The Art of Makeup

My daughter is going into the seventh grade this year. She's twelve, soon to be turning sixteen . . . in her mind only. Trust me, she's already planning on the car she wants to drive. Yep, we periodically burst that little fantasy bubble of hers.

So, of course, she wants to wear makeup.

I rarely wear makeup.

Even those of you who remember me from high school realize I wore only a little makeup: mascara, blush, lipstick and maybe some loose powder.

Me 2012

My mom @ 1938/1939

Now the only time I put any on is if we're going to a fancy restaurant, church, or out for a special occasion. And I usually only use a little blush, mascara, and some lipstick/gloss.

Even this picture of me was taken without any makeup, with the exception of colored lip gloss.

My mom never wore makeup--actually, she never needed it--so I never really got into the habit of wearing it.

Dang! I never realized how similar our features are until I put these two pictures side-by-side!


So how do I teach my daughter to use makeup to enhance her natural beauty and not to cover it up?

Luckily, the kidlet goes to a private Catholic school and it has a makeup policy in the dress code for the school. This section is actually taken directly out of the dress code for the school.

Young women 6th grade through 12th grade may use make-up sparingly, keeping in mind that its use is to accentuate that which nature has intended, not to change it. The administration has the right to deem the appropriate use of make-up.

The kidlet had two requests this summer:

• she wanted her legs waxed
• she wanted her eyebrows plucked.

Well, a month ago, I bought some Sally Hanson wax strips and went to town on her legs . . . we ran out of strips before I finished the first leg.

She decided to wait on the waxing . . .  *bwahahahaha*  I can't imagine why??

And just last week, I became a professional eyebrow plucker.

I was going to take her into the mall where they 'thread' the hair from eyebrows, but decided I didn't want anyone to over thread her brows. I still have memories of when one of my sisters was a younger, she was,  shall I say, overzealous in her plucking. Over time, hair will not grow back when you keep ripping it out by the follicles! And as we age, it becomes lighter

So I got my really good Tweezerman tweezers and went to work on her brows. She had a few stragglers under her brow, but the problem was an odd, and out of place, patch above her brow line over each eye. I worked on it off and on for a couple of days until we perfected her brows.

But then there was a natural 'hole' in her finished brow.

No, I didn't over tweeze it. It's just a weird patch. I didn't want to over pluck it to get rid of the hole, so I introduced her to an eyebrow pencil.

She wanted to take it from me.

Sorry, sister, it's MINE!

We accomplished her two goals this summer, though neither one was quite the way she envisioned it.

Slowly, but surely, I'm teaching her that:

 The art of wearing makeup is to not look like you are wearing any at all.  

Later, Peeps!