I feel pretty--NOT! THE COSMETICS THREAD

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.

see... no one at my co wears much makeup at all. so i might feel weird overdoing it? agh...

There's something about using make-up for emphasis of existing features that shows up well in photos. Hit the eyeliner, I'd say, because eyes will recede a bit. Do that dot of white/silver highlighter on the inside corner of eye, then darken the rest of the outline. Use a tad more powder/concealer than you usually would. You're a lipstick person, iirc, so don't forget that. Pretty much just lighten or darken what's already there a little more.

hmm. i must remember to start reapplying lipstick. i always use pretty sheer reds and then i get home 9 hours later am like 'oh my lips are boring'. oops. more concealer is probably a v good idea. esp under eyes.

laurel completely otm: on my wedding day, i was HORRIFIED, HORRIFIED I TELL YOU, about what the makeup lady did to my face. it looked so fucking terrible. but it looked great in the photos - like i wasn't wearing that much makeup at all.

i should probably not overthink this. i am not getting married. it's just a pic on a website. but it will also probably be what shows up in a gis for me in a bit....

in other words, no one cares but my vain self!

I have given up caring about passport photos and the like but would still care about a website photo, a bit.

I have things to say but am too tired so for now, there is this: http://bit.ly/r1eibR (Salon article about work makeup requirements)

Okay, good morning! I recognize that we are back on track re: makeup but I wanted to respond to Virginia Plain real quick:

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.

In my experience, it's more a matter of the looks or age getting someone "in the door," so to speak, as far as being heard. Once you have the person's attention, that person is going to hear what you're saying. It might also help to clarify that I'm speaking solely in a professional context here. There is a whole other can o' worms that come with being outside the standard beauty norm while navigating the social sphere, especially in a dating situation, but that's not relevant to my personal experience at this point in my life. In my situation, there's also a huge, heaping helping of straight up sexism, but this turned into the "why I wear makeup now when I didn't used to before" conversation so I just stuck with the "I'm getting older and this is one of my professional coping strategies with agism in my workplace" angle.

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.

I'm going to chalk this up to the shortcomings of text-based communication and you just not knowing me, but this is pretty far off base.

ljubljana - this is a site where people write in w/ makeup questions but it's run by M@ri@nne K1rby who also has the blog The Rotund (I'm googleproofing b/c I know her and I don't know, ILX is my secret internet lair) and she takes a very bold view of makeup, such that I often find myself pulling some Victorian lady swooning shit and being all like "well I NEVER!" about her choices, but she also gets into some ideological examination of makeup and very much takes the "yeah, we can analyze this but you know what else? Make up is FUN" view. Maybe her shocking choices in eye make up will inspire you! So that is here - http://makeupchicken.tumblr.com/

Also, tehresa, I would TOTALLY CARE about my internet work picture!

Also, I am embarrassed to admit this but I dreamed about the lady in that Salon article. She was married to a former child star (I knew who he was in the dream but now I can't remember) who owned a chain of donut shops in direct competition w/ Dunkin Donuts and we sat together on a ferris wheel and then she turned up at a board meeting for an organization that I am involved with.

Apologies, Jenny. My second comment was directed more toward Laurel and her comment about being outside the ranks of younger women . . . I guess, personally, I have no problem with younger women, but my greatest aging crisis came when I was all of 21 years old, so maybe I have just been in denial since then about all of this stuff. Also, I probably work in the one of the most non-ageist environemnts imaginable. . . . I think, for me, it's really only important that I be attractive to one person, the person I am theoretically with, and that's based more on chemistry than looks I would think, anything else is sort of a detriment. Like yesterday, it was hot and I was sweating and wearing a sundress and walking to work and some creepy guy was mumbling this and that as I passed by, and the less and less that happens (and it does happen less and less) the better.

Back to make-up, do y'all use it more as an enhancer or a concealer, or both?

Enhancer mostly, but concealer for certain things -- eye bags (str8 concealin since 87 y'all) and the occasional zit.

No prob, VP!

I am on the same page as LL re: enhancing and concealing.

Yeah, me too.

I can't believe people used to like shade their noses and shit. My nose is not going to shrink magically because there is some brown powder on the sides of it. That shit is embarrassing.

i think people still do that :/