I enjoyed this so much!! I am the opposite: I never wear lipstick. But mainly because I have no confidence when it comes to makeup. Or without it, really. 😆 But wow do I admire people who pull it off beautifully!
This was fun to read! I have such a 'hate' relationship with makeup - when I was younger, I preferred a more 'tomboy' look until I became a teenager and was told that I was a 'girl' and needed to wear dresses and makeup and heeled shoes. So I never really had a chance to fall in 'love' with makeup. I always just used it to hide the flaws people pointed out in my acne-filled face, and still now (even in my 40s) haven't learned to use it properly. I also have a chronic illness which leaves my lips often chapped, so lipsticks never looked good on me.
For #the100daysproject this year, I'm actually focusing on something non-writing-related and trying to figure out my personal style. I'm focusing on clothes (wearing something different from my closet every day for 100 days to figure out what I really like vs. what I've been forced to like because of society/cultural reasons) but maybe I'll incorporate makeup into this challenge too.
Thank you, Amber! I also cannot imagine a day without lipstick and will put it on even if my only plans for the day consist of cleaning my toilets and playing solitaire.
I am a MAC Viva Glam III girl—if they ever stop making it…well, they must never stop making it.
Oh, I have such an angsty relationship with make up. The following is an actual Note from my phone from a few weeks ago. I was thinking of turning it into a poem at some point:
***********
how is it possible that I can still get wrapped round the axle of lipstick after all these years?
I wear comfortable shoes and clothes, I’m happy with my graying hair,
How can I still be persuaded that red lipstick will transform my life? That the perfect color will make me somebody new?
I certainly should know better.
*****
There's this puritanical voice in my head that hectors me about how make-up is a mask and if I'm going to be "real" and "genuine" I need to be happy with my face without make up, not use it as a crutch. I usually want to punch that voice in the nose.
Then there's the harping feminist voice that equates make-up with the patriarchy and calls me a traitor for wearing it. I generally tell her that's an egregious over simplification, if not flat-out wrong.
Then there's 53 year-old me, just trying to get to know this new post-menopausal body and wondering if I even have "style" to "update." And out of nowhere comes this voice that says, "I know! Let's go buy some lipstick!" It's quite a party in my head.
Not lipstick related but digging your gray streak cultivation. A woman once told me to go ahead & color my hair if I wanted to but leave some gray IN to look natural. Great advice.
Wow! After seeing Godard's movie, Sauve Qui Peut, in which the anti-heroine wears purple lipstick, I marched to the Clinique counter at Filene's. The clerk asked, "how purple do you want to go?" and I picked a raspberry shade (alas, can't remember the name). That was the beginning of my love affair with lipstick. Someone once said to me (about a bright red) "you look like you just kissed a freshly-painted stop sign." Ha. Thank you, Amber!
I enjoyed this so much!! I am the opposite: I never wear lipstick. But mainly because I have no confidence when it comes to makeup. Or without it, really. 😆 But wow do I admire people who pull it off beautifully!
This was fun to read! I have such a 'hate' relationship with makeup - when I was younger, I preferred a more 'tomboy' look until I became a teenager and was told that I was a 'girl' and needed to wear dresses and makeup and heeled shoes. So I never really had a chance to fall in 'love' with makeup. I always just used it to hide the flaws people pointed out in my acne-filled face, and still now (even in my 40s) haven't learned to use it properly. I also have a chronic illness which leaves my lips often chapped, so lipsticks never looked good on me.
For #the100daysproject this year, I'm actually focusing on something non-writing-related and trying to figure out my personal style. I'm focusing on clothes (wearing something different from my closet every day for 100 days to figure out what I really like vs. what I've been forced to like because of society/cultural reasons) but maybe I'll incorporate makeup into this challenge too.
Thank you, Amber! I also cannot imagine a day without lipstick and will put it on even if my only plans for the day consist of cleaning my toilets and playing solitaire.
I am a MAC Viva Glam III girl—if they ever stop making it…well, they must never stop making it.
Oh, I have such an angsty relationship with make up. The following is an actual Note from my phone from a few weeks ago. I was thinking of turning it into a poem at some point:
***********
how is it possible that I can still get wrapped round the axle of lipstick after all these years?
I wear comfortable shoes and clothes, I’m happy with my graying hair,
How can I still be persuaded that red lipstick will transform my life? That the perfect color will make me somebody new?
I certainly should know better.
*****
There's this puritanical voice in my head that hectors me about how make-up is a mask and if I'm going to be "real" and "genuine" I need to be happy with my face without make up, not use it as a crutch. I usually want to punch that voice in the nose.
Then there's the harping feminist voice that equates make-up with the patriarchy and calls me a traitor for wearing it. I generally tell her that's an egregious over simplification, if not flat-out wrong.
Then there's 53 year-old me, just trying to get to know this new post-menopausal body and wondering if I even have "style" to "update." And out of nowhere comes this voice that says, "I know! Let's go buy some lipstick!" It's quite a party in my head.
Not lipstick related but digging your gray streak cultivation. A woman once told me to go ahead & color my hair if I wanted to but leave some gray IN to look natural. Great advice.
Wow! After seeing Godard's movie, Sauve Qui Peut, in which the anti-heroine wears purple lipstick, I marched to the Clinique counter at Filene's. The clerk asked, "how purple do you want to go?" and I picked a raspberry shade (alas, can't remember the name). That was the beginning of my love affair with lipstick. Someone once said to me (about a bright red) "you look like you just kissed a freshly-painted stop sign." Ha. Thank you, Amber!