Men and women have been wearing makeup since the time of the ancient Egyptians, when both sexes encircled their eyes with kohl eyeliner to deflect the glare of the Egyptian sun.
Sure. That’s why I wear it, too.
I mean, I love the idea of not wearing any makeup at all, but women who don’t tend to be gorgeous. It’s not so much a moral choice as they simply don’t need it.
I need it.
I’ve been wearing at least minimal makeup since I was 14 and discovered the cosmetics counter at Kresge’s. Alone at my older sister’s vanity, I dabbed a little Cover Girl on my cheeks while she was out on a date one night, and it was like slipping through a time portal. I immediately looked older. I looked, in fact, like her. And that was a good thing.
So, the other day I was on a strategic run to Ulta, a mega-makeup store that sells all the expensive department store brands in one place, plus drugstore brands. (The difference being that you can’t sample the inexpensive stuff. You have to take your chances.)
I was trying to match a discontinued concealer, so I was going from brand to brand with a nearly empty bottle, looking at samples. I’d already experimented with Clinique, Mac, and Bobby Brown and was now trolling Urban Decay. I’d declined repeated offers for assistance from several salespeople because this is a job that requires a lot of trial and error, a job you can only do for yourself, when a woman about my age approached. She had a red bob and very round, startling blue eyes. Before I could deflect her, she had plucked my bottle from my hand, saying, “You’re trying to match this? I’ll help you.”
She took off with my makeup hostage, and I had no choice but to trail her up and down aisles and counters I’d already eliminated. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and maybe she had exceptional abilities, but every time I tried to retrieve my original bottle to resume my search alone, she’d take off. Now we were in Anastasia, heading toward Chanel.
Suddenly, she pulled up in front of me and stood as close as someone coming in for a kiss. “I’m an aesthetician,” she confided quietly. “I owned my own shop for 20 years. I know everything there is to know about skin.” She studied my face, and I immediately felt as if I was hiding something I needed to confess—Okay, okay! I didn’t always wear sunscreen! I used Noxema all through high school!
I put iodine in baby oil and slathered myself with it every summer!
And she was off again, me trailing. She stopped by Kylie Jenner and whipped out a tiny spatula, which she dipped into a jar, and said, “Here. Let’s try it on your face.” I stood there, our faces inches apart. She smoked. This was way too intimate, but there was something about her that wouldn’t let me look away. A desperation of some kind. An intensity. Like she wasn’t going to let me go, even though I had cheerfully called out twice, “Oh, well! I’ll just keep looking! Thanks for trying.”
She patted an area the size of an apple under my left eye while shoppers milled around us, then stood back to admire her handiwork. She moved in again, searching my eyes, and for some reason, I didn’t back up or look away.
“I have to get away from my husband,” she said quietly. “That’s why I’m here.”
Oh my God! I thought. So that’s why I’m here! I’m here to help you escape. Is he in the store? Blink twice.
I also wanted to turn to a mirror to see what she’d done to me.
“He won’t leave me alone. He follows me around. He’s controlling. I can’t get rid of him.”
“Oh,” I said. “Retired.” She nodded, and I reached again for my bottle, tugging on it until she released it. “I feel your pain.”
Moving to the nearest mirror, I saw that she had made a giant white circle beneath my left eye and over my cheekbone. I looked like the puppy in “Spot Goes to School.” ‘Oh dear,” I said, “too light.”
“Really?” she said. “I think it’s perfect.”
We stared at me in the mirror.
It wasn’t my job to buy her products or entertain her during the waning hours of her shift. It wasn’t my job to save her though honestly, I had thrilled to the possibility.
But it was my job to be kind. And to see her as she’d asked to be seen. As an educated expert who once owned a store of her own. As an adult on her feet all day, selling makeup to teenagers.
As one human being needing to connect with another. Just for a minute.
Face to face.
