I have a melting face. That’s the only explanation I can think of
for my problem.
Before leaving the house each morning, I look in the mirror
and check that my make-up is creating the illusion of a person
well- rested and not yet of retirement age. This is as good as it
gets. Giving myself the thumbs up – yes, literally – I head out
into a world that I believe is ready and willing to embrace me.
As I step into the lift, the mirrors reveal that my make-up has
already started a revolt. My lips are messy scratches divided by
rivers of wrinkles; under-eye bags have dug their way out from
beneath the concealer; and my eyebrows look less Cara Delevingne,
and more John Howard. I tell myself it’s the bad lighting in the lift.
When I arrive in the sunlit lobby, I check myself in another
mirror. I am Picasso’s Weeping Woman. By the time I reach the
city, I’m a child’s recreation of Picasso’s work. Every reflective
surface tracks the rapid disintegration of my morning face.
I want to scream, “I did not wake up like this!” as I pass horrified
pedestrians. By the time I sit down at my desk, I’m a haggard
witch from an anxious child’s nightmare.I learnt how to apply make-up from my tap dancing teacher
around 1987. Heavy and dramatic were my guiding principles.
Unlike my friends, who watch YouTube tutorials on beauty... stuff,
I’ve learnt nothing new since then. I understand the basics: cover
bad things, exaggerate other bits. I don’t like the feeling of a face
full of foundation, so I cover my most problematic spots with
random splashes of concealer. A dot of concealer here, a swipe of
mismatched foundation there, and a complete lack of blending to
round it out. Are you picturing Rambo in camo facepaint? Bingo.
So when I say that the moment I leave home my make-up is perfect,
know this is the bar we’re working from. This is why I’m always
surprised it manages to get worse.
The obvious solution is to never leave the house. Ever. No one would
see me. I could revert to my tap dancing-era blue eyeshadow and
babydoll rouge. I could even wear my tap costumes again. No matter
that the leotards ride up in ways that threaten to cut me in half- there’d be no one to judge apart from the home-visiting doctor
I may need to call to perform an emergency sequin extraction.
In one last desperate attempt to tackle my face-melting problem,
I did what any adult would do: I let a 13-year-old YouTube make-up
artist lecture me on how to ‘set’ my face. She told me to brush talcum
powder on, then dunk my face into a sink of cold water. I hit rewind to
make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. I wasn’t. Apparently the way to keep
your make-up in place is to turn your mug into papier-mâché paste.
Maybe it’s my lack of skills; maybe it’s my skin type; maybe it’s just
the world; but I’m done with this face-melting torment. For me, the
answer is not new make-up or more tutorials (what else could a kid
from Arizona possibly teach a tap-dancing veteran about life?). The
answer is much easier than that: it is simply fewer mirrors. A single
mirror to check my face at home, and that’s it. I avert my eyes in
the lift, walk faster past shop windows, and work on strengthening
my bladder so I don’t have to visit the work bathroom so often. The
image of me at home, fresh and intact, will be the one I project
to the world mentally, if not physically, all day long. I’ve always
preferred my own made-up world to reality, anyway.
face off
CARO COOPER IS HAVING
A LITTLE TROUBLE KEEPING
HER MAKE-UP INTACT.
something to say