The one of man
y things that blows about being an adult is that your Christmas list is tempered with loads of fiscal common sense. Last month we got our house painted so that means it’s Merry Christmas-happy birthday-anniversary and any other major and minor gift giving days to me and my husband.
Not that any of that has stopped me from jotting down a couple of little things I’d like for Christmas. They’re not presents actually, but more of a wish list of annoyances I’d like to see eradicated.
The one thing I really, really want is for the current make up trend of contouring to go away and never come back. Someone please explain to me how treating your face like a paint by number kit is a pleasing visual. All that shading and shadowing of every facial nook and cranny is ridiculous. I don’t care how much you blend in the 20 different colors of beige foundation and concealer your face is still going to look like an art project.
I did the whole contouring one time only because I was bullied, yes bullied, by an overzealous makeup counter salesperson. She pummeled my face with brushes and pots of goo all bearing names like fawn, biscuit, ecru and even sandy loam because when I think expensive make up the first thing that comes to mind is “heck yeah, I want to slather on some landscaping soil.”
The make-up/make-over was a failure. The cosmetic counter lady was horrible at selling to women who are now stopping to read the bladder leakage ads in magazines. (Can you believe there’s something called a lazy urethra? A guy must have thought up that name because a woman would have named the condition “lady parts battered by childbirth due to kids having enormous heads combined with never having enough time to fully empty my bladder equals me being this close to always peeing my pants. Thank you children I birthed who now ignore me.”) Instead of telling me how she was “camouflaging” my “puffy, wrinkled” face she should have been cooing (read lying) about highlighting my amazing eyes. Worse when she was done I looked like a monochromatic finger painting.
All this couldn’t have happened at a more difficult time. You see I had been a little down in the dumps about my less than youthful face and when this happens my go to is a trip to the cosmetics counter. Not in an attempt to be transformed mind you, but to get a little ego boost. I do this by lying about my age. I tell the make up people I’m 10 years older than I’m actually am. Yes, I know this sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out.
When I do this the whole time I’m being waited on all they do is talk about how good I look! Who cares if it’s because I’m masquerading as a decade older. It’s compliments people. One time a whole group of Lancome girls swarmed me like a Honeybaked ham at a family reunion and hand to God, oohed and ahhed. Do you know the last time anyone ooh and ahhed me? How about almost never.
Then, oh yes indeed, it gets better, two chicks from the Estee Lauder counter came over and joined in the chorus and the always super snooty Chanel makeup lady who has a serious heavy hand with her personal eyeliner application strolls by and does a thorough examination of my face and pronounces me “incredibly poreless for my age.” I was walking on sunshine and all it cost me was a portion of my dignity and a tube of Definicils mascara. That’s a bargain in my book.
Now imagine my deep emotional distress of going to the makeup counter, lying about my age, and instead of getting at least one paltry, “Really, I wouldn’t have guessed you were that old. You look like maybe 10 years younger,” all I receive is degrading comments about a jowl intervention and get my face contoured so severely I was embarrassed to do school pick up.
I blame all this on the whole contouring trend. Oh, don’t sit there and think that doesn’t even make sense. It does! Before 50 shades of beige makeup people had the time to ooh and ahh. Now it’s about getting all up in your business with sandy loam foundation so you can have a highlighted brow line.
The next thing on my list is . . . Oh crap, I have to stop. Its’s time to start carpool. That’s so not fair. I’ve have more stuff on my Christmas list. I haven’t even gotten to hating on fast dry deodorant. (Because who is so busy they don’t have a nano second for their underarms to enter a moisture free zone?) Oh well, maybe next time.
Forget about buying make-up. You, my pretty, don’t need it. What you do need is a heaping helping of Snarky. Yes, my precious holiday angel just click on one of the links and presto you can get yourself some Snarky for only, wait for it, wait for it, 99 cents! You can buy it for your Kindle or in paperback on Amazon. It’s also available for the Nook or you can get it for your Kobo reader. Click on a link and give it a test read. 🙂
Snarky in the Suburbs 