This piece was inspired by this post over at Nudemuse. Confound me for leaving it in my idea journal so long! I promise I’m gonna get better about putting my posts on the actual blog in a timely manner, really I am!
I remember a conversation I had with my lil’ bro when I was sixteen (this would make him ten). We were getting ready for dinner, my family and I, and mom and I were getting all dolled up with the make-up.
Him: *intently watching me line my eyes* “Why do y’all put all that stuff on your face?”
Me: “What stuff? My eyeshadow?”
Him: “All of that stuff. It makes you look fake. Are you hiding something?”
Me: *quietly shoves him out of the doorway and shuts door*
My Mom: “I’m gonna have to learn that boy some tact.” (No, she seriously said it like that. I cracked up and nearly poked my eye out with the mascara.)
At the time, I had no idea how to really answer the question about why I wear makeup. I just liked the stuff. I fancy myself a bit of an artist, and for me, my face was just another place to wear extravagant colors or try different color combinations. Granted, I typically did my makeup oddly in those days. I never put shadow in the creases or browbones. I only shadowed the lid and lined my eyes, and wore plenty of mascara. And I don’t know if this applies to anyone else (I mean, I could see everyone else’s lids when I stared directly into their faces), but it’s like my lids disappear when you look directly in my face, so all one really saw was my liner and lashes. Great if that’s all I wanted to show…but it wasn’t. But I digress.
As I became more adept with the shadow, I found myself pairing yellow shadow with orange and black (I looked like some type of tropical bird, y’all. Real talk.) and the question my lil bro asked arose in my head again…”Why do you wear that stuff?” Well, I could wax poetic about how I’m enhancing my natural beauty and further encouraging myself to step from the shadows into the light, but seriously, y’all?
I wear it because I like it. Nothing to hide, as 10 year old lil bro assumed. In fact, I made my first foray into makeup when I was in my tomboy phase my freshman year of high school. I used clothes to hide away. It drove my mom absolutely nuts. So, to make my mom feel better (she worked at a cosmetics company at the time) I would wear super shiny gloss, then graduated to brown glosses (she took what she could get, ’cause I wasn’t gonna wear pink). The rest was history. Essentially, I just think makeup is pretty.
Interestingly enough, I went slightly dramatic with the eyes when I went to lil godsis’ graduation. I had false lashes, pretty black liner, hair yanked up so you could see the full effect (I also had on a FIERCE spagetti-strapped dress), the whole nine. My mom peeked her head in my room as I was admiring my work, and she says: “Wow. That’s pretty. It’s the most makeup I’ve ever seen you wear.”
Me: “Wait. Is it too much?” (I love color, but I tend not to be heavy with it.)
Her: “No, it looks great. It’s just..I’ve never seen you wear that much. I didn’t know you could do that. It’s amazing.”
Me: *smile*
Heh. Well, maybe I also wear makeup for compliments on styling–at least, every once in a while. I’m a bit conceited, I guess. 
So, what makeup do y’all wear? Do you have a favorite feature you like to play up? Do you go wild with lipsticks and gloss? Or are you all about the eyes, like me? Are you all natural, like IntellectualFeminist? Oh, and what are y’alls favorite lines? I just got some great beauty swag I’ll be sharing with y’all soon, but I’m always on the lookout for new lines to try.
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