the makeup aisle.

My mascara is at least a year old.
My eyeshadow … waaaay more than that.
Eyeliner … truly … its almost 5 years old (if not more).

If you think I buy the “good stuff” and spread out the expense of it all, you are mistaken. It’s all under $10. I only ever spent more than $10 on a single cosmetic purchase back in 1996 when I bought Pan Foundation.

See that? I remember. It was monumental.

Well anyway, today I was at Target, strolling on my way to school supply world and … thought it would be great to liven up my look a little and surprise my husband with new eye makeup before he picked me up to go to the FilmFest Awards tonight. (Although, he’s pretty excited…he may not notice. And what are the odds we’ll be in a dark room anyway?)

Being the wife of a graphic designer, I have seen quite a few photoshop tricks in my day. I am amazed at what my husband can and has done with a picture. Not only that, I love that he can look at any given picture and tell me what’s been photoshopped and how. He has well trained eyes. (This has been nice on a couple occasions when I’ve pointed at girls in a VS catalog and he confirms to me that “even if they’re fake…thats not real”. Ahh, the secrets of shading & highlighting.)

The makeup aisle is where I get frustrated. Nevermind my birdie chest. I feel inept when I look at the pictures of these women and try to figure out how to do my makeup that way. And the truth is, even if you can get your makeup right, its very few people who would actually look like that in person. PhotoShop baby. Except for the nice guy who works the Chanel counter at one of the stores in our mall. HE is luminous thanks to Chanel’s limited edition powdered gold stuff.

One advertiser tells me that, having green eyes, purple would make my eyes pop. I don’t know if I want my eyes to pop necessarily, but purple is my favorite color – raisin actually – so I look at the purple shadow palette. Hmmph. Raisin mascara too? Liquid eyeliner? I dont know….

I wander to the other side of the aisle and see a model with similar skin tone as me. She also has green eyes and dark hair. Is it possible that I could look like that? Wait … this one says if you have green eyes, go for green shadows. What? I just got confused, and I’ve only moved 2 feet down the row.

I start to think maybe I should just stick with brown. Brown is safe. But brown is what I have at home. And although its a couple years old, it’s got at least 3 more years in there for me. I should have just made a bee line for the markers, crayons and folders and gotten out of there.

I look back at the purple, but I just dont think it’s me. I don’t know what’s me. I don’t have any clarity on what to do. I was tempted to ask the lady next to me what she thought, but I didn’t want a possible 4th opinion floating in my head. I move to the next aisle, among hundreds of colors and packages promising crease-free, safe for contact lens wearers, all day continuous coverage – all this stuff, all for the thin lil skin above my eyes.

I got so frustrated I bought two. Totally shocking, I know. I am hooked up for at least 10 years now with eyeshadow. Greenish-brown and Purpleish-brown. Compromise right? Actually, I chose by the name of the colors. I ended up taking “Mocha Motion” and “Time for Wine” home with me. Because it was most definitely time for wine.

So here goes nothin’. A makeup experiment is about to commence at my house. This could end badly. Although little would be as bad as the day I left the Estee Lauder counter looking like a smurf…en route to stand up in a friend’s wedding. I will never touch blue again.

Update 8/6: As I predicted, my eyes did not pop, my husband did not notice & we were in a dark room. I require professional cosmetic help. sniff sniff. Here we are celebrating after the awards (& my first time eating sushi!)

~ by hthr on August 5, 2008.