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Friday, November 21, 2003
the Ugly Duckling Girl at 29
This morning I was getting ready to go out with the kids and I looked myself in the mirror and gave my reflection a great big raspberry. The nerve of my skin, to look so - so -- THIRTYish! I mean, I'm not OLD, and my skin doesn't look OLD, but it doesn't look 16 either, all even and glowing. It's more blotchy and multicolored and just ... thirtyish. I looked like the "before" picture in a magazine woman-on-the-street makeover. I read a while back that once you're thirty you can't get away with the "natural look" unless you're really blessed, and you start to actually need makeup, and I decided that today was the day I hit that point, at a month shy of 29. Now the problem was, what to do about it. I do own makeup, but I wear it so infrequently that it generally gets bad long before it gets used up. I couldn't find my mascara (which actually was probably only barely out of date; I wear that probably once a month), so I just put on eyeshadow (the eyeshadow I bought in 1994, for my wedding. Seriously. I also wear this maybe once a month). Didn't like the effect of that, my skin still looked distractingly icky. So I pulled out a sample-pack of Liquid Powder (bought for family pictures in May) and used that, still felt the need for a little powder on top of that, because it just felt wrong not to put powder over smeary stuff. So much for the "all in one" idea, I guess. I tried actual lipstick (don't know how old it was, so let's not think about it), liked the autumny red color and faint sparkliness it had, but got sucked into the "too much -- blot -- not enough -- add -- too much" vortex and finally gave up and pulled out my trusty "Touch of Bronze" CoverGirl LipSlicks -- a product which I think is aimed at 14-year-olds but I still like it, so shoot me. It's the only makeup I wear with any regularity at all. I also dug out a pair of earrings and put them on (later on I forgot I had them on, felt a tickle on my earlobe [which was, of course, my earring], and went to pull on my earlobe to un-tickle it, nearly ripping the earring out the painful way. duh. And I'd forgotten how weird it is to try and talk on the phone with earrings on). The effect of all this was that I looked, well, nowhere near the "after" picture in the magazine, but better than I had looked before, at least.
The whole experience made me feel like the Ugly Duckling Girl. You know, in those movies with the "ugly" girl, except in the movies it is sickeningly obvious that she is actually a staggering beauty who's been given professionally frazzled hair and unflattering clothing and accessories in an attempt to make her look ugly until her character learns to wear the right makeup and clothes and emerges as the staggering beauty she has actually been all along? Yeah. You know what movies I mean. Anyway, I was that girl, not in the shining emerging-beauty-gasp scene. Nope, never had one of those and don't expect it. No, I was that girl in the just-before-the-makeover scene where she attempts to put on her own makeup. Just so unsure and clueless. When my junior high best friend graduated from eighth grade, her guardian took her to the makeup counter at a department store and, as a graduation/coming-of-age present, bought all kinds of makeup and had the makeup person show her how to apply it properly and all that. That is such a great idea. I wonder how long and hard they would laugh at my retreating back if I went in at 29 and requested the same service. I need a good slumber party, that's what I need. Any takers? :)
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