Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Give good face: An intervention

Mornin'.

We need to talk. Go get your cosmetics and sit down with me. Yes, I can wait while you rustle around in the vanity. No rush. Can I have some coffee? I am spent.



Now then. If you are looking at a stack of beige's and browns accented with a plummy pink and a medium-range pinky bronze lip color; consider this an intervention, and go ahead and freak out accordingly.

Frequently, there seems a misconception regarding make up: It is not meant to go with everything. If it were meant just disappear into one's face and never be apparent, the colors would be all be named Clear. I have already reviewed on several occasions the Blushing policy on good face: Nada is a no-fly here (turn away crunchy beauties). Something good can happen on those eyelids. It is not just an uncorroborated rumor that one can use more than one color per location on a face or that lip color can change. Don't infarc on me, I am just saying, it could happen. To you. To anyone at yoga. I have seen it.



Anyone looking at a tube of Clinique's Honey Blush, Pink Bamboo, or Tenderheart lipstick right now is in more trouble than I suspected. Live a little, it's makeup: No one is being wedged into black leather and shoved through the door of The Vault to get face to face with their inner sex kitten. No slippery slope here. I promise. But just so we're clear: I am not stopping you either, this is a libertarian operation (Do what feels good. Repeat).

Sephora, Nars, Face Stockholm, the Chanel counter (where ever!) - they have someone who can help: With a couple of hours on your hands, prepare to be reinvented - several times would be best if you can put your hands on more than three items in the beige family (Yes, I am part mystic on my Mama's side).




The difference between being polished and put together and a fashion victim when it comes to makeup is a very fine line in the translucent sand: Never match your eye shadow to your top. Never buy a 40 color pre-made palette. And even if your last name is Monet, you do not have to go it alone.



Once upon a time, a girl working for me showed up in all manner of makeup excursion; as if there had been a different theme in the bathroom each morning: Goth, disco, Madonna's neon and rubber bangle period, Mona Lisa, Sturgis bike week. Everything went. And then she plodded through the door of a couture showroom. The workplace is no venue for experimentation or face-as-abstract-palette: Work your kinks - or kinky, as it were - out, on the weekend.



This Old Color Guilt (OCG) fueling poor decisions on the face has got to go too. Some of those colors bought five years ago can swap in for something new but their shelf life is up. Whether mistake or faded trend, unless desperate for a fantastic infection to land one in a make-shift leper colony in the front yard, let them go.

While it does seem true makeup professionals are there simply to hock product, they did not pull up along side in black van and tie anyone to their Lucite chair. They have a job to do and frankly, some people could use 1000 products. Or at least some good toner, Lordy.

Those Clinique colors were in my makeup bag when I was sixteen years old and my boyfriend was running down the science hall holding a lacrosse stick catching up to talk before practice.



Good days. Good make up. Great guy. But all those things have a time and a place: Memories. Trash can. Facebook. But not now and not on my face.

credits: Anna Sui, becomegorgeous.com, Dior

9 comments:

susan said...

I had an intervention at Bobbie Brown this summer! I still laugh when I remember my first eye shadow. Does anyone remember frosty Little Boy Blue--with midnight blue mascara of course! :)

P.Gaye Tapp at Little Augury said...

ah youth! and good makeup! la

Mrs. Blandings said...

That was hilarious and will have me scrambling through my make up drawer today. I fear I'm guilty as charged.

Karena said...

OMG how funny. I hate to throw makeup away. I have some awful shades of lipstick!

Debi said...

No more Tenderheart lipstick?! Really?!!

Next you'll tell me my Black Cherry lip gloss has to go as well.

Very funny piece!

Anonymous said...

Here's a thought I would love to have addressed. While thumbing through old photos of myself in my 20s through 40s, I looked cute with my brown eyes dramatic with a smoky shadow, and my signature red mouth. Now, in my late 50s, though my weight has not changed, in an effort to look "fresher", I rarely use shadow and as much liner as before, and photos of me now make me look washed out. What to do? Avoid all photographers at parties, or use shadow at special occasions just in case of a photo op? I know I sound shallow, but I'm not. I'm just a woman trying to make the best of what she has, like you suggest.

Heather said...

Oops. You caught me with pink bamboo on my lips.

Anonymous said...

My first lipstick was clinique ripe raisin followed by clinique black honey lip gloss! Did we all start on clinique?
from Robin :)

nannykim/spindlecottage said...

hmmmm, I am one of those people with allergies galore as far as makeup goes. I would love to have a "makeover", but I have never found any eye makeup that I can wear. I also have rosacea which goes with the sensitivities---ah well--it has to be pretty ohhhh natural for me!