you put your right foot in, you put your right foot out...

i think i have a case of mistaken makeup identity. cosmetic counters tend to overwhelm me, and i always either buy lipstick that looks like all my others (normally a nude-toned pink) or eye shadow in some obnoxious shade as pinkish red. but in high school, i loved makeup, and i wore bright colors like mint, sky, lilac, and gold on my eyes and brick and melon on my lips. while i had glasses on, which made it hard to see the makeup anyway, i still enjoyed playing the part of cosmetics extraordinaire. during performances (musical, dance, in the shower...), girls always raided my caboodle for pancake, eyelashes, and red lipstick. before a dance, i'd go to the bobbi brown counter, get my makeup done professionally, and take home a new eyeliner, blush, or lip gloss. i felt addicted to makeup, and if i didn't have any on, i wouldn't leave the house. i didn't want to spend a half hour on it though, so i developed a rhythm in the morning: brush hair, wash face, brush teeth, foundation, concealer, powder, mascara, lipstick, blush. and obviously in the humidity, my face dripped by 4th period, so i'd have to go redo the whole thing. or at least the basics: lips and concealer.

when i reached college, though, my make-up case dwindled. this could be because i wasn't "going out" as much- who needs a full face to go to the library or the rugby game? or maybe i was becoming more comfortable in my own skin; i didn't need face paint to make myself feel better about how i looked. i admit my nose hangs a little to the right, and one eye is two centimeters farther from the ski jump than the other. and i'm fine with that. i didn't feel a need to change anything, but i never quite learned how to enhance my features without feeling like a clown. minus the big round nose, as mine is more an un-isosceles triangle.

maybe it's because lasik took away my need for glasses, and now i can see the real me minus miles of plastic lenses, but now that i've hit my mid-20s, i realized that i feel slightly naked without makeup. not as naked as i would without clothes in the middle of the financial district, but still, there are some things i'd like to play up and others which could use some downgrading, and a little gloss and concealer doesn't get me too far. i need to play to my features and open up my green eyes and create a more pretty pout. i don't want to fade into the background. last night, susie and i tested makeup at both benefit and shu uemura. i would pick a boring color and susie would replace it with a better one, and this was what i needed. someone who knew my comfort zone (unlike scary plastic-lip looking woman at lancome in macys or chick-or-bro at the mac counter), but understood that i could push it a little to create a more adult me. i ended up with some very pretty colors, ones that i would never have selected on my own because they were either too bold (deep green eyeshadow) or pretty (peachy pink lip gloss). so maybe soon i can start taking baby steps, doing the hokey pokey, and pushing the boundaries on my own. for now, though, i'm happy to let my friends help me. that's one of the benefits of good friends.