That strange pallor

Being a perpetually “shiny” (or “greasy,” depending on how nice you want to be about it) faced person, I’m always on the look-out for products to help me with this issue. I’ve tried soaps, astringents and powders. I’ve used blotting papers, rice papers, and mattifying lotions. Either they last all of 15 minutes, are horribly impractical (I’m not whipping out the blotting papers every 15 minutes) or never work in the first place. Thinking my fate was sealed, I was pretty excited to see mineral make-up coming down the pike.

Being in science, you’re not punching a clock. You can more or less make your own hours. As long as you get your stuff done, no one cares when you do it. Knowing this, AND that the mall is way less crowded during the week, a labmate and I took a long lunch to get the free make over / trial use of the mineral make-up at the store. Now I know that if the sales lady looks a bit frightening, that should be your first warning, but labmate’s looked pretty normal. On top of that, we found out that they don’t work on commission, so that balanced it out.

There were about 5 steps/layers to this process, consisting of various foundations, cover-ups, setters, bronzer, blush and “veil” (whatever that hell that is). About 3-4 steps too much for me. I don’t know why exactly it is, but I’m just not used to seeing myself made up. Most women look at themselves in the mirror and are pleased and amazed at the transformation. Without fail, I look in the mirror and see a $2 whore. Maybe I’ve just never had it done up right, or I wear make-up too infrequently, but it never looks good or right. And it certainly never looks like something I could replicate at home.

In the car, in the parking lot, in the natural light, we re-examined our faces in the car mirrors. We were not pleased. I thought my labmate looked passable. It was certainly more make-up than she usually wears, but maybe if she applied it instead of having it applied to her, it would look good. I, on the other hand, looked like I was wearing some sort of strange mask. The make-up is supposed to give you a “natural glow” but on my skin, the natural glow looked like crappy B movie special effects synthetic skin. But I wasn’t shiny!

Back at work we took a short detour into the bathroom to wipe off a few layers before asking the opinions of our coworkers. It didn’t help. Our coworkers were thankfully honest and agreed that mineral make-up was not for us – especially considering that it changed in every different light condition. It was creepy, and I can’t afford to carry around my own lighting everywhere I go. Needless to say, I won’t be investing in this stuff. Bravo for the women who find this to be the answer to their prayers. I will go back to waiting for the next new-fangled product(s) to hit the market. If you see anything, let me know.