Basics of Sikhi

This is a complicated issue..I agree with you, but the question was on a point of "allowed" not recommended or encouraged. Make-up is not recommended or encouraged in Sikhi, neither are tattoos or piercings. However, I do not want to deceive people by saying that your Amrit will be broken by wearing makeup. I do have two small points here.
Firstly I think that we (the khalsa) should try to stop being overly concerned about the outside rehit of Amritdharis as long as they broadly fall within the rehit maryada. Where will we draw the line on accepting 'natural beauty". Will we stop women moisturing or stop Singhs tying their beards for work? Are we going to stop people using mirrors for tying dastaars or stop people dressing up for events. Its a slippery slope and I think we should leave people to work out that Maharaaj is telling us to look inside and ignore the world. Everyone will be on a different internal journey in this and letting them work it out is just part of accepting hukam and accepting the diversity of the human race. The Balpreet Kaurs of our Panth and their inspiration will do this work, not the Rehit police.
Secondly I think we should be more concerned about actually doing the "real work" that is needed in our panth, dealing with an uneducated panth, gurdwaras, corruption, political ineptitude, lack of moral fibre and the fact that we were commanded to spread justice wherever we are...and thats without even taking into account the problems in India and Pakistan. If we, as a Khalsa Panth, did this then we would be inspiring others with our own actions. This would actually change our culture and inspire the whole world, and maybe some of the real deep rooted problems in our Panth, of looks orientated Singhs and Kaurs, whether its make up or that slick dumalla with the shingaar and shasters, who mostly dont know our history and Gurus words, maybe these problems may cease to be and with them, the idea that a woman must paint her face to look good.
On a final note, I do ofter wonder what the Singhnia "back in the day" would think about all of us dressed up in Bana for a nagar kirtan and yet quite happily ignoring the actual work our father set for us...which they lived and died for, dont you?

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There is a fallacy in your question. You are assuming that the Khalsa ruling the world implies that everyone will have to live by the Sikh code of conduct. In fact, values do not mean the same thing as a code of conduct. For example, Sikh values freedom of choice, which is why Guru Tegh Bahadur ji gave shaheedi, so a Khalsa Raaj would explicitly allow people freedom of religion. Again when it comes to living a life with alcohol drugs pre-marital sex, clubbing etc, again a Khalsa Raaj does not imply that these will be outlawed. Sikhi is concerned with ensuring the poorest in society are cared for, not what people do in their own time whcih doesn't harm others. So having laws that protect others from someones choices, eg children of addicts etc, is about caring for people, but one doesn't have to ban drugs. Two examples are:
(1) Guru Gobind Singh ji's horse did not go into a tobacco field..but that field wasn't burnt down.
(2) Bhai Joga Singh was stopped by Guru Gobind Singh ji from going into a brothel, but that brothel wasn't closed down by Guruji.
So, a Sikh is to control his/her own actions in the middle of temptation, not work to ban everything and remove that temptation. I agree that many Sikhs are not so tolerant nowadays and tend to think just like western legislators which tend to ban things without teaching people how to deal with this thing, but this stems from not researching what was unique about our Guru's culture.

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Please read all the answer. No, its not a Sikh custom, nor did Guru Nanak Dev ji ever get one from Bibi Nanaki. Just google it, its clearly a Hindu festival. Anyway, why would a man need a string for good luck? Or a woman need to guarantee herself protection by tying strings onto her "brothers"? Isn't the Guru's kara, kirpan and shabad enough? Any Singh worthy of his name (mane) should be protecting all women as his sisters or mothers in any case. The only reason we celebrate is cultural and that many girls quite like getting cash on that day and dissuading certain individuals from "trying it" later on. For me, it is just like my family meets on Christmas day and exchanges presents...its a side-effect of living in a country with different customs that will inevitably get adopted by people who are "less practicing". Thats what you get when a community of "Students" dont at all invest in educating such "Students" about what the "Teacher" said, but in building "Schools", to get these students to sit in "assembly" all day getting bored rather than in classes getting taught.

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