I feel pretty--NOT! THE COSMETICS THREAD

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

this is almost certainly not the appropriate thread for this observation but i am getting really sick of how much space "pretty" takes up in my head.

) 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.

I was digging the whole post already and then I got to here and was like YESSS THAT'S MY JENNY HI5 HI5 through to the end.

Haha so I typed all that and as I was freshening up to go teach a class I was looking at my mascara (the L'Oreal) and thinking, "Hey, maybe I do kind of like the way that looks..."

xp also? the title of the thread is super appropriate here! Pretty is kind of a huge thing. This is good if you haven't seen/read it: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/04/19/katie-makkai-on-pretty/

i am getting really sick of how much space "pretty" takes up in my head.

Ditto. Catching myself having "pretty" behaviors and thinking about them more and more like they don't belong to me, I think because I'm feeling like I'm outside the ranks of the (younger-than-I-am) "pretty" girls now.

Like, being well-groomed in an older woman, that's supposed to substitute for the youthful kind of pretty, I think? But "grooming" is secretly just about consumption; being clean and having combed your hair is pretty much the minimum that any un-institutionalized person is expected to do; "grooming" is everything on top of that, and it all involves an amount of time and money that I feel weirder and weirder about even as I reapply eyeliner every time I wash my face.

i'm going to skip the gory details of how i ~feel~ about my face/looks, but i always figured that going for FUN would serve me better than going for pretty, which would be much more difficult for me to achieve. so my goal wrt makeup was always FUN, and that's why i am feeling conflicted as a 35 y.o. woman who maybe shouldn't be having so much fun with eyeshadow? but it's still fun? i dunno. if i overanalyze anything it always comes back to feeling like shit about myself, so best to forge ahead blindly in my purple eyeshadow.

that is to say that i am with you guys, but from a slightly different angle

so best to forge ahead blindly in my purple eyeshadow.

Oh you beauty. Would you be my life-muse? Please?

Everything comes back to feeling like shit about yourself, doesn't it. It's a good thing feeling bad about yourself is really really BORING, because otherwise I would do it 94/7.

I'm always here for you boo!

i think sometimes for me it helps (for me) to find age appropriate role models -- people who know how to live, yknow

Horseshoe, you should know that the reason I can write shit like that publicly is thanks to an amazing email you sent me ~ four (holy shit four??!?) years ago in which you were basically like "I have been trying out this new thing called not hating myself and maybe you'll like it and here are some websites" (except longer and far more eloquent) which was pretty much like tossing me a life preserver. So a hero is you. For real.

Laurel super OTM about feeling weirder and weirder about that stuff. Almost-40 is a weird age bc I'm too young to fully make it a Chico's kind of day, style-wise, but I am all out of patience for shapewear and pinching shoes and high maintenance grooming (even as I spend $200 every couple of months on my hair cut/color and $25/month on my brows).

Jenny that Makkai on "pretty" thing is...I think we can all agree that she is a hero. I would like to wear that whole speech on a Tshirt so that it reads the right way to me when I look down.

This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in 6 malls to find the right cocktail dress, but haven’t a clue where to find fulfillment or how wear joy...and everyone who will drift home tonight, crest-fallen because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable.

you should TOTALLY have fun, LL!! fuck the haters.

Amands, a good number of my age-appropriate role models are on this thread already, just fyi.

aw Jenny, i'm so glad. certain websites have changed my life!

also, yes, nobody makes clothes for thirty+-year-old women!

no one should feel guilty for wearing makeup and it's awesome if it's fun but if you have some ambivalence that is also understandable.

aleluia

I have literally just turned, well, older, and coincidentally(?) have been 'experimenting' with leaving the house and going on a bus, to a place, wearing NO MAKE-UP which is a p massive step for me. It's mainly because that place is the pool and it's pointless wearing make-up there - and I bring it and put it on when I get out - but it's still weird and I feel a very self-conscious.

also, yes, nobody makes clothes for thirty+-year-old women!

Also not for this thread, but I have "solved" this problem by wearing clothes that were made 50 years ago for 22-year-olds + clothes that are made today for especially preppy 65-year-olds.

Which sort of works out to the same thing, now that I think about it.

Horseshoe, you should know that the reason I can write shit like that publicly is thanks to an amazing email you sent me ~ four (holy shit four??!?) years ago in which you were basically like "I have been trying out this new thing called not hating myself and maybe you'll like it and here are some websites" (except longer and far more eloquent) which was pretty much like tossing me a life preserver. So a hero is you. For real.

I could use this sort of email.

What kind of websites we talking about?

I've been feeling like shit about myself lately. Blah.

This thread has taken an interesing turn. Jenny, you write that younger women are taken seriously while older women are ignored, but I don't think that paying attention to someone because of their looks or age really amounts to taking someone seriously. It's the opposite I would think. Also, maybe it would be better not to buy into this younger/older dichotomy, and pit ourselves against other women. That's just reinforcing an idea of competition that I don't think really has to be. Also, I'd imagine that you ladies judge yourselves much harsher than anyone else would. As for makeup, maybe one day I'll figure out how to wear it.

xps I kind of like the fun side of makeup and don't really stress too much about getting certain products or whatever, though. Drawing on your face can be fun!

I went shopping recently and everything was made for either 16 year olds or 60 year olds. Where are the classy and subtlety sexy clothes that I'm looking for? Fucking nowhere that's where. I want to learn how to sew just to make my own fucking clothes. That's how frustrated I was.

lol kinder, my post about liking my face was quasi-inspired by traveling on a train with hundreds of other people to the beach and back without make-up, twice last weekend.

erica i'm emailing you rn

Where are the classy and subtlety sexy clothes that I'm looking for?

Ah see I don't feel sexy or think I am sexy or even understand what "sexy" is "supposed" to be, so I just buy clothes that I like to look at and would enjoy/approve of if I saw them on someone else.

Laurel, you look great without make-up!

Well by that I was mainly thinking skirts that aren't either 2 inches long or super long. It was a very frustrating trip.

HS - thanks lady.

VP: Hah! Thank you. I was friend-appropriately jealous of your super-tailored menswear-ish clothing items which were so clean-feeling and sensibly stylish.

It's nice that we all admire each other so much.

Ahaha, now it sounds like I was the Audrey Lorde figure. Mutual admiration is grand.

Also, kudos to those of you who are willing to write honestly and publicly about this stuff.

My two bitcoins or whatever:

-My experience with men and makeup is that they (my dad, some relatives, my husband in the early days) didn't want me to wear makeup for some very nasty sexist reasons.

-I'm 40, and I wear sheer tunics, blue jeans, and the like. I don't know if I look age-appropriate or not, because I don't know that many people my own age. (I can go for days without having any real contact with anyone under 55.)

Also, the better I feel about myself, the more makeup and nice clothes I want to wear.

I'm a bit different than most of you, though, since I really haven't had all that much serious contact with women outside my family; I've never been on a girl's-night-out, for example.

Ahaha, now it sounds like I was the Audrey Lorde figure.

Not even, you imp. I was watching Before Stonewall on nflix instant, actually.

I think sometimes for me it helps (for me) to find age appropriate role models -- people who know how to live, yknow

^^^

I wear makeup every day and would like to get *more* bold with it in an 'own it' kind of way. Feeling totally frustrated about makeup and clothes right now - ready to do more but not enough time to dedicate to experimentation.

i just saw a commercial for some age defying makeup that apparently 'protects skin's dna'.... WHAT????

also i have a question - i am supposed to be having a picture taken tomorrow for use on our company website and i am kind of nervous about how i will look. someone is bringing some kind of fancy camera but i'm also kind of confused because everyone else's photos look like candid shots.

anyway what do i do to my face?

If the pics taken of us at dance events are any indication, you need a lot more makeup than you think looks remotely natural. Ditto former ilxor Lauren on her wedding day, she said she felt like she was wearing half a box of chalk on face and eyelids but she looked sensational and the pictures show that, too.