision, it is usually in our second nature to talk to them, in the hopes of preventing harm or humiliation.
However, being honest with our friends doesn’t always pay off.
As not everyone appreciates unsolicited advice, and giving it has the potential to permanently damage friendships.
While other times, a friend might be oblivious to something they were doing, and sharing this with them before they discover it themself has the potential to cause more harm than good.
Redditor Jazzlike-Passenger27 recently noticed a friend of theirs making a new cosmetic choice.
A choice the original poster (OP) didn’t think flattered their friend in the slightest.
Leading the OP to wonder if she should tell their friend, before she found out the hard way.
Wondering if this was a good idea, the OP took to the subReddit “Would I Be The A**hole” (WIBTA), where they asked fellow Redditors:
“WIBTA if I told my friend her lips look bad?”
The OP explained why they felt a cosmetic intervention was needed with a close friend of theirs:
“I have a very close friend who has recently started over lining her top lip.”
“Like REALLY over lining it.”
“She has pretty thin lips and it’s painfully obvious that she’s basically trying to double her lip by putting lipstick above her lip.”
“It does not look good, and multiple of my friends have agreed with me that it’s too much and not flattering.”
“I brought up telling her and they said not to, that it makes her happy and if she thinks it looks good that’s all that matters.”
“While I agree with them on that, if I were her, I would want someone to tell me that my makeup looked bad.”
“I had a friend gently tell me years ago that I needed to pluck my eyebrows and it quite literally changed my life.”
“I don’t want to hurt her feelings, and how she wants do to her makeup doesn’t affect my life, but if the majority of our friends thinks it looks bad, should I tell her to avoid further embarrassment?”
“WIBTA?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
The Reddit community was somewhat divided on whether or not they felt the OP would be the a**hole for telling her friend her lips didn’t look good.
Some felt that the OP telling their friend without her asking their opinion wasn’t going to end well, and objected to the fact that they brought this up with other friends behind her back:
“IF you’re going to bring it up, I’d try to find a situation where you’re getting ready or touching up makeup together and potentially mention it framed as her lip liners ‘a little high today’.”
“That way she doesn’t feel fully attacked like you’ve thought she looked stupid for a while and it’s a way to test the waters.”
“It Is nice to have the honest friend but there’s also a chance she won’t be ready to hear it without being defensive if you take more of a ‘girl you gotta stop doing that’ approach.”
“But also don’t talk behind someone’s back about how they look, even if you had good intentions.”
“That part makes you and your friends at least a little bit of YTA.”- TheGirlOnFireAndIce
“You’ve been discussing this with your other friends.”
“YTA.”- KittenBrawler-989
“I’m gonna go against the grain here and say YWBTA (gently).”
“I know you have good intentions, but generally speaking, it’s not right to make unsolicited negative comments about someone else’s appearance.”
“There are exceptions, like if someone has food stuck in their teeth and is clearly unaware.”
“But this isn’t the same.”
“Your friend does her makeup that way intentionally – she has a mirror and can see how she looks.”
“It’s fair to assume she doesn’t think it looks bad, otherwise she wouldn’t do it that way.”
“And her opinion is really the only one that matters, as it’s her face.”
“She’s not hurting anyone.”
“Of course, if she asks for your opinion on her lip lining technique, by all means give it.”
“But otherwise, leave her be.”- BeatificBanana
While others felt that it was fine for the OP to be honest, even if they warned them that their friend might not appreciate what they had to say, and still objected to their gossiping with other friends:
“NTA for wanting to help her out, but if she likes it and feels confident that way then you should leave her be!”
“Down the road you could gently suggest a new method, ‘you’d look great with that lip liner’, ‘that style of makeup would really suit you!’ something like that.”
“Don’t just outright tell her it looks sh*t even if you feel like you’re helping.”
“Or when she’s not wearing any, compliment her lips and emphasize how good they look naturally (don’t overdo it, though).”
“And don’t talk to your friends about it anymore.”
“That would hurt her feelings.”- HalfPowerful4109
“NTA.”
“But unfortunately this is a canon event she must experience.”
“Definitely stop talking about it with other people tho because that’s a little bit TA behavior.”
“Everyone experiments with makeup in some way or another, and everyone goes through a bad makeup phase. she’s experimenting!”
“Although I will say, that nyx fat oil lip gloss stuff makes me look like I just got filler (in a natural way) according to the few girls who have asked me for my injector when I wear it.”
“It’s cheap at the chemist or drug store.”
“Maybe recommend that product to her and tell her it’s super easy to put on and will make her lips look juicy as hell without needing to worry about drawing the lip liner back on throughout the day.”
“The problem with overlining (which I used to do too) is that makeup comes off your mouth first, and leaves you with a weird faded ring around your lips that you constantly need to touch up for it to not look ridiculous.”- colisocol
“NTA.”
“As long as you don’t try to make her insecure, telling your friend that some style isn’t working for her isn’t really bad. try not to mention everybody is talking about it, though.”
“It might make her really insecure.”- lonecarpenter
“NTA.”
“All these people in the comments tiptoeing around and validating someone’s really bad choices helps nobody and doesn’t raise self-esteem.”
“This is how we have cosmetic surgery addicts and fillers addicts destroying their faces and bodies.”
“If you look at how horrifying some people make themselves, it’s really sad.”
“We should not be encouraging or validating this.”
“We should be telling the truth.”
“Even if the truth is not what we want to hear.”
“The lip liner makes her look awful.”
“Sorry. It’s the truth.”
“Enough people have noticed it and commented on it.”
“Tell her.”- DaxxyDreams
“NTA.”
“Tell her.”
“She needs to hear it from a friend.”
“The comedian Lewis Black used to do a bit about Janet Jackson re: an outfit she wore to perform at the Super Bowl.”
“He said when he saw it he knew right away that she didn’t have one true friend, because a true friend would have stopped her and said ‘do you know you’re playing the Super Bowl today and not flying the Battlestar Galactica?'”
“Like you, I would much much much rather hear it from a friend.”
“Keep your criticism to the makeup and whether it’s having its intended effect – and not ‘we’ve all been talking about you behind your back, and we decided..yikes’.”- Starbeets
Upon reading everything the Reddit community had to say, the OP returned with an update, sharing how they planned to proceed, and clarifying a few details of their story:
“Lots of great advice here!”
“If it comes up naturally then I’ll say something to her but will probably leave it alone.”
“Also, it seems I’m being labeled the a**hole for talking to other friends about it, and I wanted to clear up that the conversation I had was with 4 of my close friends while we were doing makeup, and I brought up ‘has anyone else noticed X’s lip liner?'”
“‘It’s really a lot and I want to say something to her about it’.”
“It was probably a 1-minute conversation that never came up again, and I was in no way trying to degrade my friend for her lip style, but trying to see if I was the only one who had this opinion.”
“Maybe I am an AH for that, but I personally hate when people are so quick to condemn gossip when it’s something that has been around and literally fueling and sustaining female social circles for CENTURIES (did part of my masters focus on gossip within renaissance social circles).”
“I’m not going to act like I don’t talk about people when they aren’t around, and I don’t like the commenters who act high and mighty when they are probably guilty of the same thing.”
If the OP’s friend asks them what they think of her makeup choices, she will have the perfect opportunity to give an honest opinion.
Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine this conversation ending without feelings getting hurt.
A likely possibility no matter how the OP plans to proceed.