When I was a teen, I absolutely, positively lived for makeup. We weren’t technically allowed to wear any at Helly McHellerson’s Stuck-Up School For Girls, which I attended up until the end of tenth grade, but that just meant it was that much bigger of a deal for me to be able to wear the stuff on weekends or over the summer.
And when I transferred to public school? Par-tayyyyy!
My love of everything cosmetic continued up until around second year university, at which point I realized most of the people around me were attending class in their pajamas and wearing last night’s wine as their preferred brand of lip stain. And wouldn’t know you know it, suddenly I didn’t really feel nearly as pressing a need to make a daily fashion statement. Funny how that happens.
Add in the passage of time and a rapidly diminishing number of fucks to give, and we arrive at the present, where how I look when I roll out of bed is basically how I’ll look all day.
I still love makeup; that hasn’t changed. Getting dolled up for a special night out is all kinds of fun. It’s just that I don’t have the patience or the interest in keeping up with it on a regular basis. I work in the accounting department of the tiniest of tiny small businesses – who am I trying to impress? So more often than not, apart from a quick smear of Blistex on the ol’ pout, I head out the door clean-faced with zero regrets.
Sometimes I even have a little fun with it.
Have you ever walked into Sephora sporting not so much as a dot of concealer and just sat back and watched the staff try and hide their horror at your naked mug having the audacity to exist in their carefully primer-ed, primped and pigmented midst? A state which only escalates when they witness you proceed to the cashier with that one lone item you came in for and nothing else, dashing their hopes that maybe you were only sans maquillage because your house had gone up in flames and all your makeup with it and you needed to rebuy your entire arsenal of magic creams and powders?
Like this, but with slightly more desperation.
The hard part is managing not to giggle.
I have never worn makeup. Fewer than 10 times in the last 20 or more years, and one of those was at my wedding. You can teach me how to do it right, maybe?
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Let me refer you to my far more knowledgeable makeup tutor, Professor YouTube, lol.
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I hate the feel of makeup! always have. Even the good stuff makes my eyes itch and me want to rub my face on something. I wear it sparingly, rarely, and as a result I’ll buy a foundation, get 2 maybe 3 uses out of it before it’s out of date and I should throw it out. I don’t know how so many women can stand to wear it every day, and I HATE that there are jobs where wearing that shit is compulsory.
Moisturiser with an SPF and some lip balm and I’m good.
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LOL I’m terrible about respecting makeup expiration dates. Heck, I was still using a few of my late grandmother’s vintage eyeshadows in university. For all I know they had lead in them but damned if I’ve never found a nicer gold.
I only wear foundation if I know I’m going to be photographed and don’t want to be all red and splotchy. Otherwise that stuff can go die in a fire, and good riddance.
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Yes, I go red too! I don’t need rouge that’s for sure. I’m very fair skinned with freckles so I wear base so that people don’t ask me if I’m having a heart attack when I’m drinking. Especially drinking and dancing, not that I’ve done that for frickin ages being a boring married old fart with kids.
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Ah, a kindred spirit!
Under normal circumstances I would never ever ever need to wear blush, but I always do when I put on foundation because otherwise it’s like looking at a ghost in the mirror. I love my natural rosy glow, but I really could do without the whole alcohol-turning-me-into-a-tomato thing.
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I just put on the foundation then lightly rub it off where I’d put rouge and bam my natural Rudolph glow shines through 🙂
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Easy, breezy, beautiful clever girl.
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When I was a teenager and into my 20s there was no way that I would ever leave the house without makeup on. Now I’m turning 34 in a couple weeks and I haven’t even owned any makeup in several years. Unless you count nail polish as makeup, I still own a bunch of that.
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Yeah, I do still go to town on my nails. I have three giant shoeboxes of polish and a bunch of nail art gear and one night a week I just sit down with it all, binge watch TV, and make nail magic happen.
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Yes yes YES! Or to put it another way, no no NO – no fucks given! I am fair skinned with strawberry blonde hair and eyelashes to match. I have been caking my eyelashes with black mascara since I was 13 when I got bullied about my appearance. I was SO bad, I would not answer the door to anyone EVER if I had no eye makeup on. But now, I really sincerely do not give a shit – if I offend you, look the other way. Like you, I will put makeup on for special occasions but for every day – no more! It’s great at bedtime, no scraping off the black – it’s so liberating. So glad you wrote this. 🙂
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Blech, washing it all off is the worst! You get home from a night out and all you want to do is crawl into bed and conk out, but instead you end up leaning over the bathroom sink squinting at your reflection and smearing your face with goop because you’re a responsible adult (or at least the closest approximation) and you know if you do the lazy thing and leave all that junk on your eyes you’re just going to regret it in the morning.
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Worse than going in with nekkid face? Try going in pale: they don’t even know what to do with me. (Mostly they just pray I’m not there for foundation, concealer, or – God-forbid – a highlighter) I did have one woman spend fifteen minutes offering me products to help get rid of “all the redness” in my skin. I kept trying to explain to her that us pale Irish girls have pinkish undertones, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but she reeeeally wanted me more yellow.
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Ugh. I went foundation shopping the other day because party season is coming up and I figured it was time I finally retired my old spackle-thick foundation I used to wear on the stage, and fuck me if everything on the shelves wasn’t too dark or too yellow or both. I even spent enough time outside this past summer to get a decent tan and I’m STILL too pale for everything.
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Speaking as a guy of the male persuasion I’m really digging the idea of walking into a makeup store and asking if a particular shade fits my autumn complexion.
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Do ittttttt…but please give me time to hop on a plane so I can watch the hilarity unfold in person.
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I’ve never really enjoyed make up. It’s not even that I super dislike it, it’s just … meh. I get nothing out of it. Other people do I guess.
When I was in the workplace, I would get people asking if was tired. It was always the same couple of people, which seemed a little odd. More odd was that although sometimes I really was tired, I got asked even when I wasn’t. And then–super odd–when I thanked them for their concern they usually looked put out and asked again, even more pointedly, if I was sure I wasn’t tired because I sure looked it.
A friend had to point out to me that this was a subtle workplace bullying tactic some people aim at women who don’t wear make up. Too subtle for me, apparently. I kept smiling and assuring them I felt great and thanking them for their concern and acting completely oblivious. I got such a kick out of it.
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Hahaha yeah I used to get that a lot too.
At my current workplace nobody gives two hoots about my appearance and it’s glorious.
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I may be an anomaly but I love make-up and I’ve worn it just about every day for over 35 years–I have it down to 7 minutes for full face and eyes. Sometimes I feel like it’s a mask I put on to face the world, especially on those days when my real face gives too much away.
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