I feel pretty--NOT! THE COSMETICS THREAD

I am a pale ginger.

Are you interested in a neutral or a more steppin out look?

Neutral. I don't want it poppin'.

wow im having a hard time adjusting makeup and clothing to my newly blonded hair.

you guys, i just remembered where i learned the zig-zag technique: grade 8 home-ec! i guess we had a class on make-up application? i hardly remember but i do remember the zig-zag o_O

You got to do make-up in home ec? NOT FAIR! All we did was sew ice cream cone pillows and bake muffins. I forgot to put flour in mine. They didn't turn out very well.

i made a plush kangaroo + joey in my 8th gr home ec class!

I made a soccer ball. Then we had the woodworking semester where I made the most phallic racecar ever! :S

I made a skirt. A terrible, lopsided skirt.

Learning how to put on make up in home ec strikes me as kind of horrible.

home ec filled up too fast and i had to take typing

my school didn't even have home ec. perhaps not a coincidence that i don't know how to put on eye makeup.

Our Home Ec class got renamed 'Food Technology' iirc. We had to make milkshakes and they had this cupboard of FLAVOURS which had all the flavours in the world in little bottles.

for reference -- before i switched schools in 8th gr (and made the kangaroo) i went to an all girls school gr 1-7 and we had home ec in 7th gr and there was NO makeup application -- although in 4th grade we did have a class about manners (my class was notoriously "wild" and we even had halloween taken away from us one year, during which we were required to write a report about a famous woman in american history as punishment)

lol

who did you write about?

amelia earhart! my bff wrote about emily dickinson.

aw. well-done, both of you!

I sewed an apron and an ugly Christmas-themed pillow in 8th grade home ec. Also a dress from a LAURA ASHLEY pattern in a floral print, though I played dumb and got my mom to do the nominally difficult parts for me. No makeup application, but we did learn how to make SAUSAGE BALLS lolAlabama.

that's pretty good 'punishment'. i would totally rather have done that than sew the freakin elastic-waistband SHORTS (mauve cotton) i had to sew in home ec (yeah maybe it was called something else? i don't remember) - and a TOP (white with green and purple polka dots) too! but i'm glad i have those skillz now tbh, i mean, the pattern part and the measuring and matching up is a skill in itself for actual non-sewing-related life. the cooking part was meh - i already was into baking because my mom has always been a cookie-making fiend!

anyway
i do not even own an eyelash curler! i feel like my eyelashes curl enough? but could they curl MORE??
i usually put a little mascara on lower lashes but only really on outer lashes (not ones closer to inside corner of eye)

Ended up with BB cream blush in Sheer Lilac - never thought I'd suit a lilac blush but I think it works (it's more pink than lilac really). Never used a cream blush before, might make my skin look a bit crinkly, but maybe that's just during application...

omg it's the most exciting day of the year
gratis at work!! $500 RTL to pick out stuff from our brands. perfume is more expensive, but, they give us so much I don't need any more! so it's all about makeup. (Sm@shb0x and b0urj0is) yay!

i am not exaggerating in the slightest when i tell you that i am SO ENVIOUS of you right now! that would be so fun. and to do it annually! marvelous fortunate you!

I know. That is amazing!

it's crazy though because I don't even know where to begin, haha. we have a few displays in the office but i have to run back and forth between the order sheet (on computer) and the display to figure out what stuff i want. first world problems!

this makes up for me being super super sick right now, yay

that is like diving into a pool of mangos and eating my way to the top

I know, I'm so stoked. Sorry for bragging ladies! I just can't believe it!

enjoy yourself! get some wild shit!

i'm at $200 picked out, I think now I move to brushes and eyeliners. got $50 worth of nail polish (lolgod), a few lip glosses, eyeshadow palettes, etc. i would NEVER spend this much, wow

Get one of those bitchin stainless steal traincase!!!!

Uh STEEL

*burning with jealousy at the idea of getting $500 worth of makeup as a job perk*

I haven't tried the zigzag idea, but I will. I'm assuming that I can start wearing a better kind of mascara if I stop wearing it on my lower lashes? I love the doll-eyed look that it gives me, but I can accept not being able to do so, just like I'm starting to accept that I will never be able to grow my nails out longer than a quarter-inch before the tip of my finger.

I have been zig zagging! And it really does seem to work.

I ended up spending $150 on the hubby, buying cologne he likes (2 bottles). So really I only got $350 worth, which is still way more than I've ever bought. I have to wait til late July for its delivery. I'M DYING :D

p.s. there were no brushes on offer, which is the saddest thing ever. :( I bought several lip glosses, eyeshadow palettes (incl softbox) and a bit of primer and a bunch of nail polishes. I wanted another of these because mine's almost done but we didn't have those to choose from either:

http://www.mywomenstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/smashbox3.jpg

grr
http://cn1.kaboodle.com/hi/img/b/0/0/ba/f/AAAAC7XnJCQAAAAAALr9ow.png?v=1269194404000

just found this blog that Lauren Conrad is a part of (never saw any of those shows, but am aware of her)
http://thebeautydepartment.com/

under http://thebeautydepartment.com/makeup/ is a brush tutorial that was kinda enlightening for me!

Christine, that Guardian link upthread mentions a Clinique mascara specifically for lower lashes with a tiny brush. Sounds quite gimmicky but might be worth a look?

I gave the L'Oreal a try but even zig zagging and wiping the brush off (well, not in that order) it just looked like too much. So today I totally crapped all over my plan to start cheap and work my way up and bought some Lancome "Definicils" and we'll see how that goes.

I will say that I had no flaking problems with the L'Oreal. It wore pretty well for me.

I've never heard anyone say their mascara was too effective. You might...have some trouble there.

haha yeah. I wish! The bigger and blacker the better!

I pretty much want my lashes but darker. I don't want extended lengthened volume curled fibers blasted whatever. I don't think it looks bad, mind you (and I admire the look on other ppl). I have been wearing it every day to see if I start to dig it but I conclude that it's not the look I'm going for.

The Lancome was dismissed in online reviews as being a "office mascara" and failing to provide any of the lengthening plumping whatever benefits so I was like that is for me!

Make up wise I'm pretty much just an aging hippie trying to add color back to her face. And hair, but that's a different thread.

PRETTY MUCH Y'ALL

I've been toying with the idea of liking my face more without makeup. Saw a documentary with Audrey Lorde in it last night and I know she's sort of radical by most any definition but like she's downright "plain" and clearly that's her choice to appear as her natural self. Would I find a unique beauty in my own looks over time? Or would I always be like, "I am making a utilitarian choice; beauty is not a priority and shouldn't be expected."

That's not really a question, I guess. Just wondering about the transition from "I'm doing this for other reasons; a certain kind of prettiness is beside the point" to "I see a different kind of beauty without enhancement, and its inherent value is sufficient."

Sounds like you're overthinking it a little? Just wear makeup when u feel like it and don't when u don't.

Haha. Yes, and I feel like wearing it all the time end of story, no one can see me without mascara + eyeliner unless I have completely given up.

Christine, that Guardian link upthread mentions a Clinique mascara specifically for lower lashes with a tiny brush. Sounds quite gimmicky but might be worth a look?

Sorry, I forgot to include some more information about that: The only mascara I've been able to use has been Cover Girl's Professional Smudgeproof. Everything else gives me raccoon eyes. (And apparently it's the only smudgeproof mascara on the market.)

And the thing is, I want dramatic ultra-long lashes, which I can't get with the one I'm using.

LONG POST IN WHICH I THINK IN WRITING ABOUT MAKE UP SKIP IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS KIND OF THING

I don't know, I think that's a pretty legitimate line of inquiry, Laurel. I'm not saying you (or anybody) should do anything different, and yeah we chose our choices, etc., but I think it's reasonable to step back and look at why we chose our choices. We - as women living in a patriarchal society (yeah, I went there!) - don't do these things in a vacuum, you know?

So personally, I am 38 years old and pretty much never wore make up, other than a few years in my early teens when I was first allowed to do so, outside of special occasions at all. And it's only been in the last three or so years that I've worn enough makeup regularly to necessitate some kind of container for it all. And yeah, buying and talking about and wearing makeup is pretty fun, and I'm digging it but why am I now so reluctant to leave the house on a weekend without undereye concealer and brow powder when five years ago I would have been like "What the shit is brow powder???" I recognize that I tend to be pretty analytical about these things, but I wouldn't feel comfortable just being like, "Well, it's fun! Yay!" without putting some thought into it.

The conclusion I reached, to get kind of personal here and forgive me, is that I'm getting older. I've always been pretty per mainstream beauty standards and then suddenly, I'm losing some of that youthful glow and it is legitimately freaking me out! Why? Well, because older women aren't taken as seriously and because historically people paid attention to what I said because of what I looked like and that isn't happening as much anymore. I would really like to be Audre Lorde-esque about it but 1) I'm not that awesome nor do I have things that awesome to say; and 2) I work in a very male dominated, obnoxiously duderiffic area of law and it's kind of a professional reality that I have to play a certain game if I want the dudes in charge of things to listen to the words coming out of my mouth and 3) I'm fat, which I'm cool with, but like being fat and pretty is one thing while being fat and old is a whole new area of insecurity for my therapist and I to explore. So it's a combination of recognizing my need to conform plus insecurity.

(As an aside, when I was in my 20s I worked with a woman who warned me that as women get older, their face kind of disappears, and I keep thinking of her because that's pretty much how I see it, both literally (in that my hair and eyebrows and eyelashes aren't so much graying as just color-fading and also where did my lips go???) and figuratively (see confessional above) and sometimes I want to look her up and be like I THOUGHT YOU WERE CRAZY BECAUSE I WAS 27 BUT YOU WERE TOTALLY RIGHT.)

So I think it's great to interrogate (to use a social justice buzzword there) these kinds of things (anytime you would like five paragraphs on why I shave my legs, holler). Your particular comment, Laurel, was interesting to me because there's a lot to think about as far as what's pretty per fashion dictators vs. what's pretty per mainstream beauty standards vs. what's pretty per our personal standards and how much of the former two influence the latter. Probably because I've done a lot of reading about feminism and noncomforming bodies, but I think about stuff like that a whole lot.

audre lorde is p much a hero

being fat and pretty is one thing while being fat and old is a whole new area of insecurity for my therapist and I to explore

so are you, Jenny <3