I feel pretty, oh so pretty

In order to get ready for the upcoming wedding there are a lot of things I have to think about and get done. With all the major things lined up, taking care of myself usually goes on the back burner. This weekend I decided that I would do something for myself that also was wedding related.

In the efforts of saving money and also feeling pretty I figured I would go to the local department store and get “made up” to learn how to do my makeup for the big day and look pretty by a professional. I headed down to the store with my plain face as a clean pallet in order to be made into a glowing bride…or something like that.

My first tip for anyone having makeup done…always look at the professional’s makeup before stepping forward with this process. This I should have realized before I proceeded but I was blinded by beauty of the makeup counter.

The makeup test starts off just fine. Concealer to cover the permanent dark circles that I have been “blessed” with. Nothing like a thick coating of spackle under your eyes. Next we’re onto the eye shadow. I tell her we’re having an outdoor wedding during the day, fairly simple and just want to look fresh and pretty…I don’t think she understands me or chooses not to hear me. She picks a brown and lavender combo for my eyes. Not a bad combo, if done correctly. As she explains to me how to apply the product I notice that my eyes are becoming darker than normal, kind of making me look like I’ve been in a fight and got punched in the eyes. I suppose you could call this a smoky eye, but it’s more like a smoke damaged eye. I figure I can eventually tone down the darkness when I do it myself.

While she finishes up the shadow she moves onto eye liner. Instead of the standard liner I’m used to she chooses a liquid/cream type of product. You apply this with a brush type thingy (obviously my makeup lingo isn’t the best). As she starts adding this gunk to my eyes I notice that it doesn’t really blend as well as I would have wanted but instead lays a thick line across the lid and under my eye. I have stripes, not a good look. Just when I think she’s done with this liquid liner brush goo she tells me that in order to make me look more “awake and happy” she puts a swoosh at the and of the eyelid. Yes a swoosh,, like Nike. I’ll tell you now that I don’t look more awake or happy, but I look like The Bangles lead singer in the Walk like and Egyptian video. This would be good eye makeup for my debut as a showgirl.

I didn’t think my eyes could get worse, but again I was wrong. She starts telling me that with a ‘more made up eye I need to also blend my eyebrows so that they don’t look non-existent”. Huh? My eyebrows are there, I can still see them even with all the eye crap but evidently I don’t see them as well as I should. So out comes the brown/black eyebrow pencil. She shades in my eyebrows and when I look into the mirror I have black eyebrows that look thick and tattooed, and very elaborate. Almost like a clown. All I can think of is when my mom told me a story about a dog we once had that had so many flees that they made eyebrows on the dog. I was this dog, only with stripes, and a swoosh.

Next came the blush. Now as everyone knows, I’m pale. Pasty in fact. So blush needs to be subtle. A little goes a long way. Instead she chooses a peachy/pink color and tries to blend it in to my cheek bones however I end up with pink stripes to match my eyeliner stripes. Now if I only had a dress with stripes!

After the powder finish and a couple coats of mascara…I look like a transvestite showgirl on the strip. As I’m getting done Mr. Teacher walks up to the counter and proceeds to smile in the way that says “I’m going to smile just in case she likes it but that looks horrible.” As I proceed to tell him how much I really don’t like it, he then tells the truth by saying “you look like you’re going clubbing”. Evidently the terms fresh and pretty mean skanky clubbing girl to the makeup counter person. Not really what I want to look like on my wedding day. Besides, too many stripes make you look large.