Next year I get to be a bridesmaid and I'm very excited about it. I've been a bridesmaid only twice, and both of those times I was also the only bridesmaid. It's a notion I'm honored by, but it is certainly a different experience to sit quietly with the bride while we wait for the show to begin, as opposed to whooping it up with snack trays and a Shania Twain playlist. At least, that's what I assume goes on with a real bridal party. I've been imagining what the wedding morning will be like. Though I hope I'm not forced to wear coordinating pajamas until we all get dressed, I'm excited to have my hair fixed by a real professional. I'm nervous about the makeup part.
I have complicated feelings about makeup. Oh I wanted to wear it so badly when I was little. I'd watch Big Mama brush out her eyelashes as she sat in a little upholstered chair at her vanity. She looked so glamorous and feminine, like old Hollywood. What a dainty fun thing us girls get to do. I wasn't allowed to wear makeup until I was thirteen and even then it was just mascara and what was essentially flesh-colored lipstick I used to hide my pimples. In reality, I think it only highlighted the pimples, splotching the skin around it with peachy peaks and valleys. It was hard to find concealer in my skin tone. I had to use a color for skin with no ethnicity to it. The only olive tones they had were taupe-ish and those made my pimples look like bruises. So I chose a color I would describe as "German Sunburn" - Covergirl's attempt at a white person with an end-of-summer tan. It was too light. It acted as a spotlight for my blemishes - a fingertip sized circle of white smudged around my imperfections. Sometimes I'd blend German Sunburn with a color that was too brown, to create a blob of paste close to my skin tone. That would work until the seasons changed and my skin would take a drastic turn from light to dark to light again. It was exhausting.
In college, I nixed it altogether and simply cut bangs to hide my topographical forehead. I made the best of it at the time, but now that some time has passed, the bangs did me just a few favors as did my finger-painted pimples. Now that the world has become more racially sensitive, they do make concealers and foundations for people who are neither British nor Somalian. In addition to that, I don't spend near as much time in the sun, so my skin is lighter now and can be hidden or highlighted with products named, "soft honey" or "golden natural," but I'm also officially opposed to it all.
Tough times...but Jared helped.
While I watched Hollywood Mom dusting on a layer of fine, shimmery powders, the sunlight glinting off a glass bottle of perfume, I'd also get real impatient. It sure took a long time for her to get her face on right. Dad joked about the different phases of her makeup routine. "She's on the Bondo layer now," he'd say as waited to leave for church. I began to resent the amount of time make-up took from the day. Poor Mom wouldn't even take a walk around the neighborhood without at least the first few layers on. I began to worry that I'd become a slave to the makeup chair, and it's because the stuff works. It sure does make your skin look smooth and your eyes look bright. I think my mama is beautiful, and with a dash of mascara she really sparkles. Dad disagrees about the whole thing. His thoughts on makeup are as follows: "If you're pretty, you don't need it. If you're ugly, it doesn't help." We all scoff at this and tell him he doesn't understand the true power of makeup - which he doesn't.
So as a teen, I decided to draw the line at concealer and mascara, maybe eyeliner for special occasions. I decided I didn't want to get used to my face in its best state - that state being smoothed and accentuated and pretty - because then I'd never be able to go anywhere without putting my face on first. Mom balks at her own beautiful face without makeup, and I don't want to live that way.
When I was sixteen or seventeen I started working for local event planner/ interior designer/ butler. His name was Stephen and I really liked him for being able to see through my timid demeanor and acknowledge my "good taste and creativity." Adults don't get excited about teenagers unless they play sports. Stephen made me feel hopeful about being artsy. I was his bashful assistant at assorted events and efforts around town. I made flower arrangements, set tables, helped paint rooms and determine throw pillows to match, and I often hand washed fine china.
Stephen's sister worked at Sax Fifth Avenue and when the store would bring in a new line of Bobbi Brown makeup products, Stephen would be called in to plan the "launch party." During these parties, I was the food and beverage service. I walked the store with trays of hors d'oeuvres and cocktails that I had prepared in one of the dressing rooms. Stephen was busy with other aspects of the party so I sliced bread, piped mousse, and garnished with sprouts, etc and when my tray was full, I'd step out of the dressing room and work my way through the crowd. One year the store wouldn't let us use the dressing rooms so I did all of this in a utility closet about the size of a refrigerator. It was a secret panel in the wall that you pushed and it would turn sideways and roll back two feet. It was very James Bond-y but I felt silly emerging from the wall with a tray of cosmos. It always startled the people standing nearby and then they'd want to see where I had come from, and it was dark and sad in there.
But the bad part of the make-up launch parties is that I'd have to wear the new line of products. They made me do it. Stephen's sister would plop me down at the Sax makeup counter and some strange woman would paint my face with layers of creams and powders, and worst of all, lipsticks in unflattering shades. Lipstick on an oily and unsure teenager is a sad mockery of a woman's potential. The makeup artist would spin the mirror around with a smug air, as if to say, "Look how I fixed you. You're welcome," and I would stare at my bumpy, bloated face with humiliation. A Springtime color palette does nothing for on olive complexion. Why would anyone pair a bilious green eyeshadow with a hot pink lip?
I was so embarrassed by the mask I was wearing that I did the worst thing a person could do at another person's product launch party. I would apologize to the partygoers for my face of makeup. It wasn't as though I walked through the crowd muttering a consistent diatribe against Bobbi Brown, but when people would strike up a conversation with me, I would volunteer "by the way," that I was forced to wear the makeup and that I didn't like the way it looked. I hadn't yet learned that no one at a makeup launch party was paying attention to the waitress, nor had I worked out that saying things like this made people feel that they had to disagree and give you compliments. To do this, they would then have to study my face for the first time, and look for redeeming qualities. That's when they would really see my face. The lumps, bumps, the cakey layers of desperate coverage. I eventually stopped doing this, but my morale stayed ever so low. As a final blow, I was allergic to something in the primer foundation. You know when you get chilly and your arms fill with goosebumps? That texture would rise up out of my entire face the next day and stay for three days after the launch parties... every time.
As an adult that doesn't use most the of the "fixes" available to me, I am curious what I'd look like decked out in the current makeup trend - this Kardashian-inspired exotic eye and dewey, contorted cheekbones. That's what teen Lu would have wanted as she sat in the vanity chair surrounded by luxurious powders; something to accentuate her ethnic color scheme that no makeup brand could fathom. I'd also love to see 1920's Lu with angled eyebrows and rosy cheeks or the electric colors of the 80's painted on in wispy patterns. I haven't worn blush or lipstick since my last day working in the Sax closet, except one time recently... just to make you folks laugh.
