Can You See Me Now?

Sometimes I attempt to wear makeup. I am never consistent about it though. I think when I worked in Houston for 2 years, I wore it the whole time, but that's probably my longest run since age 14. I had to wear makeup for an interview on September 30th of this year, and I decided to keep wearing it afterward. So I've worn it every week day since, except the day I had that big 8-hour test. That day, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought "Wow, I look SO different without makeup. I look sickly and pale."

Now, it's entirely possible that the makeup had nothing to do with it, and I did look sickly and pale, because that was an awful day and the bathroom had very unflattering lighting, and on average I've been getting about 5 hours sleep per night. But I was a little annoyed that after just a month of wearing makeup, I already felt like I had to have it to look decent. I have decided to continue wearing it, because I do work in a professional world, and statistically, women wearing makeup get a better response professionally, including in their amount of pay. I know a lot of women think makeup is really fun, and I TOTALLY get that (that link takes you to Wisely Chosen's absolutely fabulous and gorgeous makeup pictures), but it's just not me. Stuff like that just doesn't come naturally to me. I'd rather spend my time doing other things, and keep life as simple as possible. Buying makeup, learning how to use it, maintaining it, keeping it out of the kids' reach (or helping them use it safely), and spending the time to use it and remove it each day is NOT simplifying my life.

Darn it, I meant this to be a lighthearted picture post, not a rant about society and makeup. Oh well. Writing is therapeutic for me, so I just go with what comes out my fingers.

The mascara is the main feature for me. My eyelashes are pretty much invisible without it. I wear brown-black mascara. I sometimes wear brown eyeliner, but lately I've been leaving it out because I just can't get it right, even after attempting it for 14+ years. My eyebrows are also mostly invisible (as far as I can see), and someday I intend to learn how to put some color on them, but I don't do that now. I have never, ever in my entire life, plucked my eyebrows, since I think they're invisible. I hope I'm right!!! I did get them waxed once before my sister's wedding.

I own four colors of eyeshadow - white, tan, brown, and pink (not like this). I do know how to use it, kind of, because I had my makeup done professionally by a salon owner/artist when I was 14, and she showed me how to do it. But the high-quality brushes don't work with crappy grocery store makeup, so I just muddle through and hope it doesn't look too bad.

In the past I've attempted wearing blush, lip liner, and lipstick, but that's long in the past. I did buy some pale/nude lip gloss a while ago. I really don't know how to wear lipstick/lip gloss. It's always gone within minutes. I always bite it off. I have never worn foundation or concealer, and hope to not have to. But if my face doesn't get the memo that we are no longer 15 years old, I may have to think about it. But I DO NOT WANT to cover up my freckles AT ALL, and I am not sure that's possible unless I wear an extremely sheer foundation, and then what's the point of wearing one? I do need to get some moisturizer or start using coconut oil or something. I am going to have fabulous wrinkles when I am old, and I am not interested in doing anything other than wearing moisturizer to stop that process.

----> OK, this is where the post was SUPPOSED to start. My coworkers the other day were talking about makeup. I said that my sister says my makeup is too light to see. My coworker said she couldn't see mine! So I took some close up pictures to see if she was right. I guess she was!

Sorry that some of these are so blurry -- I wanted them to be done without a flash, and it's difficult to get good pictures that way, and I'm too lazy to redo it.

No makeup:




Wow, with all that purple under my eyes, people probably think I'm a vampire or something!

With all my makeup (there's even eyeliner):




You can definitely tell a huge difference with the mascara, but the rest isn't all that different.

I decided to do one with the flash. The difference in what shows up is amazing. I wonder which picture is more accurate to what people see in real life, indoors or out?: