Eddie Izzard Makeup Guilt & ARM PIT KITTIES

[Ensign Steve]

I can't say they won't give you the hard sell with the free consultation, but at least Mary Kay is a lot less expensive than Clinique or the other department store brands.

[Angakuk]

I believe that Tammy Faye Bakker (aka Messner) does free consultations. She really doesn't have much else to occupy her time since she died.

[Ymir's blood]

I wish I looked pale and sickly without makeup.

[Janet]

Obviously I'm biased here, but I do find department store beauty people really know what they are talking about, particularly at higher end stores like Nordstrom. Often they will give you a free makeover on the day or show you how to do it. The Chanel people always tell me when a product won't work for my skin.

My first Chanel makeover was by an awesome, middle-aged European woman - couldn't quite place the accent. She was so fun and insisted on plucking my eyebrows, which is not normally included. At the beginning she asked what brand of foundation I was using and said she didn't like to speak ill of other brands. At the end she told me not to bother buying any of the make-up, just get the skin care and not worry about it. When I asked if I should buy the foundation too, she said yes because she wanted me to go home and throw that other stuff out. I guess she got over not speaking ill of other brands.

[livius drusus]

My mom went to a department store counter in Rome (this would have been in the mid-80s when my mom was around 45 or so) and the elegant European lady asked her what face cream she used. My mom said Nivea and the lady replied in an indignant tone "Well no wonder you're collapsing!"

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

I wish I looked pale and sickly without makeup.

Sometimes, I'll catch a reflection of myself in a window or someone's glasses or something, and I look like a ghostly, phosphorescent floating head.

When I do buy any kind of skin-colored cosmetics like powder or foundation or something, I just get whatever is the whitest, and it's never been too white yet.

When I was anemic and got a tetch paler than usual, I had to wear blush and stuff to hide it or strangers would get all scared and ask if I was OK.

<-- Ymir's blood

[Watser?]

You need special goggles to look at my legs in daylight.

[Ymir's blood]

You need X-Ray vision to look at my legs in the daylight.

[vremya]

Someone took some pictures of me at a reception and posted them on Facebook and my first thought when I saw them was holy crap, I look really pasty.

[LadyShea]

vremya, Merle Norman has always done right by me and mine, but if I were learning makeup today, I would go for Ulta or Sephora or somewhere that carries mineral makeup because I love it so hard*. You might also want to see an aesthetician as many sell products and do makeovers too.

*Bare Essentials is good, La Bella Donna is better, L'Oreal does fine on the cheap and easy. No others though...they all suck.

[Qingdai]

Bare minerals sucks?

I would also like to go back to pale and pasty. I have rosacea so I'm sick of people asking me if I was in the sun, did I get a sunburn, so on and what not. My also tactless as fuck dad gives me a weekly update on my facial redness. Whee. Old age, just like the teen years.

As for arm pit kitties, I have them. I just trim when I start tickling my shoulders by my own-some. TMI?

[S.Vashti]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

I wish I looked pale and sickly without makeup.

When I was a kid, living in Chicago, we lived next to a doctor, who would occasionally encounter me, frown, and insist on pulling my lower eyelids down to check for anemia.

Fishbelly white was pretty much an accurate description of my complexion. So sorry it couldn't have been yours.

eta: Bah. Apparently pea and I are twins.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

Bare minerals sucks?

Bare Minerals is Bare Escentuals, and no it doesn't suck, that's a good brand

[Janet]

My stupid eye decided to water like the devil after my walk from the parking lot this morning. It couldn't do it at home where I could touch it up. No, it had to wait and make me look like crap at work.

THIS IS WHY MY FACE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!

[BrotherMan]

[Gonzo]

Originally Posted by Janet

Then I became a fan of Eddie Izzard and watching a transvestite made me really self-conscious about not being girly enough, so I started wearing make-up.

I wore eyeliner to school this week because my sort of girlfriend gave me some. I realized I like how it looks on her better.

Izzard is sort of my excuse, too. I don't consider make-up alone to be cross dressing, though.

[Janet]

I'm sure most of the bands from the Eighties would agree with you on that.

[godfry n. glad]

Well, I wore makeup in my thespian days. I gave it up when I went straight.

[LadyShea]

I have had a difficult time buying flattering jeans my whole life. Today I found an awesome pair that fit great and were on clearance already with an extra 20% off that too (Old Navy if anyone else has the same problem).

I also needed to summerfy my work "uniform" so I bought 3 lace overlay shell tops, each a slightly different style and (neutral) color that I can wear with p. much all my pants and skirts.

P pleased over here.

[Ensign Steve]

Ladies: why you should stop shaving | Emer O'Toole

Okay, how have I never even heard of arm pit kittens, and apparently this is a thing?

[Qingdai]

I don't know, but leg shaving always reminds me of a Julie Doucet cartoon, description follows:

"In one story, “The First Time I Shaved My Leg,” Doucet hears moans emerging from her stubble and discovers miniature mermaids clinging to the remaining leg hair with the final image captioned with “Halt The Genocide.”

Leg mermaids, armpit kitties. Sure, why not.

[LadyShea]

I cannot stand to have hairy armpits...it just grosses me out and reminds me of the word "raspy" and I can't handle it. The thought of not only sweating right through my antiperspirant (yay hormonal changes due to aging!) but having hair there with deodorant and sweat clinging to it...so close to my face. Gah. Not for me.

I'm all for whatever other people want to do, and will brush my leg fur happily, but I have a personal ick factor I can't get past there in the pit area.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I cannot stand to have hairy armpits...it just grosses me out and reminds me of the word "raspy" and I can't handle it. The thought of not only sweating right through my antiperspirant (yay hormonal changes due to aging!) but having hair there with deodorant and sweat clinging to it...so close to my face. Gah. Not for me.

Men really are repulsive, aren't they?

Anyways, I'm consistently horrified how every time I see someone write about how they don't shave their legs, there's a part where strangers start some public discussion or debate or something. Ugh.

Although it would be super-hilarious to give little kids some big unexpurgated sex talk if they ask about it. I figure that's the sort of thing you should expect if you let your children go around commenting on strangers' bodies.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Men really are repulsive, aren't they?

Their pits aren't near my face all day! If I lived and worked with dudes' hairy sweaty pits covered in goo a foot from my face all the time I would die of ick.

As it is I am having to mop up my own pits several times a day now, after not having been a sweaty person at all for 40 years. Anyway, as I said, what other people do is a-okay with me...just can't have unshaved pits on myownself.

[lisarea]

GOD, SHEA. GET A NECK WHY DON'T YOU?

No, but for serious, I get it. But also, there's this pervasive and perpetual cultural belief that women's bodies are bad and shameful. That they need to be maintained and modified and covered because they're inherently disgusting and obscene and dirty. And you can't just discard that conditioning by simply acknowledging that it's a silly thing. I mean, you have a point! Hairy armpits are sort of objectively gross if you think about them like that, which most of us do.

So my solution, when I can't shake off this idea that failing to perform some sort of maintenance or something is gross and dirty or something is to look at the nearest dude and say, "Yeah, well, look at that nasty piece of shit with the filthy lumps hanging hear and their. That guy should probably go wash his ass."