Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Polishing a turd

I do not know how to put on makeup. That's a fact that most people know. I swoop on bronzer all over face, slap some teenage-brand blush in the general area of my cheeks and then put on waterproof mascara and call it a day. Someone once told me that it looks like I'm trying to polish a turd. Then, to take off all that cosmetic goodness, I simply lay my head on my pillow, fall asleep and wait for cotton/nature to take it all off during the night. Sometimes, it doesn't remove all the makeup, which is okay because then I have less makeup to smear back on in the morning.

Needless to say, my makeup routine is...lacking. So I obviously opted to let someone else make me purdy for my wedding. I hired a pro. And these people are LEGIT. They even make you do a trial run so they can figure out how to make big things look small and small things look big before the big day. That trial was today.

The girl who is doing my makeup came with, like, LUGGAGE. She had three bags on wheels which she splayed out on the kitchen counter at my parents' house. She had more eyeshadow than, I don't know, someone with the most eyeshadow in the world. And then she put on this belt thing with approx 660,000 different makeup brushes inside.

She asked me for some pictures of what I usually look like. I pulled up Facebook and tried to find some good pics of me looking normal with regular makeup. I literally scrolled through dozens of pictures of me making faces and me in various costumes before I found one that was even remotely useful. Then she was all "What do you WANT to look like?"

So I opened up Pinterest and showed her what I liked. She was like "Um, okay. These ARE super pretty. However, these are all completely different faces from yours and they eyes are the opposite shape of yours. Like, theirs go up on the outside and you can see their eyelids when they open their eyes. Yours point down and your eyelids are...not seeable." Ouch.

Anyway, she took the reins. She put a bunch of stuff on my eyes, sprayed my face with airbrush foundation, glued on some false eyelashes and then was like "What do you think?"

I looked in the mirror and was like "Oh! THIS is what I should try and look like more often! It's pretty and not obnoxious!" As the girl was cleaning off all her billion brushes and packing up her 12 suitcases, she encouraged me to look at myself as much as possible in different lights at different times of the night to keep checking out the makeup. Gee, be self-involved for an evening? How will I ever manage to do that when I'm soooo busy mentoring young kids and thinking about others and sewing clothes for naked homeless people? I guess I'll give it a shot...

I also walked extra slow from my car to my apartment building to see if a few seconds of sweating would disturb the look. So far, so good.

Although, now I have a pretty major problem. How the eff am I supposed to take this stuff off? DO I take it off? I mean, I'm not sure that my pillow has what it takes to remove the semi-permanent foundation and the gluey eyelashes. Meh, guess I'll figure that out in the morning.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I highly recommend false lashes for your wedding. Your eyes will stand out in pictures without you looking too "makeup-y" Plus they don't wash away if you cry (which you will do, trust)

JessiferSeabs said...

This made me laugh so hard. I never wear makeup, and I never wash my face at night, and it is really just ridiculous that by 35 I have no idea how to do these things (other than mascara and gloss and a little blush). A few times I've had MAC or Bobbi Brown people try to teach me, and it goes okay, but I just get bored with it and it is too much work and frankly I feel like a clown.

BUT -- I also hired pros for my wedding and it was the BEST decision ever. Not only did the false eyelashes look AMAZING (not clowny at all!), but I looked awesome in pictures, and then they totally shelacked my face so it didn't smudge or anything all day. I said to the lady "okay, the goal here is to make my face look thin" and she contoured the shit out of my face and I look super skinny in pictures. TOTALLY WORTH EVERY PENNY. In fact, I have a picture of my bridesmaids and I at brunch that morning, right in front of me at work right now, and I'm looking at it thinking "wait, I'm like 20 lbs lighter right now than I am in that picture, why don't I look this good?" It's the work.