I feel pretty--NOT! THE COSMETICS THREAD

I’ve seen at least one really successful lash lift and tint - I’m in a private women’s fb group that talks a lot about beauty and skincare, and the lash thing comes up a lot. If I could convince myself to spend the money I’d totally do it. It seems to just wake up the whole eye area, and while curling and mascara don’t take long tbh I just can’t ever bothered unless I’m “going out” (which is hardly ever).

I feel like my face looks washed out and tired without a few basic makeup things, and it sort of bugs me, that men aren’t perceived the same way.

In other news: I still haven’t even come close to figuring out how to conceal the darkness and bags under my eyes, no matter how many yt tutorials I watch. BUT I did figure out that dotting a little maybelline rewind concealer on my face and blending it out instead of foundation works really well for me.

I can definitely see situations where the lift and tint thing could be a boon--like if you had light-colored lashes that didn't take a decent-lasting curl with a regular lash curler+mascara. But for me, who already has black eyelashes that curl up find, totally not worth $130 (!!!!!) plus tip. Especially since it isn't supposed to last much longer than a month.

Anyhow, I guess I'm not sorry that I tried it and unequivocally rejected further investment.

This Lash Bar (actual name) also does extensions, of course, which are a whooooooole other thing and very very popular here with younger women.

quincie, if you get a whim to come to nyc in feb let me know. (i think you have other previous dc resident/friends there as well?)

I did the lash extension once. They were pretty funny in their obviousness but it was really nice that it kept me from rubbing my eyes for several weeks.

Let me know Feb dates and I will try to swing it! And yes, there are several DC-to-NYC transplants I know from back in the glory days of ilxdc (RIP).

I kind of feel like I have met you in person before briefly, maybe at a wedding. I could be wrong.

Quite possible. We’ll have to compare notes.

xps yeah, the huge price tag and having to maintain it every 4-6 weeks is just not worth it to me - the cost plus the time investment of going to the salon does not compute with just curling and mascara-ing instead.

ps i'm really envious of ilx ladies hanging out :( i'm v lacking in local female friends, and it's been so many years now that i've noticed lately how even more socially awkward i am than i used to be. i'm going back to nz in april so will see at least a couple of friends then, and my bff is coming in may but still. also having a bit of an internal struggle over two close friendships i've had since childhood that i maybe need to let go of now.

xxps $130!!??
it's about half that here iirc which is about the most I'd consider paying.

I have somehow made some new friends since moving house, which is nice and kind of surprising to me!!! the person I considered my best friend is either trying to cut me out really slowly or is becoming ridiculously flakey/forgetful/ sees me as far less of a priority.
she's barely even met my youngest kid which I find really sad particularly after the fuss she made of me when i had my first. for another thread, perhaps.

just1n3, i always get a surge of new female friends whenever I take a longish (spanning many weeks/months) type of class. If there is something you are interested in- swimming, sewing, language, cooking/pastry/bread, wine, glassblowing I can't recommend it enough. If you work full time you may dread having to go after work but there is camaraderie in all being tired after work together.

I can't get over the amount of makeup the women in the UK wear. Yes I'm making a generalization but overall it feels like a lot more than in US or at least Boston. I'm talking full on glam makeup with fake eyelashes during the middle of the day while just out shopping. It's kind of nuts. I'd also forgotten about the fake tan - there's an entire aisle of it in Boots.

And I say this as someone who loves makeup and wears at least mascara, concealer, blush, and lip tint every day. The stuff I'm talking about is next level.

^^^ There was a very noticeable difference in the amount of time women were spending in the bathroom doing their makeup in London as opposed to NY for the same firm. It was kind of funny.

fake tan? is that what it is? hahah some women on british tv have really odd skin tones, and now it makes sense!

Oh wow, there are a lot of articles about why the british are obsessed with tanning.

or rather "the tan."

yeah I noticed this last time i was home in Aus, tho perhaps not to the same extreme

but yeah, the whole mid-afternoon day drag + fake tan was kinda crazy to see in person

enbb do you mean teenagers/ young twenties or all ages? I think there's definitely an Instagram influence going on with the younguns. although I worked early shifts in a factory in the 90s with other teenagers and the girls were getting up at like 5am to put on a full face. So who knows.

at work though i always felt like I'm the one with loads of make up as so many other women seemed to be bare faced and beautiful.

scouse eyebrows are huge here, in both senses

Sarahell - that's what it is!

All ages but, yeah, I think the worst I've seen are teens/mid-20s. It think it's definitely a regional thing too maybe as I noticed it even more so in Birmingham. I was in Topshop this weekend and there were three girls there with a set of parents and they had the whole fake tan, full thick makeup with eyelashes, and hair extensions going on. I knew I was staring but I couldn't help it - they looked like they were ready for a night at the club not an afternoon shopping trip with the parents. I don't even know where to start with the eyebrows. I saw that in the US too but to a lesser extent. Some of the ones I've seen here look drawn on with marker!

(Kinder - this is an aside but do you watch First Dates? I'm obsessed with it and there's some amazing looks on there lol.)

i remember when i was in high school (early 90s) we all wore a lot heavier makeup than i wore once i got to college. part of the appeal of powder and matte lipstick in high school was the times (early 90s vs mid 90s) and part of it was a repulsion on my part at conforming to beauty standards of any kind (post high school i really dug into my androgynous phase so wearing makeup seemed embarrassing and silly.

there was one time in high school that my friend's dad told us we looked like streetwalkers and i just thought he was being stodgy. i guess he had a point, though he could have made it with a little more regard for his audience

back when i wore more makeup it felt like a protective layer because just walking around in my face made me feel vulnerable

That's interesting, LL and I think I know what you mean. I did the dark matte lips in HS too and it was very much a product of the time and also not wanting to be a girly girl. This makeup is different though in that it's very overtly sexy. They might definitely be using it as a mask of some kind but it's more in a traditional bombshell Kylie Jenner exaggerated everything sense.

I'm all for anyone doing whatever they want with makeup it's just something interesting that I've observed. Tbf these girls had actually done an amazing job for the kind of look they were going for it was just A LOT for a Saturday afternoon out with the fam.

My parents still keep up a pic of me at 15-16 yrs old that they made me take at Glamour Shots. I am pretty sure that shoot put me off of full face makeup for life.

It is appalling how much makeup I still feel the need to put on every day and it’s definitely about feeling otherwise uncomfortable with myself, which is a poor reason. I would say it’s due to high beauty standards (whatever those are set as) in London, but then whenever I visit an English village there’s a beauty parlour on literally every street, so it’s likely entrenched everywhere. I’m not into that fake tan, heavy eyes look, though like you say, ENBB, I can appreciate its own artistry. Tanning is a huge thing here though and has been at least since I was at school. For a while I remember me and my best friend spending £2.50 to go on the tanning beds for 14 minutes after school every day. Not that I gave it a lot of thought at the time but for me it felt like a faux-financial status thing like ‘You can see that I am living a glorious lifestyle because I have clearly sought sun elsewhere’. Like if people saw that I was tanned they would assume I had money and was therefore more desirable. I wonder where I was getting this from though... I am really interested in the skin pedagogies of different cultures.

xpost - Oh man, seeing people's glamour shots from their youth is the best. I never had them done but I almost wish I did because they were so OTT and ridiculous. :D Did you get to wear a hat? I feel like hats were often involved.

Oh yeah in addition to the fake tan tanning beds are still huge here! I got my nails done today (southwest London) and at least four people came in to use the beds. I didn't even realize people still did that. I wonder if the continued popularity of the beds also has to do with how dark and grey it is here in the winter. I was almost contemplating it before I left because I've been so starved for sunshine. I guess that wouldn't explain the fake tan though. I also find it really interesting for the reasons you stated above, T. It's such a big thing that I'm sure someone has studied this before.

I remember having 3-4 changes of tops or hats. I have always been pretty lowkey and it was the height of college rock/alternative so I was horrified. The acceptable pic that made it out I had teased hair, no hat and a crushed velvet top. I passed on the bedazzled jean jacket and leather jacket pics. My spouse saw it and was so confused. But then he saw a 5th grade class pic of me where I am dressed up completely Hawaiian...

One of the articles I was just reading about UK tanning said there was a renewed interest after Pippa Middleton had her glowy tan during Kate's wedding.

There was this great essay about the beauty industry’s control over our skin perceptions that I just remembered I was paraphrasing. It’s mainly about Asian skin whitening, but still sort of relevant.

Haha I love that people were using tanning beds around you today! It does seem like it should be outmoded by now... It’s quite an uncanny and sci-fi-ish experience. They give you little foil cones to wear in your eyes!

my mom used to use a tanning bed as a SAD lamp before SAD was recognized as a thing
kind of a sad sort of self-medication (classic sad/SAD lol there)

not at home, but at a salon
lest you think we had a tanning bed at home

As long as I've been alive my mom has been fighting her sunspots and trying to whiten her skin (she is from a fishing village in Taiwan) and has always been strictly against me being in the sun. I remember in the 80s she was a chaperone on a field trip to Kill Devil Hills and she was the only mother that carried an umbrella to block the sun. I was mortified. But she knew better.

A guy at my high school named Brian Craig had a tanning bed at his house, down in the finished basement. We'd sit on it (not while it was on) drinking beers. Needless to say, dude was always tan. In Pittsburgh.

yeah, growing up, I felt like being pale was higher status than being tan, because tan signified working outdoors (I think this was just me, and not actually cultural) and living somewhere inescapably sunny (e.g. inland), as opposed to working indoors and living in higher status places where it was cooler and foggy (e.g. coastal places like San Francisco or Monterey). But I remember in high school going to shows and wearing long sleeves and matte tights (even in summer) to hide the fact my arms and legs were tan. Oh yeah, and I'd wear lighter foundation (which probably looked awful) so that my face looked paler and less ruddy.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the UK youth heavy make-up thing is about how you look in selfies rather than how you look in the cold light of day to strangers in the street. It’s also aspirational - Famous Person X gets their nails done professionally and so can I (even if it means sitting in a window somewhere the technicians may or may not be employed under modern slavery conditions).

I do think the caterpillar brow will be to this generation what the spiral home perm was to mine. But we all need old pictures to laugh at when we’re middle aged, right?

are we talking Instabrows or another look?

even my mum has been talking about microblading! she does have weedy eyebrows and would never ever go for a scouse brow or anything, but I'm still trying to dissuade her.

I don't watch First Dates regularly but have seen a couple. It's quite good for a reality type show. I feel quite out of touch with normal young people.

i wasn't in touch with normal young people even when i was young
it's ok!

It's crazy how one's eyebrows never grow back even after the minor-est of plucking. I have gotten glossier's boybrow (seems fine) and anastasia's brow pencil. I like how I look, but as I mentioned above or elsewhere?, I think I look like an evil baby who smokes cigars.

I wish my brows never grew back - I need to tidy them daily.

I did my eyebrows with henna. It's awesome.

I wish my brows never grew back - I need to tidy them daily.

same here! though i got the $5 eyebrow grooming kit from Sephora and I feel like using that daily makes me look 100% more "together" than before -- like I feel that if your eyebrows look groomed it makes messy hair look less messy, whereas if both are all over the place, you just look like a mess, if that makes sense, though idk

Re: UK tanning trends, can we please discuss the concept of tanning (fake or bed) before you go on a sun holiday?

Got to get that base, right?

do not do it

do not

DO NOT

end of discussion

I think there was/is a myth that once you’ve tanned, you won’t burn.

That is a myth I have always subscribed to despite hard evidence to the contrary

Vonnegut was right.

Do not do it.

DO NOT DO IT

[/rant from pale-complected 45 year old who wishes she had heeded this advice]