I remember waaaay back when I started high school, my mother told me I could finally use lipstick. She bought me this awful stuff that went on pale and turned another color, usually an unbecoming red. Then, without her permission, I went out and bought eye shadows. I had two colors, sparkly lavender and bright turquoise. They came in tiny, round, white eyeballs that always slipped out of my hands when I was applying the stuff, and the powder inside would crumble. I think I must have spent most of my allowance every month replacing those eyeballs.
Somewhere along the way, my lipstick went to an almost white and my eyeliner became black. I fit in with my peers, as I hung out on the boardwalk in the summer and my youth groups in the winter.
As the years went by, and I became an adult I discovered that I loved buying make-up and I was very good at keeping up with the styles. Unfortunately, I rarely ever wore the stuff. That drove my mother crazy. "Why don't you add a little color to your face. Why don't you try to fix yourself up?" she'd plead with me at family gatherings.
Why?
Why bother for the family? After all, they knew what I looked like. And I never had time in the mornings to even think about cosmetics. I was always running late.
Besides, I taught third grade, did the kids mind that I didn't have cheek color and suffered from short lashes? I doubt it.
Years later, after I got married and had the boys, I was watching one of those daytime shows and got quite a shock. The topic: My Mother Is an Embarrassment to Me Because She Still Wears the Same Old Make-Up."
The show dealt with teen-aged girls who were humiliated by their mothers who were obviously stuck in a time warp. They hadn't kept up with the times, styles or colors. These tasteless older women, most of them in their late thirties, were still wearing bright blues and lavenders when the rest of the world was into earth tones and muted hues.
I was shocked and appalled and I quickly realized that I didn't have a single brown or beige in my make-up bag. I had become a fashion dinosaur! Oh the shame of it all. Thank goodness I had boys and they were too young to notice that mom was out of sync with the fashion world. They didn't realize that the
only magazines I read anymore, were the ones to them; the ones without one single ad that wasn't for a toy.
Now, that I have maturing skin, at least that is how it is stated on the ads and labels, I feel a need to wear make up again. I went out and bought all new stuff. You can imagine my surprise when I got home and opened my new purchases to find out they were the same colors I had had before, only with new names. I guess old habits die hard and colors return to style so I'm all right... for now. But, I still think that, in general, making up is just so hard to do.