Is makeup preppy?

Can you please settle an arguement between me and my 16 yr. old daughter-- is makeup preppy? I say nay, she says yay. 

I received this email last week and I've had to dwell on it for some time. My initial thought on makeup is that no makeup is the preppiest of options, and if you desire to wear it it's best to keep to natural looks. Concealer, a hint of mascara and lipstick and you're good to go. Maybe some powder if your skin is as oily as mine.

Then I got to thinking: I'm 29 and I've seen three phrases of preppy style. I remember prepdom from back in the 80s and that's what I base more of my style on, only with less shoulder padding.  Then there was the unfortunate Mall Prep/Popped collars era of the late 90s-early aughts. This was when owning a single item from Abercrombie automatically made you a preppy in the halls of your high school. Fashion was prep'd out for a few years, and then the Nouveau Prep movement hit the blogging world. This group, mostly made of people who don't recall the fall of the Berlin Wall (or were unavailable to have experienced the event), have for some reason declared such things as chevron prints, polka dots, and bows as preppy.  Somehow, these early twenty-somethings have managed to turn preppy into an infantile style, completely inappropriate for anyone older than 25. A lot of the Nouveau Preps wear a lot of makeup, more than I'd think would be considered preppy. Winged eyeliner is most decidedly not prep. Hint: The Hamptons aren't as preppy as they used to be.

There's also cultural differences. Down South, women put on full makeup just to run out and grab a gallon of milk. Up in New England most women wouldn't think twice of running to the grocery store in the clothes they were just gardening in. In West Virginia, hell, we just let everything hang out.

So, is there really an answer to this question? There are a lot of factors that are in play and it's becoming increasingly hard to say anything is a "for sure" with any certainty.  If you do decide to wear makeup, always remember less is more.