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 - bothexisting 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.