Coloring Outside the Lines

As I've grown older, I've realized that I have a need to color outside the lines. This is totally against my normal tendency to follow the rules by doing stuff in an orderly and logical manner.

But I don't have a choice any longer--I have to color outside the lines on my eyebrows and lips.

Yes, my friends, I have started wearing make-up again. It's been about ten years, or longer, since I actively wore make-up. Oh, I would wear it on the occasions when it was called for, but for the most part I would go au natural.

Trust me, I don't have a problem with not wearing make-up, but I feel that I need to be a good example for my daughter in regards to the fact that make-up is to enhance your inner beauty, not cover up the ugliness lurking beneath the surface.

Well, but then reality hit me in the face . . . literally.

So, the other day, my daughter was complaining that she had a round face (she doesn't, it's oval) and no cheek bones (well, she is a young teenager). She looked at my face and stated that she was jealous because I have cheekbones.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that the reason I now have cheekbones is because my cheek skin has now sagged into my jowls.

One of the harsh reality signs of aging.

When I was younger, all I needed to do was throw on a bit of colored lip gloss and some mascara and I was good to go. Not so any longer.

Time has taken it's toll on my face in the form of disappearing lips and non-existent eyebrows, and I have found the need to 'color' outside the lines.

So what to do?

I do have an eyebrow pencil that I love. It's a Clinique super fine liner in light brown. I use it to color the bottom of the eyebrow hairs that I have left while it fills in the 'empty' spots, and then I smudge it inward to give it a more natural look.

And for all you girls out there who want to pluck your eyebrows--DON'T!! Eventually, the hairs will stop growing and you will be stuck with bald patches.

Just saying.

Oh, I'm not saying don't get rid of the odd hairs that are in weird spots or are wonky, crazy hairs, but don't go nuts and thin them out. I was never one to over pluck my eyebrows, but nature has managed to take care in the long run.

Lips are another problem. Somewhere between my early 40's and my early 50's, my lips just . . . disappeared!

Along with the newly discovered cheekbones caused by hanging jowls, my lips have thinned into nothingness. I don't think it's because I purse them in disapproval all the time, but hey, you never know. I also have lines that start on my lips and shoot their way onto my face, like I'm a smoker, but I'm not. I finally decided that it's due to sipping coffee and drinking from straws.

Don't believe me? Then watch your lips as you do either one of these tasks and see if you are gaining lines.

RE: the lip issue. In the past, I used to use a lip pencil to outline my mouth. As I had pale lips I didn't stop there, but would color my entire lip with the darker color, and then us a lipstick or gloss over the lips.

Sorry, but the color didn't transfer. I'm assuming it's because of the way the file was set up so the consumer could look at the various 'shades'.


Now, they have various products that are "long last" type things. I've purchased a few. Most of them I don't like because they are sticky and simply feel gross--a couple of Revlon products. The one that I like the most (and have purchased at least five different shades) is Cover Girl Lip Stain. It's light weight and once dry (I will also 'seal' it with a loose powder) it holds pretty well. It will start to fade in the center first, but for the most part it works well.


The coloring outside the lines part has to do with the border of my lip to my face. Instead of coloring inside the lip line area, I now color just outside the lip area to actually give myself some lips!

Yes, it's one of those harsh reality life lessons one keeps learning as we grow older.

So I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a little bit of rebel in all this, and I think I'll keep coloring outside the lines in other areas of my life as well!

Later, Peeps!