Other Women (not those kind)

There are some women who get make up. 

They have a bag full of products that work and a head full of tips of the trade. They collect classic looks like you collect crisp packets and seem to believe they are in a oneupmanship competition with the models in the magazines (the models are losing). They look airbrush perfect after five minutes while a half an hour hog of the mirror is required for you to look like a before picture in a makeover rather than a before picture in an evolution scale.

These women, the ones that get make up, often overlap with another group of women, the ones who make up gets. 

Eyeshadows blend for them, lipsticks stay put for them and foundations, they just can’t do enough; right skin tone, right skin type, they’ll even stay the right colour in all lights while you weep with a batch of testers and an orange jaw line. These women are the mythical unicorns, the ones who make up was made for (because the creators certainly weren’t thinking about you when they made the magic).

Those women, I’m not one of them. There’s no instinctual grasp, no immediate enlightenment. I’m not Monet, I’m your grandmother at her drawing class (unless your grandmother, like mine, is actually quite good in which case I’m someone else’s grandmother). When it comes to make up I have to work at it. 

Fortunately I have realised that make up is actually socially accepted face paint for adults so when I say work I mean play. Because make up is fun. I could write reams about my mental links with glamour and magic and the theatre but that’s what it comes down to, make up is fun, learning to use it is fun and blogging about the journey...

We’ll see.