"You can cover, say, 80 percent of light skin tones with six shades of foundation," says Sarah Robbins, Bobbi Brown's global vice-president of product development and marketing, as she explains the complexities of light, medium, and deep coverage to me. "As skin tones get deeper, they get much more complex in tonality, so six shades don't cover that complexity in depth. It takes longer to get it right." She's clearly empathetic, but there's also business to consider. "What's difficult is to rationalize making SKUs [stock-keeping units] when you don't know how many women you're going to be able to service. We want to service everyone, but the reality is that it's very difficult to do."
I found this part interesting, because while I had suspected that "market" was going to be one of the explanations as to why there aren't as many darker shades, I hadn't thought of it as essential a problem of basically the tail end of shades you can mix with the pigments you already have.
I don't usually wear foundation. But I do wear the third-lightest MAC shade when I do!
In terms of shopping frustration resonating, as a teenager, bra shopping and swimsuit shopping always drove me to tears.
Interesting. The world of makeup is so foreign to boring dudes like me that I sort of assumed that every woman felt equally comfortable within it, simply because men are so excluded.
My first thought when I saw her picture was, "Prescriptives!" And it turns out that she did go there and have success. I used to like their foundation a lot. I wore off-the-rack foundation, but I got the powder custom-blended.
Makeup varies a lot by region, class, and income. And age. At my high school, teenaged girls went crazy with makeup, but their mothers rarely wore more than a little mascara and lipstick.
Whereas my impression is that Dallas runs on eyeliner and acrylic nails.
4: Mine was "You have gorgeous skin and a deep enough skin tone that while you can't find foundation, you can probably rock all of the beautiful eyeshadow shades that I covet but can't wear."
Also, dark skin doesn't show blemishes the way pale skin does. So I have little sympathy.
7: Really? All the black women I know are very conscious of blemishes, just like lighter-skinned women.
7: She's describing a market failure that can make black women feel humiliated and overlooked, and you're unsympathetic? Regardless of whether black skin needs coverup or foundation as much as white skin* I think she's describing makeup shopping as a fun, self-indulgent exercise that is denied to a lot of black women, which pretty much sucks, I think.
*I also don't think it's true that "dark skin doesn't show blemishes the way pale skin does." A lot of people of color have problems with lasting hyperpigmentation that follows a blemish.
She looks a lot better in the first photo in the lineup of three, the one without makeup. Maybe it's just different lighting, but in the second and third pictures her skin looks weirdly silvery.
Also, uneven tone becomes a bigger issue as darker-skinned women age.
A friend of mine (very dark-skinned) and I went to Sephora together to shop for foundation and it was really obvious that these are big problems. I just grabbed my usual cheap-ish Sephora powder in the number I'm used to, but she never found anything. She'd gotten used to having to have powder mixed for her, and the expense is pretty outrageous. She asked the employees for help, and all they did was dust her up with a bunch of bronzer that made her look five shades lighter and super-shiny. She ended up washing it off in the bathroom because she was too embarrassed to walk around in it.
Alright, alright, my anecdata are skewed. Apologies to the world's blotchy and acne-prone people of color.
6 is not meant in support of 7, in case it wasn't clear. Just that I love bold eyeshadows and they are not meant for people like me, and the author of the article has beautiful eyes.
The fun of places like Sephora is being able to wander in and try new things, and it would suck if trying new things entailed having to have to spend an outrageous amount to have something that might work. Would of the pale Unfoggedtariat be happy with only four shades of foundation available?
I don't do makeup (foundation and lipstick both feel weird, and I don't have the patience for eye makeup) but that article is harrowing.
It's all part of the bigger thing that you can't be both black and beautiful - especially not really dark skinned. The "nappy hair" thing that Pam's written about at Pandagon/Coffee House.
There's a columnist at the Guardian in the UK who writes fashion tips for black women. It's the most interesting section of the fashion/beauty pages, at least for me.
Several years ago I found the most perfectest lipstick ever at Sephora, a Sephora store brand. It was almost my own natural lip color, but richer and more glowy. And it was $10! Then they discontinued it, and I had to pay like ninety dollars to get it recreated by the custom lipstick people.
I try to avoid developing a taste for expensive things, but this time it was totally inadvertent. Now I am stuck forever with a dependence on ninety dollar lipstick.
And Becks is dead-on about the emotional issues this article raises. If you're within a certain "acceptable" range of skin-tones, weights, and shapes, you have a lot of options, such that shopping for clothes and makeup is about choice. When you're slightly outside that norm, salespeople say things like, "Let's see if we have anything that could work for you." As Mangum suggests, this is meant well, usually, but when you hear it all the time, it starts to sound like, "You and I both realize you're not normal in X way. You can hardly expect the normal world to cater to your needs, but maybe we can work around it." And then you think, "But I see tons of people who are overweight/dark-skinned/differently-shaped! Seriously, we're all supposed to just work ourselves into the 'normal' options somehow?"
She mentions how, the darker-skinned you are, the more complex skin tones are to match. And the same is true of, say, body shapes. My mother shops for clothes at plus-size stores, and even there, she finds there's little to match her particular body. Lane Bryant seems to be made for zaftig 5'10" Amazons, not 5'1" ladies. It's not just a matter of finding some specialty store that will cater to her; it's a matter of having to try on every single fucking 2X shirt in the hopes of finding one that doesn't make her look ridiculous. It's very difficult for her to find enough clothes to work in an office, and so she ends up avoiding higher-paying office jobs where she'll feel like she's wearing the same three outfits all the time.
That is, I don't think this problem is limited to a "boo hoo i'm a rich lady who can't even enjoy the pleasures of shopping that are my due" thing. It's also a small part of the emotional blocks that keep not-white and not-thin people from feeling comfortable in professional work environments. If your clothes never look as "right" as other people's, and your makeup doesn't match the "right" way, it limits your class mobility through subtle reminders that you don't belong.
I had a VS saleswoman (well-intentioned, I'm sure) condescendingly ask me if I'd lost a lot of weight recently (that apparently being the only reason I'd have the figure I do.) I had a beauty salon stylist, tell me that she felt sorry for me due to my awful hair while she was styling it for prom.
I cannot imagine having to deal with that at fifteen different makeup counters.
17: And other people's unconscious judgments, too. Doesn't she know how to dress up? Her work is good, but she seems less polished than X.
19: It's hard to know how much of that is real and how much is imagined. My mom assumes that everyone is thinking that all the time about her, and although she may be right sometimes, it's the paranoia that keeps her feeling tense about it.
I was looking for a dress last fall for my reunion and ended up going to Brooklyn Industries, because I saw they had some cute ones in the window. The counter girls (who were both very thin) kept saying, when I decided not to buy the ones I tried on, "Well, yeah, 'large' is as big as we get them. I'm really sorry everything was too small for you." And it made me really mad, because the dresses fit fine; I just didn't like the shape of them, and they were too short. And I don't think they were actively trying to be hostile to me; they just didn't know that their clothes would fit someone of my size. I'm pretty comfortable with my body, generally, and I don't tend to assume that strangers think of me as impossibly fat, but that kind of treatment is really frustrating. When you're a bigger woman, shape is even harder to get right than size, and something not looking good can't *always* be blamed on me "needing" to lose weight.
I had a beauty salon stylist, tell me that she felt sorry for me due to my awful hair while she was styling it for prom.
Jesus Christ.
I have a story to tell along the lines of 19, but concern for respecting the interests of those it involves, heightened by the fact that they may be known to other commenters here, prevents me from doing so.
Presidential anonymity is one thing, but West Coast rapper anonymity?
How do you know that's not the real Warren G?
Please tell it, I'm at an all day Continuing Legal Education on securities regulation and having trouble staying awake. So much trouble that I'm reading about makeup.
I'm Warren G to my friends, but you can call me President Harding, Ned.
I thought the YSL rep came off quite well in the article. I liked that that she didn't stop with saying that the darker shades aren't their best sellers, but goes on to say that it's because "Women are just now beginning to trust us." (Also a gracious touch that she said "women" there instead of "these customers" or something.)
20: No doubt part of it is imagined. (I know that I was knee-jerkily sensitive about my hair until I was, oh, 25 maybe, and while the idiot stylist was not the only hair-related annoyance, I'm sure I overreacted.) But it can have real effects, like your mom not enthusiastically going for jobs where she'd have to deal with the hassle of finding business clothes.
I think it's mostly just insensitivity, an inability to recognize how it must feel to hear that kind of thing all the time. What your hairdresser said was mean, especially given the context, and she should have realized that a girl getting ready for an important special date really doesn't need a lesson on how to manage her "problem hair."
22-26: You're going to have to work a lot harder if you want to man up the makeup thread, boys.
Just that I love bold eyeshadows and they are not meant for people like me
Come on, Cala, you can't be that much paler than, say, Amy Winehouse.
Maybe we should focus on manning up the real estate thread instead.
Um...makeup is largely...um...composed of substances.
31: It's not the paleness, but the rest of the palette. My skin tone, plus my hair color, plus my eye-color means that I just look clownish in the colors to which I am drawn like a magpie.
The really annoying thing about plus-size clothes is that the mid-price manufacturers all seem to be thinking "fat girls want to rock the leopard-print stretch pants too". Which, I guess, maybe, when they're fifteen. But if you want to look professional you almost have to go way upscale.
Ah, working the chemistry angle. Good strategy, Ned. Anyway, makeup sucks, and it's a waste of perfectly good, um, substances that could be used for, um, something else.
34: Yes, me too, actually. Taupe, beige, grey. Yawn.
I did discover that a certain dark browny green eyeliner overlaid with a gold shadow (which makes the eyeliner glow) works really well if I want to look like an anime escapee.
I will man it up! In like 1984, when CA was in high school, he got contact lenses better to rock his eye makeup. He looked so fucking adorable.
Gaultier makes a men's line now, actually. But CA was working more of a Ronnette/Maybelline black liner thing.
I'm not sure that counts as manning it up.
35: Mid-priced stuff doesn't work for petite people either. I haven't found a lot of leopard-print stuff, but I do find myself having to go upscale-ish more than I would like.
I cover my face in mud and spray wolf urine into my eyes. This way I look my best as I kill.
the other day i saw a young man very conventionally dressed, nothing unusual
applying lipstick, just something colourless medicated to prevent lips from drying may be,
very casually while he was walking just like girls do
so may be it's normal around here too, i mean makeup and men
in Japan when i sometimes wore skirt people asked what happened, b/c always jeans, jeans
We should keep in mind that the high-end skincare and makeup industry profits from pathologizing everyone. Everyone has "problem areas" and "problem skin" to an aesthetician on commission, and they make a lot more by convincing you that your problems are so unique and special that of course you have to spend loads of money having a product or service designed just for you. We had training sessions at the spa about how to look at a woman's face and diagnose her with a totally unique skin condition that would take multiple treatments to solve.
Anyhow, that's what makes this, insofar as it is, a "women's" thread, because all women are put in a race to identify their special problem that only a lot of money can solve, and these companies make profits by narrowing the range of off-the-shelf products so more people will have to get custom stuff made for them.
I never really minded when people came into the spa to buy products for fun or get services done because they liked them. It was the women who'd literally cry right in front of me because their aesthetician told them they'd been walking around with their skin all fucked up and they'd never noticed, and could I please help them find some special product or service that could help them? They were really stressed about it. So I'd say, "Well, you could invest in some La Mer moisturizer for $275, or you could, like, drink lots of water and eat a balanced diet and gently exfoliate. Or there's a capillary-zapping process we could do for $300 a session, or you could drink more water and exfoliate..." They always went with the La Mer and the cap-zapping.
She should give up foundation because no matter how you use it and no matter what you get, it looks horrible. I know lots of women think it only looks horrible _on other people_ but that _they_ do it right, but no, it looks horrible on everyone. No one should use it.
44: could've just been lip balm, read.
39: Not exactly what I had in mind, oud. Guess I'd better get back to work—but not before registering my displeasure that Manny Ramirez has switched agents to Scott fucking Boras. Gah. Granted, that's not as bad as entire industries devoted to exploiting women's self-image issues, but it's still pretty goddamn bad.
yeah, just he was applying it so skillfully
that's why i noticed
could've just been lip balm, read
Tweety, a man who needs lip balm gets the Carmex in the little glass jar and applies it with his finger, so as not to convey mixed messages about his sexuality.
If you vote for Barack Obama there will be better foundation shades available for darker skinned people. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is pleased with presently existing foundation options. So as a feminist, one is compelled to vote for Barry.
AWB: My mom assumes that everyone is thinking that all the time about her, and although she may be right sometimes, it's the paranoia that keeps her feeling tense about it. reminds me of the very useful way a friend puts the problem with regard to not-always-visible disabilities, like my transitory not-exactly-seizure and disorientation moments. It's not that everyone is, but that some random people are, some of whom will go on to be rude, cruel, or worse (like the guy who spat on me in mid-seizure, he thinking me just another drunk or junkie), and being prepared for it at any random moment is tiring. In some ways it would be simpler if everyone were hostile all the time, because it would at least be consistent and there'd be a guaranteed point to prepared defenses. Constantly gathered energy that may never get used feels worse even though objectively it is of course vastly preferable to have threats seldom materialize.
I get the impression that this isn't wildly far removed from the kind of tension that gets piled onto beauty issues.
51: I buy chapstick, stick it in the fly of my pants, and autofellate it. Because I'm a man.
53: That's awful, Bruce. Seriously, the first thought wasn't "Holy shit, that guy probably needs someone to call an ambulance"?
45: And it's worse even if you do have a skin problem. Two of my sisters are prone to severe acne. Bad luck of the genetic lottery, in that they took after my dad instead of my mom. Not much to be done about it. Acne is never fun, but it's harder when it occurs once you're no longer a teenager and excusable on the grounds of puberty. So many expectations of having a beautiful face.
Apparently not, AWB. I will say that that's my single worst moment of public response in 25 years of living with this stuff, and that I've run into a lot more well-intentioned public goodness and some genuine heroism. I was just thinking about the kinds of harassment that can come out of the blue, and it's the one that's most compact to tap into for comparison.
Not sure you can autofellate things that aren't part of yourself. You could mimic autofellating such things though. Well, one could. I don't really know if you can.
Your link's not working for me, oud. Something tells me that's for the best.
As a matter of general usage, I'd tend to say that if it doesn't generally depend on my body for circulation, nerves, muscles, etc., then I can't auto-fellate it. Just fellate it. Of course my definition may suck, too.
46: You probably don't notice the skillfully applied foundation. I don't mean to doubt you, but I know a lot of guys who insist they don't like makeup in discussions, who compliment me when I am wearing (minimal) makeup because I look so radiant that day* and worriedly ask if I'm tired when I'm not.**
*True story.
**Or hungover. But that was what the department secretary asked.
Um...makeup is largely...um...composed of substances.
+
Ah, working the chemistry angle. Good strategy, Ned. Anyway, makeup sucks, and it's a waste of perfectly good, um, substances that could be used for, um, something else.
A common ingredient in makeup is kaolin, a mineral related to quartz, the principal uses for which are coating white paper and making toilets.
Cala, I remember vividly getting the lessons in that from the first person I actually slept with. "Oh. Okay." It contributed very materially to a general assumption on my part that people are up to things I don't see.
But that was what the department secretary asked.
Would this be the infamous Pa/t?
62 has been the response to me when I say things like that too.
It did seem that when I hung out with leftists I got used to the girls not wearing makeup very quickly, and when the baseline was "no makeup" rather than "some makeup" they looked equally attractive on average.
It seems to be an arms race situation. Individual disarmament does not help the individual.
Kaolin makeup also tends to make you a better martial artist.
Keep telling yourself this, Cala. Lots of people think they "skillfully apply" foundation but they still look like garbage, at least when you get close. Go natural! It's much better. (This doesn't mean you should never wear make-up- when it's done to look interesting or the like, eye shadow or lipstick can be nice. But foundation is terrible, people always think they are in the group who can "skillfully apply" it, and they are always wrong. It always looks bad, though of course there are shades of badness.)
I tend to think that the "I don't like makeup" thing can end up sounding (to someone like me) like "I like women who happen to have naturally perfect skin that never has blemishes and has perfect pigmentation." I don't like wearing powder, and I don't wear it every day, but when it's a contest between me with a blotchy pimple and under-eye circles and me with a light dusting of powder, I'll go with the latter. And no one on earth could convince me that I look as good without mascara and at least a little lip gloss.
The day I hear someone say, "You know what? Women just look better with obvious pimples and circles under their eyes than they do with a little powder," I might believe they don't like makeup.
Now that we've moved on to autofellation, I think manning up has been achieved.
On preview, perhaps not. But while I concede the possibility that I have been deceived by judiciously applied small amounts of makeup, I'm still agin it. You know what's icky? Lipstick. I know it's designed for lips, but the prospect of kissing someone who's wearing lipstick, blech.
Lots of people think they "skillfully apply" foundation but they still look like garbage, at least when you get close.
Well, sure, when you get close it's noticeably odd-looking. But to the 99.9% of people she encounters every day without "getting close" to them, it makes her look better.
Upon inspecting Wikipedia, I think I can agree with 69 and say that perhaps Concealer Good, Foundation Bad.
that's all I can say.
68: I usually don't bother with foundation (last time I bothered was for the wedding), so it's not so much 'telling myself' as it is recognizing that a lot of people look better with foundation than they do with blotchy skin. I agree that flawless skin will always look better than foundation, but that's not often the relevant comparison.
Non-famous Matt, are you aware you're telling people they look like garbage?
I tend to think that the "I don't like makeup" thing can end up sounding (to someone like me) like "I like women who happen to have naturally perfect skin that never has blemishes and has perfect pigmentation."
To me, too. Bah.
Some garbage is quite attractive, w/d, you racist.
Foundation looks weird to me too, but especially on the very young women who wear it. I see high-school girls on the Upper East Side wearing a thick, caked-on kabuki mask with drawn-on features, and it makes me sad. I keep thinking, "But you're at the age when you still look radiant without it! And you're ruining your skin! YOU LOOK 65."
You know what, AWB? Women just look better with obvious pimples and circles under their eyes than they do with a little powder. I love perfect skin as much as the next person, but blemishes I can relate to.
W/D- I'm telling people that using foundation makes them look like garbage. I don't think it makes people look better- I think it makes them look worse, usually much so. While of course "flawless" skin would be nice that's not what I'm comparing to here at all. I've never known anyone who had it, but I've also never seen anyone who looked better with foundation. That stuff is awful and really does look like garbage.
My sister does the kabuki mask thing. Partially because she's very self-conscious about her skin; her attitude towards zits is to escalate hostilities with even more makeup, which I suspect underlies at lot of teenage makeup disasters.
Back to what AWB said about beauty-based rejection leading to insecurity, I totally understand that. When I went for The Job Interview last week, one of the things that turned me off about the company was that it is a very formal suit-every-day kind of a company. I noted that when I was telling people about it afterwards, saying that I considered that a negative because I don't like wearing a suit every day. When, really, I don't mind wearing a suit every day -- it's that my body type just doesn't look good in any of the suits that are for sale these days (pant suits? fuck you. pencil skirts? you too. I managed to find the one and only A-line skirt suit for sale in the entire world for my interview.) and the idea of having to shop to find enough suits for a week's worth of work is so overwhelming that it makes me want to crawl into bed.
Keep telling yourself this, Cala. Lots of people think they "skillfully apply" foundation but they still look like garbage, at least when you get close.
That doesn't mean that group with skillfully applied makeup you don't notice doesn't exist.
Non-famous Matt, are you aware you're telling people they look like garbage?
Only the people he gets close to.
Personally I would say that "blotchy skin" is extremely hard for me to consider a big deal. Pimples, sure, conceal them, become more symmetrical. It's up there with "ankles that aren't sufficiently narrower than calves" as things that, if I were a standup comedian, I would make fun of women for caring about and judging each other on.
My fiancee periodically gets upset because her acne appears and disappears. I never notice, even though she doesn't use foundation except on special occasions and therefore it should be noticeable. I guess my standard image of her face is sort of halfway between acne-with an acne-without.
Yes, WHY are a-line skirt suits so rare? It is a holy mystery.
Especially because A-lines look good on everyone.
I managed to find an a-line skirt this winter, but the A shape is so exaggerated that it manages to look stupid, too. (Ends up with the same bottom heavy look that gathered skirts give a short-legged person like me.) I bought it and took in the seams to make is less a-line. Sheesh.
83: I have to admit, I'm a sucker for a lovely ankle. Rowr.
81: Dumb question. How do people who work at busy jobs schedule job interviews without having people at their current job know that they're looking?
An ex-girlfriend of mine -- I say that as though she were not my best friend and far and away the most important woman in the universe to me -- has always been painfully vexed by the imagined imperfection of her skin, which is Nordicly pale, smooth and clear to match her Aryan bones. It was always painful to watch her critically assess her complexion in a department store cosmetics counter mirror while the whittled-and-daubed middle-aged women of the metropolis looked at her like a cake they'd like to scrape and eat the frosting off of.
My fiancee periodically gets upset
SEXIST
I'm very lucky, in that, if I'm getting enough sun, my face evens out, I lose the circles under the eyes, and I stop constantly having blemishes. But all winter long, I look dreadfully pale and weary and I get some awful Morgellons-of-the-chin problem. I look forward to being employed somewhere where it's feasible to be outside all year.
I got what you were saying, it might even be true (I'm not observant enough about this aspect of appearances to know), but in the context it seemed to me it was being said in a needlessly personal way.
That doesn't mean that group with skillfully applied makeup you don't notice doesn't exist.
Precisely. The fact that you would notice someone's foundation automatically disqualifies them from the skillfully applied cohort.
The fact that you would notice someone's foundation automatically disqualifies them from the skillfully applied cohort.
I perceive a private language argument.
Dumb question. How do people who work at busy jobs schedule job interviews without having people at their current job know that they're looking?
Not a dumb question at all. If you're lucky, part of your busy job is to be frequently out of the office. It's tougher if you have to travel for the interview, which might cause you to have to take some vacation/personal/sick days.
Another alternative is to be open with your employer that you are looking for something else and need to take time off to interview. This might, depending on the circumstances, cause your boss to try to address the causes of your dissatisfaction with your current job.
88 - Not a dumb question. Some people call in sick but I think that's a bit dubious, especially since everyone will figure out what you'd done if you then give notice later. I flat out told my boss that I had an interview with another company but I suspect that's a rarity. But on my current project, my boss has always told us that she'll be much less upset with us if we let her know we're looking for a new job/interviewing so she can start thinking about how she's going to replace us than if we hand in 2 weeks notice with no warning for transition planning.
The fact that you would notice someone's foundation automatically disqualifies them from the skillfully applied cohort.
People like to think that, being humans, we can tell the difference between human skin and something else by looking at it. It's hard to accept that we can't.
I generally look better w/o makeup because I don't have the $ to buy good stuff or the patience to learn to apply it skillfully. (I also actually might as well not wear eyeliner or shadow: I have very deep set eyes & it looks weird.) I suspect this is true of a fair # of people, especially young women, but it doesn't mean that "women look better without make up."
AWB is totally right about just about everything on this thread. I have a relatively easy time buying separates--average height, average weight, etc.--I can do the generic-Ann-Taylor twentysomething professional warddrobe with minimal effort. But I have very narrow shoulders & a pretty narrow ribcage compared to my hips & this makes buying non-knit dresses & bathing suits really, really unpleasant. And it was a much harder for my mother to find a mother-of-the-bride-dress for my wedding that she didn't completely hate than it was for me to find a wedding dress.
Further to 93, I just innocently asked Fleur, apropos of this thread, "You don't wear foundation, do you?"
And we've lived together for over 10 years. That, my friends, is skillfully applied makeup.
My evolving position on this issue is documented here.
Foundation looks weird up close, but it's not meant to mimic flawless skin up close. (Come to think of it, flawless skin looks weird up close, too.)
An ex-girlfriend of mine -- I say that as though she were not my best friend and far and away the most important woman in the universe to me -- has always been painfully vexed by the imagined imperfection of her skin, which is Nordicly pale, smooth and clear to match her Aryan bones. It was always painful to watch her critically assess her complexion in a department store cosmetics counter mirror while the whittled-and-daubed middle-aged women of the metropolis looked at her like a cake they'd like to scrape and eat the frosting off of.
I recognize that it's offered up in the spirit of "cosmetics and the cosmetics industry are fucked up," but I don't know what to do with this story. I guess it's nice that your ex is a beautiful apotheosis of whiteness, but sad that she can't enjoy it. And middle-aged city ladies in makeup are creepy. I guess?
Foundation looks weird up close
Also on high-def television. The pancake makeup that is customary for studio appearances really shows up on the widescreen. I think this favors people with flawless skin and disfavors middle aged women and geriatric men. Implications for the 2008 Presidential race are left as an exercise for the reader.
102: I guess "sad that she can't enjoy it because the beauty industry inculcates its preferred anxieties in all women" was what I was going for. Sorry if the whiteness offended. Whiteness is one of the things that white people like.
We should get Will Baude involved. He's got strong opinions on this subject that, IIRC, float free of epistemic concerns.
Stories like Flip's do serve the purpose of reminding us all that no matter how blessed you are, it's never socially acceptable for a woman to be proud of her natural looks, because any woman who doesn't have a "self-esteem problem" is told that she's a vain bitch. There is no middle way.
(I mean that I'm guessing that has something to do with Flip's ex's paranoia about her face.)
(Come to think of it, flawless skin looks weird up close, too.)
At least skin without foundation on it looks like the regular human skin I am familiar with from my own body.
The thread linked in 100 is pretty good.
Also on high-def television
HD reveals how makeup is like stage sets. From several rows back in a big hall, they look fine, but get close, and it's obvious they look like crap.
Whiteness is one of the things that white people like.
Not so fast. This white person professes catholic tastes.
I hear Matt looks like garbage, too, so he really doesn't mean anything bad by it.
White people are always saying, "ooooh, I love you so much, are we going to a movie?, you are so beautiful as a flower..."
107: That, or the fact that having an orange tan has been what the beautiful people do.
I perceive confusion in myself as to what Flippanter thinks about the private language argument.
Pretty in touch with yourself, eh?
White people like beetles, insofar as god is a white person.
111: I think "No one is going to marry you girls anyway. You're too short and you talk too much." is more appropriate for Unfogged.
The site linked in 111 is awesome, especially the kindergarten reviews.
frances: i think it sounds bad. it hurts my head like a hundred dogs.The other night, I asked Siobhán to smell the Zinfandel I was drinking, and she said, "It smells like a thousand rotten strawberries." I am infinitely pleased that one of my daughters is a born wine critic.
Yeah, I TOTALLY get what people are saying; the wrong shade of foundation makes people's faces look like... huuge lumpy bags of sand...
It's tough to argue with Cala's 62/AWB's 69/RFTS's 75, and yet I remember thinking during my senior formal that every single girl looked more attractive (to me personally, at least) on a normal day than doll-style. Controlled testing plz!
120: Do not want! One or the other. I'm very narrow minded.
And we've lived together for over 10 years. That, my friends, is skillfully applied makeup.
Actually, that's an incredibly clueless husband, but I'm sure it's also skillfully applied makeup.
121: Oh, sure, it's better if you have the time to spread them out like that, but some of us are very busy!!
between 121 and 123 I was trying to figure out what spreading out one's mind might have to do with *lingus, and coming up with some really disturbing ideas about brain-licking.
119: Special occasion make-up, like proms and weddings, tends unfortunately towards trendy rather than what looks ideal on the woman. And it's also an occasion where women who don't normally wear a lot of make-up feel a lot of pressure to wear make-up, so it can turn into amateur hour. My prom make-up was probably pretty awful.
My prom date's hair was awful, in that it smelled terrible and was glassily rigid. I assume she was wearing makeup.
125: So it went well with your hair then.
For my prom, I smeared mud on my face and sprayed wolf urine into my eyes, so I would look my best when dancing to "Summer of '69".
I'll just echo the standard complaints about prom attire, with the added reminiscence that it was very odd to not be able to tell who all my friends and acquaintances were from the back.
129: your High School didn't go for the assless trousers look, eh?
They all had weird curly hairdos. And their posture and walk were all different because they were wearing heels for the first time in six months.
It's a wonder our heads didn't bang together scrambling for the low hanging fruit.
The trend where I was (and discussion with friends suggests this might be universal) was that the height of prom fashion was everything matching. Not complementing, but matching. Dyed shoes to match the gowns. Hair ornaments that matched the gown. Nail polish that matched the gown (this trend has died.) Eyeliner that matched the gown. Your date's vest or cummerbund must match your gown. Your corsage much match. Hair curled every which way.
Hair curled every which way.
To match everyone else's hair.
136: a couple of girls at my high school dyed their pubes to match their gowns.
I had pretty low-key hair and makeup, but a pretty red-shimmery tea-length dress. My date was so fucking cute, though, that the pictures are the sad kind where you think "pity date" and you'd be right.
Your date's vest or cummerbund must match your gown.
My date to the junior prom wore a pink dress, and I wore a color-coordinated pink tie and cumberbund with my white rented tuxedo.
Before I picked up my date, I stopped by my buddy's house for a joint, and ended up dropping the burning ashes on my white trousers, setting the polyester fabric ablaze. We managed to cover up the charred hole (and my skin underneath it) with liquid paper. If you look really closely, you can see it in the prom portrait (the two of us standing under a vinyl trellis covered with fake flowers).
Huh. I don't wear makeup except on very rare occasions (I was thinking that I should, as a tenth wedding anniversary thing, throw out the makeup I bought to get married in. It's probably gone bad by now, no?), but that's lack of skill and attention, not that I wouldn't look better in it. Other women wearing foundation, once they're past the teenage not knowing what they're doing at all thing, seem to me to look much better with a little something evening out their skin tones.
But when I put on foundation, it looks like spackle, and I've never quite bothered to figure out how to get past that.
Try wearing spackle for a few weeks, and then switch back to foundatoin. It will look very natural.
I had a truly bizarre shiny green satin "I am the Statue of Liberty out for a night on the town" floor-length strapless bridesmaid's dress at the prom. Shopping with Mom was a mistake, although I'm not sure if her ushering me into that thing was incompetence or malice. I was highly visible, certainly.
142: I still have the Hello Kitty glitter eye-makeup sticks that I got in college. I take them out and make my eyelids glittery every once in while then decide both that I don't really like to wear eye makeup and that the glittery sticks haven't gone bad yet and should therefore be kept. I've also got some lip stuff for job interviews, but my face isn't the kind of face that looks good in make-up. It really helps to have large features and a wide mouth, and I don't. Lipstick actually makes my mouth look smaller than it is.
Luckily, I live in the Midwest where there's a very well-recognized type of make-up-less middle-aged middle class arty white lady who works in various genteel professions (Eileen Fisher clothes in black; arty shoes; "creative" glasses) and that's pretty much what I'm inexorably turning into. This also means I won't have to dye my hair.
Hair curled every which way.
To match everyone else's hair.
Ugghhh! I cringe every time I think of my prom look.
I did okay with the dress and make-up, (no foundation- I had flawless skin back in the day), but my hair which is thin and straight was cut short on top and then that top part permed.
I realize in trying to describe the look, that I had a sort of
chic mullet.
147: Oh, mullets are coming back. Actually they came back for a while a couple of years ago, but that was the high-fashion renaissance. I'm sure they'll be back on a mass level in another year or two. Capitalism lets nothing go to waste.
I object to the fascist of the beauty industrial complex that demands that all women fit into a range of colors (being Asian, I am glad that foundation/powder is finally yellow-based and not pink-based in tone) and rigid Euro-centric conception of beauty. Also, I hate the part that says that women should do stupid shit like burn off the upper layer of their dermis or inject themselvs with toxins or make their lips plumper by using irritants like liquid pepper.
But that said, I enjoy makeup as a part of the daily costume and ritual of dressing. I would hate being demanded to wear makeup simply to comport with feminine dress codes (there's a lot of cases on grooming and appearance as a "bona fide occupational qualification" in employment discrimination cases). But when I exercise the choice, I like to do it for myself, to make myself look and feel better according to my standards (which are hardly fashionable, I don't think I've changed lipstick colors in 10 years), and I spend all of 5 minutes on makeup. I would hate to be with a guy who demanded that I be high maintenance and super-primed out.
But I don't get the whole opposition to makeup men have--the demand to be "natural" is just as arbitrary and condescending as the demand to be dolled up. Both are laced with patriarchy. But I don't want to get into a fight here.
Although I will say that when I met Will Baude, I made sure to wear red lipstick, because I don't care about his standards for beauty any more than I care about Vogue's.
Oh! Prom! I feel like we've done this before, but I wore a black Oleg Cassini art deco sheath and had my hair marcelled. I had black satin opera gloves, red lipstick, and dripped with (fake) pearls. I also was dosed out of my skull.
OT Here's some good news. The decline of golf's popularity.
And nobody can really explainw hy it's happening.
make their lips plumper by using irritants like liquid pepper.
This is my private makeup addiction. I wear it just for me, I love it so much.
I don't get the whole opposition to makeup men have
When it doesn't look bad, it feels or tastes bad.
I think there's also some discomfort from guys about their sig-ot wearing makeup, because it feels like it can't possibly be for them, since they already know and like how she looks, so one's woman is putting on a performance for other people, which is kind of alienating.
Part of me wonders whether the dudes-who-hate-makeup thing is related to the "self-esteem" issue. Some guys love to complain about how they beg their beautiful girlfriends not to wear makeup because they're so beautiful, just as they beg their beautiful girlfriends not to have self-esteem issues because they're so beautiful. But it's not as if there's actually a run on natural-faced girls or confident women. It's feminine to have self-esteem problems, just as it's feminine to wear makeup. But both are seen as compelling but tragic character flaws.
Otherwise, I just can't find the justification for the "compliment" that goes "Has anyone ever told you you're beautiful"? Tia and I have both written about this before, but that is some insulting shit right there. What answer can a woman possibly give? The choices are:
(a) Of course, you dumbfuck. I'm not totally hideous.
(b) All my life I've thought I was ugly, and now you've validated me and I feel beautiful!
What is the proper response to "I hate it when you dress up and wear makeup"? On this advice from an ex of mine, I did what he told me and stopped wearing cute clothes to meet him, stopped wearing makeup at all. And me "fixing" what he complained about made both of us really unhappy. I liked dressing up, and he liked complaining about it.
I am about to go out to a nice restaurant for my honey's mother's birthday. Am I going to wear makeup? Hells yeah, and even more so because some men on this thread are being persnickety and moral about it. However, I should be honest with myself: I'll be wearing the makeup to impress attempt to impress my honey's mother, who is always, but always impeccably turned out.
Why would you have your hair lined with cork?
154: What, like a 'she must be looking for another man' thing?
shivbunny seems to have no opinion on whether I wear makeup, except that he thinks lipstick tastes bad.
What, like a 'she must be looking for another man' thing?
Nothing that dramatic or concrete. It's just something that displaces the guy from the center of the woman's universe.
It can totally be for the SO (in addition to the pure personal pleasure)! Although I guess my SO has seen me in all of my plainness when we went camping. I have very fair eyebrows (for the fact that the hair on my head is pitch-black) and no features unless I add color, so I fill in the brows, add a little blush, mascara, and a lip tint that doesn't feel goopy (it's almost like ink, sinks in). I figure I am making myself recognizable to him as the girl he met on the first date. I look better, trust me, and part of it is wanting to be attractive for him so that I am not the pitied, plain girlfriend next to the way-too-cute-for-me guy.
I have pretty much given up perfume though, because he is sensitive to scent. But I can't blame him for that, and he's not forcing me to not wear perfume.
What, like a 'she must be looking for another man' thing?
That's never made sense to me, either. Other people wanting to sleep with my boyfriend* is natural to me, because, like, yeah, he's super-hot. Other people wanting to sleep with me should be natural to my boyfriend, because he thinks I'm pretty attractive, too. Is it that you actually fear your partner wants to cheat on you?
* - "Boyfriend" here being nonexistent, but, you know.
In fact, fuck yeah! I'll wear foundation! Now, where the hell did I stow that?
(I have a bottle of Shiseido foundation---very nice stuff--that I bought, lessee, in the fall of 2004. I've never been able to figure out how one could possibly use more than a drop or two per application.)
I think there's also some discomfort from guys about their sig-ot wearing makeup, because it feels like it can't possibly be for them, since they already know and like how she looks, so one's woman is putting on a performance for other people, which is kind of alienating.
I'm not sure exactly what's being said above, but I think the issue of performance is at the root of my discomfort. The use of make up silently suggests that I'll be required be required to perform some role or roles as well, which will--like that of the makeup wearer, who looks fine--be motivated by I know not what.
I used to think I'd hate kissing a woman wearing lipstick, or a woman who smoked tobacco: then I met this really hot woman who wore lipstick and smoked, and I did not waste any time discarding my previous prejudices and yes, she was a great kisser. Really. Great.
*sigh*
I'm so glad British high schools don't do prom night. How come more American teenagers don't rebel?
It's just something that displaces the guy from the center of the woman's universe.
Definitely not what I thought you meant.
It's just something that displaces the guy from the center of the woman's universe.
I can see that, but I haven't experienced being on the receiving end of that. Most guys I've dated have been indifferent to it (like shivbunny) or have seemed to like the attention they get from having their girlfriend dolled up.
*This sounds bad, as if shivbunny doesn't notice. He notices. It's just not a big deal to him at all.
There's also the fact that guys (good liberal guys, anyway) are trained not to be superficial, and to like women for "who they are," so they feel like they have to reject makeup as both oppressive and false: they're going to like you for who you are, etc.
Then there's what I think SCMT is saying, that the makeup wearer enters a social world where a lot of guys don't know how to follow, so it can be intimidating.
Ogged, if you couldn't really perceive the makeup (that natural-but-better look thing) or taste the makeup (there are lipstains that simply sink into the skin), would the makeup bother you? Would you still feel displaced?
This is a tree falling/forest hypo, but whatever.
Everything Ogged said is true. Especially that it tastes bad.
167: You know, I almost asked if you thought of it as a liberal shibboleth (my girlfriend is not arm candy!), but I dismissed that on the grounds there was already a thread on that.