On painting faces.1
I’ve only recently discovered I quite like make-up. Every now and again I go through a phase of wearing it every day, but never for more than a few weeks at a time; my default go-to look is still without. It also took me a very long time to realize just not not-normal my non-made-up face was; mum didn’t do makeup either, so I just assumed most women didn’t. And… all just had naturally flawless skin. As opposed to me. It was only when I started looking more closely at the texture of skin–rather than the overall color–that I realized everyone really did have just as much acne and scarring as I did, they just knew how to paint over it.
So I learnt. How to cleanse and moisturize, how to put on concealer, and blush, and powder. I’m still rubbish at eyes–I can’t use eyeliner to save my life–but I know how to do just enough of the “non-makeup makeup” look to pretend I, too, have a perfect flawless complexion.
It was a surprisingly liberating feeling.
But I still don’t do it every day. Most importantly, when I feel that applying makeup moves from the “fun ritual” into the “ugh, again?” basket, that’s when I stop for a while.
It’s worth noting that I have a job where I can choose to do this; I’m not in a service industry and I’m not usually on public display (though I do usually crack out the makeup for when I am). Not everyone does.
- As an aside, as this is an older article, it also serves as an… interesting historic reminder of the little ways the press used to get stuck into Clinton. ^
5 Comments