The Makeup Remover

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Note before the review: It says there are only 26 chapters, but on Line Webtoon (where I read it), there are 127. I have read all 127.

Have you ever wanted to read a rom/dram where the characters actually have common sense? Well, here you go!

Story: 9
The premise of this story is that our main character, Yeseul, finds herself as a contestant in a TV show about makeup called Face Off Cinderella. I, personally, love gameshows, and so this premise instantly hooked me. However, the more important story in this manwha is told through the interactions of the characters, many of whom are fellow contestants. The ... plot related to the show is great, and I wouldn't change it at all. However, I felt that the plot outside of it was slightly worse, and so I docked off a point for that. Overall, I still really liked the story.

Art: 8
The art is a 10 when it wants to be. However, this tends to be saved for the more impactful scenes, and as such, the average quality of art is closer to an 8, which is by no means bad.

Character: 10
THIS is where The Makeup Remover excels. Each character has their moments to shine, and in a cast as large as the one in this story, that is quite a feat in my eyes. I was emotionally attached to most of the characters in the story. The author made it easy for me to like the characters I was supposed to like, and hate the characters I was supposed to hate without making anyone an over-the-top hero or villain. Everyone has their moments of selfishness, but also their moments where they understand. There is incredible character development in this story, and it helps make the important scenes all the more enticing.

Enjoyment: 10
I finished this within three days. I read about 60 of the 127 chapters in two, and the rest today. I could not put it down. This is one of the most enjoyable manwhas I have ever read.

Overall: 10
This story is deeply engaging, interesting, and can be both beautiful and disturbing when it wants to be. I nearly cried in a couple scenes solely due to how well they were done, something that has only ever happened to me once before (in the anime Sonny Boy). I highly recommend that anyone read this.

Hi, this is the person who wrote that true beauty review.
Except I'm not here to trash this manhwa.

It starts off with a college girl yeseul who all of a sudden gets told to start wearing makeup and work on her appearance after only focusing on studying her whole life. She then gets mistreated at a salon by some makuep atrist and at that same salon she gets approached by a dude looking for "The perfect model" and she hesitates to accept the deal at first but eentually gives in.

The makeup remover didn't come off as a super interesting webtoon/manhwa (at ... least for me) which is why it took me so damn long to write this. Once i started it though i realized how good it truly is and it also finds a way to be pretty comical at times. Even though i'm only a few chapters in i think anyone can quickly recognize the theme of this work which is telling us how makeup can make people perceive us in multiple fashions and so far i think the author is doing a good job.

I do plan to read more of this so this review might get rewritten if i wanna add something or my opinion as changed.

I think Lee Yone's work is very good. "The Makeup Remover," coincidentally, was my first exposure to it. To be clear, I am writing this review after re-reading the manhwa for the first time. Consequently, my opinion of it is a bit more critical and grounded.

I often see people say that what "The Makeup Remover" is represents exactly what "True Beauty" should have been and I fully agree with this statement. Unlike "True Beauty," "The Makeup Remover" sticks to its one goal through and through: increasing its audience's knowledge/understanding of makeup, as well as discussing makeup's strengths, weaknesses, and overall impact on society - both ... existing and potential. It does not get sidetracked and portrays makeup in a legitimately interesting and innovative fashion (it may also be worth noting that the author explicitly credits a real makeup artist for giving them consultations).

I will also say that many of the makeup looks - not just the main duo's, and not just the unconventional ones - are legitimately stunning, creative, thought-provoking, or all three. One of the CEO characters in the manhwa mentions using the makeup looks to sell products to their audience, and heck, I gotta say, this is just a manhwa, but I sure felt inspired by a lot of the looks and felt regretful I hadn't the skills to reproduce them myself. My favorite face-off was definitely Nuri's and Heewon's: not only are both results fantastic in their own ways, but they also do one of the best jobs in the manhwa conveying the entire point of the story.

Speaking of Nuri and Heewon: the character writing here is excellent. Everyone - and I do mean *everyone* - feels like a real person, even the characters who only appear for a chapter or two at most. The manhwa takes the high road here and avoids the cheap trap of demonizing some characters because they have less gracious intentions or backstories and uplifting and canonizing others because they have "better" intentions. All the characters have something "good" AND "bad" to them to at least some extent. A vast majority of the characters are also given the chance to change and grow over time and it's done in a wonderful way (some of my favorite examples are, of course, Heewon, but ALSO Minyeong - and her growth, as proven via her final look, is fantastic). As a whole, it's very refreshing.

It goes without saying that both Yeseul and Yuseong are lovely and extremely interesting characters. I won't wax poetic about them because restating the obvious would be a waste of time, but they do make an incredible duo and are certainly no Mary Sues themselves.

Aside from all I've mentioned above, this manhwa does a great job discussing an entire plethora of other topics: healthy dynamics in relationships, staying true to yourself, the value of nuance, beauty standards (naturally!), the impacts of and considerations regarding age, online behavior, age gaps, society's treatment of men v.s. women, fashion, life outlooks, expectations placed on different demographics of people, plastic surgery, "reality" TV... seriously, I feel anyone can get a lot of enjoyment and material for personal growth from this manhwa just because it covers so many topics. To me, it's very thoughtful and complex.

That being said, I will say there were some elements that I liked less. I felt that at some points, the manhwa did get a bit "preachy" or seemed to get lost in its message somewhat (there was a moment or two during which it would uplift one group but sort of drop the ball with its treatment of the opposing group). Maybe I'm just being a contrarian but there were moments where I felt that the "makeup can be dangerous" argument could have been swapped out with the "it's okay to enjoy makeup, too" perspective as sometimes the overall point of the manhwa seemed unbalanced in that regard. I'm a bit tired of people arguing the former all the time is all; I agree and I also want to see a fresher perspective sometimes.

Additionally, some people said that this manhwa was marked with the "romance" tag and they felt led on by it. I admit that the manhwa does focus on romance to some degree via Seungwoo and Yeseul and some of the other makeup duos, but beyond that... yeah, that tag looks a little shaky. I wish there had been more resolution given to Yeseul, Yuseong, and (possibly) Heewon in that regard. As for Minjae and Minyeong... that's probably just wishful thinking on my part haha. While I do think romance doesn't have to be in everything, I still do see validity in this specific critique of the tags: I mean, imagine if a manhwa was tagged as sci-fi but had barely any of that genre covered in it!

And some minor gripes: wish we got to see the adult version of Yuseong in full without his makeup (I know that the lack of this reveal was likely intentional, but it was left as an unresolved mystery and that made me feel a bit iffy). I did some thinking and felt that in addition to sating my curiosity, in some ways that would have strengthened some of the manhwa's core arguments. On an unrelated note, I will also admit I was a bit underwhelmed by Yeseul and Yuseong's entry for the wedding theme. The idea was good but in my opinion it focused more on the message as a whole rather than the idea and message as conveyed via makeup - with the latter of the two being the entire focus of the manhwa!

Though I took two points off for the issues I mentioned towards the end of my review since they did impact my reading experience, as a whole I still feel this manhwa is fantastic and worth one's time. It is complex, nuanced, and, above all, very human. Thus, my final rating is an 8.