In high school, I worked at the King of Prussia Coffee Beanery with a giggly, plump girl named Margot. Whenever our female boss or a lady customer acted bitchy, Margot would say: “She’s just jealous of our youth.” I thought Margot was being her usual bubbly self, but now realize she was cruel and wise beyond her 18 years. Even the cultured, successful women who drank lattes in 1995 despaired over the only thing we had that they didn’t: Teenaged skin.
Approaching the age of 30, make-up is not just to accentuate natural youthful desirability. Instead, it covers the dull sheen of shifting hormonal priorities, distracts from imperfections wrought by the passage of time, and reshapes facial features that have sagged out of their original spots. To my horror, make-up is becoming a telling gender cue.
I never received any formal cosmetics training, so when a friend gave me a voucher for a free 20-minute make-up counter consultation at Macy’s – (“I’m not trying to hint anything. Just go for the free samples”) – I figured maybe it’s time to learn how to use expensive products to maintain a semblance of self-confidence about becoming a crone.
I stumbled into Macys ten minutes late, gnawing on a bagel with only a dusting of facial powder and a coat of lip gloss on my face. Kristie (“Cosmeotology Consultant”) is about ten years older than me and abides by eighties hair-feathering techniques and green eye shadow.
She sized me up in five seconds: “You like the natural look,” she purred as she steered my face in circles with a hand on my chin.
“I don’t wear a lot of make-up,” I admitted. “I’m scared if I were too much at once, I’ll look like a clown.”
She laughed, like You schmuck. “Well, that would be too much, wouldn’t it.”
To my horror, she suddenly came at me with an eyelash curler. Straight away, with nary a hello. I flinched. “Your eyelashes are non-existent without mascara,” she said as I tried to prevent my reflexive spasms from rendering my eyelashes truly non-existent. She released my eyelashes and began pontificating about mascara. I could feel my eyes glaze over, like whenever programmers start talking about Java classes and struts. Kristie showed me about ten mascaras that apparently are all somehow different but would all be perfect for me.
“Wait, what’s the difference between these two?” I asked, testing her.
“This one is more for daytime use. It’s lightweight and won’t smear as easy if you rub your eyes. This one is more evening and coats better…” The more she talked, the more I hated her for her passion over beauty products.
Kristie flattered me all the while making me insecure about publicly baring my face without every distinct feature coated in products: “Make-up should accentuate what you already have… Your lips are thin, but a perfect shape for lip liner… this concealer is perfect for under the eyes, for the bags and discoloration… If you only use powder and not foundation, you’re not doing everything you can to prevent photoaging… Mineral foundations sit lighter on your skin… See what I’m doing? I’m mixing nude, peach and mauve… If you only have time to apply one thing, it should be mascara, foundation, and lip makeup.”
“I don’t like blush,” I told her when she came at me, brandishing an enormous brush covered in pink dust. I was getting feisty and resistant. “I never use it.”
“Blush is not mandatory, but it adds a multi-dimensional glow to the foundation,” she explained.
“Like a clown?” It was the second time I had referred to clowns. From her venom-filled expression, I could tell we finally hit that moment of mutual hatred. No one can aggravate friendly sales folk like I can.
I felt obliged to buy something, so I picked out a lipstick. I didn’t like the garish pink shade that she had chosen for me, so I selected a dark red shade with brown undertones.
“I would not advise any brown for you,” she said earnestly, resting her hand on my shoulder, willing to impart some wisdom despite having her time wasted for a lousy lipstick. “It’s too severe. It ages.”
Oh, that wretched word: Ages. I will take the pink.
