I actually got sent to “charm school”.
Twice.
Apparently, it didn’t take. I’m not a girly-girl, I’m a tomboy. Oh, I can sorta dress up but I have no fashion sense, no “style”, whatever…
If I ever had to go to a formal event I think I’d have to hire someone to help me out - do they have such a profession? “Beauty consultant” or something? And I’m sure we’d spend the whole time arguing over what I will and won’t consent to.
>sigh<
I come from a long line of ever-so-slightly-macho girly girls – No that is NOT an oxymoron.
I never got a lesson, but had many daily examples from a large cast of older cousins, aunts, mom, grand and great grandmothers.
Granny put on moisturizer and hat without fail before heading out to castrate calves, but she and Mom did things like saying, “Oh, you’re not quite blended there” when walking by the bathroom while attacking someone’s chinline with a damp fingertip before a less messy activity. The women in my family know when to be pretty and when to not, and they passed the schedule on by osmosis. My “style” was developed through trail and error, rather than training.
I did do the seasons thing. I’m a Winter or a Spring, depending on what color my hair is dyed. 
By nature, I’m an occasionally bother with mascara type, but it is not my mother’s fault. I put my face on, and do my hair for work and Special Events (only those events who require capitalization!), but have rebelled against the fuss for real life.
(ETA – I don’t remember sanitary supply explanations. Pads were just there. Maybe the Disney Movie in 6th grade explained it. I have no memory of any discussion.)
I was never interested in girly things. I never asked, so nobody ever taught me. I was obviously taught about menstruation and stuff like that, but nobody ever taught me how to do my hair or put on makeup. To this day I have a VERY low-maintenance hairstyle and rarely wear makeup at all.
In my childhood I never had much of an interest at all in anything remotely girly. Tree climbing, bike riding, mischief making were more my interests.
In my teen years I did sort of develop at least an academic interest in it - which my mother promptly did everything she could to squash, because my mother is a obsolete relic of the “if you wear a bra and lipstick you’re letting yourself be oppressed by the patriarchy and thus are worthless as a human” brand of insane, LSD-fueled feminism of the 60s’. Had I not gone to summer camp for three weeks every summer I probably wouldn’t have started even shaving my legs until my late teens, nor escaped from my mother’s utterly all-natural, useless deodorant. I didn’t own any makeup until I was in high school, and then I was not allowed to wear it. The extent of my makeup was foundation, a smidge of concealer, and some lip gloss.
I still really have no interest in it. I don’t own any makeup, wear my hair in a half-inch buzz cut, and as for fashion, tell me I need to wear something other than “jeans and a t-shirt” or “black dress slacks and a button-down blouse I got on clearance at Old Navy”, and I’ll make a beeline for a female friend, begging them for help, because I’m completely lost.
Grooming, make-up, etc., was never my mother’s strong point. She did tell me about periods, but whether it was her explanation or my understanding that got garbled, I thought that the blood would come out of my abdomen. I started cramping off and on for a few months before I started menstruating, and went and grabbed one of the pads that she thoughtfully provided and placed it across my stomach. I was a little disconcerted and embarrassed when I learned how things really worked.
My friends at school helped, but bear in mind that it was the 70’s, so a lot of their advice was odd. I think mostly I learned from magazines and television.
My mother didn’t tell me anything about shaving, either. One day I was lying under the pool table with my boyfriend, proudly clad in a white bikini, when I noticed that my legs were hairier than his. :o I immediately went home, stole my dad’s razor, and shaved the hair and a goodly portion of skin from my legs. It definitely took a while to get the hang of it.
My little sister had it easier, I think, because I tried to teach her so she’d have a smoother time of it. Plus she knew where I kept my makeup and spent hours practicing when no one was around.
I was on my own for the most part. My mom always looks put-together and sensible but for some reason she never really bothered to teach me about makeup or hair or anything else remotely girly. I had to learn on my own, and I didn’t really learn until my second, third year of college. My first year, I walked around in jeans and button-down shirts, backpack slung over shoulder. Then I went through a phase where I wore heavy-handed makeup and attempted more fashionable outfits with limited success. I’m much better at it now. I think it just takes practice and a vested interest in wanting to improve. In my learning phase I did spend a tidy amount of time and money (trying on different kinds of clothes, buying new makeup, going to nice hair salons, etc), but for me it was worth it.
I am an odd duck in this group I think. I am far from a girly-girl, but I paradoxically am fascinated by girly things. Like from day to day, I wear jeans, t-shirts and chuck taylors to work and never wear makeup, but I used to subscribe to In Style magazine and I still buy the “150 best beauty buys” issue every spring, even though I hardly ever pick up any of the products in it.
So I have really strong and specific memories of learning about the girly stuff. The benchmarks:
Book: “The 14-Day Total Shape-Up Plan” - my most memorable purchase (along with “Sharks: Attacks on Man!”) from the Scholastic Book Club. “14-Day” introduced the idea that one might want to pay attention to things like hygiene, hair and so forth. I believe this is where I learned the concept of a daily cleanse-tone-moisturize routine, and that you should never pluck your eyebrows from the top, but start at the bottom and follow your natural shape. That book was a real “aha” moment.
Amway: for a mercifully brief time, my mom sold Amway, and I was entranced with all the how-to stuff that came with the makeup. This is where I learned the whole tri-color approach to eyeshadow (highlight-shadow-crease) and to some extent how to coordinate colors. Of course now I never wear makeup, but it was helpful then.
Richard Simmons: his TV show was popular when I was an adolescent and my mom had one of his books. Scoff if you like, but he really gets that when people “let themselves go” you start to believe you’re not worth taking care of. From basic nail care to exercise, he dispensed useful and non-judgmental “you go girl!” advice.
Sun-In: I know, it’s the worst thing for your hair ever. But it (and my new-wavey type first boyfriend who used it) taught me that playing with your hair color can be fun! The less natural it looked, the better! Then I started listening to Talking Heads and Devo, and the rest is history.*
Aveda: shortly after high school I was introduced to Aveda products (some salon offered a “free facial” shut up), and learned that the harsh chemicals I was using daily (bar soap, Sea Breeze) were probably making my breakouts worse, not better. With Aveda I realized it was worth spending a little more for better quality products, and since you end up needing less per application, it comes out about even. I have been getting compliments on my skin ever since.
*Among my all-time favorite bands: Faith No More, Dead Kennedys, and Hanson.
Some of it, which is odd - because by the time she was a mom, my mother had stopped being girly.
So I’m pretty sure she did it not so much to teach us to be girly, but to keep us entertained for an afternoon by playing “nail salon” or “give yourself a facial.” So, I learned how to steam my pores open and how to use an orange stick correctly or mix a mask out of oatmeal - but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her do any of those types of things on her own or for herself.
She was never even remotely successful at teaching me how to do anything with my hair - I haven’t the patience or talent for it.
She gave “dress for success” seminars to other people when I was young, so the books for that & your season (I don’t know what I actually am, but I like the winter colors better than the others, so I decided to be a winter. It is not supposed to work that way.) were always around. But by the time I was old enough to care about what I wore, I was also old enough to have stopped listening to my mother about anything that had to do with style…plus, she has a totally different body shape than I do, and couldn’t figure out why things didn’t work on me.
My mom was very emotionally distant and worked second shift, so I hardly saw her anyway. I was the only girl and spent most of the time with my brothers and their friends. I figured out clothing, makeup, and hair on my own, and my mom just started putting the sanitary supplies in the bathroom when she figured out that I was going into her bedroom to get them- there was no talk. I read Cosmopolitan and watched my girl friends for lessons on being girly.
I’m still for the most part not outwardly girly, but I try sometimes because I do feel girly inside. I just learned a few years ago that you’re considered less of a woman if you don’t paint your toenails… I did not know that for the longest time. I get pedicures now.
My mother would have delighted in teaching me the girlish/grooming arts, but I had no interest whatsoever and still don’t. I keep a simple hairstyle that needs no mousse/hairspray, I don’t wear makeup, and I keep my nails super-short for piano playing.
Funny thing is, I was a totally boy-crazy slut as a teenager. You’d think I would have done girly stuff to attract boys, but … nah, couldn’t be bothered, no matter how horny I was.
ETA: Now that I reflect, however, I realize I did go through a stage of several months where I wore heavy eye shadow, in about 11th grade, in hopes of getting a date. It didn’t work.
I mostly remember that Mom always wanted to roll my hair or put barrettes in it.
I was in a pageant when I was eleven, and she tarted me up properly for that (and for the proms, later on). In day-to-day life, though, I think I asked for some makeup around age fourteen and did a pretty competent job with it on my own.
As for puberty-type stuff, I was a late bloomer. I was fifteen by the time I menstruated, so I’d read all about it by then. I do recall her throwing a crazy fit when I was around sixteen and had grabbed some tampons out of her bathroom. (“You’re not a virgin anymore!!!”) The boobs…well, I’m still waiting. Mom used to call me cute little nicknames like The Titless Wonder, and then be astounded when my feelings were hurt. I look back now and wonder if she was really that clueless.
My daughter has always liked dressing up. Sometimes I try to get her to tone it down to jeans and a t-shirt to help her fit in better! She also wears so much eyeliner that it can’t possibly stay put, and it gets all over her face, but she “likes it that way.” She’s done plenty of blooming too, so we talk about all kinds of girl stuff. Zits are a frequent topic.
I’m trying to figure out if Doper Women are just a strange, self-selecting group, or if the seeming lack of hygienic and cosmetic training in the last 40 years might explain a few things about the slovenliness of current dress, the simplicity of current hairstyles, and the prevalence of makeover television shows.
Seriously, what happened in the sixties/seventies that so many mothers decided this stuff was not important to teach? Was it a feminist thing? That doesn’t explain not teaching about menstruation or how to wash your hair, does it?
Heck, back in the 80’s, hair required a ton of maintenance and styling. Who taught us to do that? We weren’t all walking around with buzz cuts and ponytails.
Nope, my best friend growing up was a boy and I didn’t hang out with girls enough to get into girly stuff. My Mom is not fashionable at all and doesn’t wear makeup or do her hair. I did use makeup in high school and early college but I didn’t really know what I was doing and I shudder to think how it looked. Of course it was the 80s when really obvious blush and eyeshadow was kind of fashionable. I also grew my nails long and painted them strong colors, but that was my own idea too. I wore uniforms until high school and then learned to shop for myself but my mom hates shopping and didn’t go along.
I got my period at 11 (1979) and Mom bought the pads with the belt! Then when I wanted to go swimming she got tampons and that was my solution from then on.
I appreciated that Mom didn’t foist some sort of beauty requirements on me; I don’t think she had the wherewithall what with not being into it herself and just trying to survive life.
I learned about sex on a street corner. I was probably 10 or so, and my friend had seen her parents doing it. So she told us about it on the way home from school. So now we knew how it worked.
My mother died when I was 7 and my sister was 8. My father was absolutely paralyzed with grief and depression . . . for the rest of his life. He became paranoid and alcoholic, and did nothing to raise us, either as children or as girls. His sister took us shopping for school clothes and gave us some rudimentary cooking lessons. She never thought to buy us bras or explain sex or menstruation to us.
When I was 10 or so, we went to visit one of his co-workers. His wife took us in their bedroom and closed the door and told us a story. As near as I can remember, it went like this: “One day, I went to school. I went in the bathroom, and I was covered with blood. All blood. And someday, that will happen to you.” And she looked at us, and we looked at her. And she opened the door and nodded at my dad, and we all went home. Mission accomplished, I guess.
When I got my period, I saved up my lunch money to buy pads, and when I used them, I wrapped them up and put them in my purse to take to school to throw them away because my dad would go through the trash to see what we had thrown away. I don’t know what my sister did with hers, but she didn’t throw them in the wastebaskets. We skipped lunch to buy razors and hid them under our mattresses. We shaved with soap and water because there was no place to hide shaving cream.
We both got fairly bad acne, not cystic, but bad enough that normal people would have gone to dermatologists, but he refused to take us because “it’s just skin.” If we’d had any other kind of physical problems, he’d have gotten us medical help, but he saw skin problems as cosmetic.
I think I was 14 when my aunt handed me a Christmas present and said “Open this discreetly.” I was so thrilled because I thought maybe it was a bra. I took it in the other room and ripped it open and it was underpants. I tried so hard not to cry. Then I saved up all my lunch money and walked to Montgomery Ward and told the lady I needed a bra. I didn’t know how to buy one but she helped me and didn’t ask where my mother was. I hid the bra from my dad because he went through my underwear drawer.
My sister was much bolder than I was; she had the balls to just say “This is my stuff. I’m 15 goddamn years old, for Christ’s sake.” I had no guts.
To this day, it’s a luxury to me to wash my bras and toss them over the shower curtain rod in the bathroom and know my husband isn’t going to pitch a fit. He doesn’t even care! And I can keep my makeup in the drawer next to the sink and my Kotex or whatever the hell I want to in the cabinet. And he won’t go through the trash! Freedom hall! And I don’t have to carry my purse from room to room lest somebody rifle it! Damn, I’m crying now. Shit. I hate this fucking thread.
I have to give Mom credit: she tried. She’s still trying, in fact.
She rarely dresses up (though she looks good when she does), as she works in a jeans-and-tee-shirts kind of place, but her hair and make-up are always done, and skin care is practically a hobby for her. When I was a teenager, she kept me informed on all necessary hygiene changes I needed to adopt, helped me with a skin care regimen, taught me how to put on makeup, and tried to teach me how to dress and do my hair (the hair was the only part she wasn’t extra helpful with, as my hair is quite wavy, and she flatirons hers to be even stick-straighter than it is naturally).
Some of it took, and I’m grateful for the help, even though I’m still somewhat of a fashion disaster and too lazy to wear makeup most days. This, despite the fact that I’ve probably got hundreds of dollars of skin care supplies and mineral makeup sitting on my vanity right now (bought for me by Mom- she’s still trying). When I do put it on, though, I know how. I also know what things are good and bad for my skin, a vague idea of what colors look good on me, and I can use an eyelash curler without blinding myself.
Thanks, Mom!
You’ve inspired to elaborate a bit on my own experience. Around my last couple years of college, I developed a random interest in makeup. I think it started when my friend convinced me to take a makeup class with her - she was friends with a makeup artist who spent a few hours teaching us the basics of penciling in eyebrows, applying foundation and e/s, etc. I idly googled a bit and found the site http://emakemeup.com , which has a collection of reviews and a pretty active online community. The women on the site taught me a lot about makeup and how to apply it so it didn’t like look I’d slathered it on with the proverbial trowel.
So for a few years I was a huge makeup/skincare girl. I got makeovers to learn new techniques, bought the latest collections every season, and shared tips with people online. I experimented with all sorts of different shades and looks. I bought the latest fashion magazines (Allure, I think was my favorite). I think that naturally led me to take more care with my clothes and my hair as well. I also started to work out regularly around that time, so about a year after I graduated college, I was probably looking the best I’ve ever looked in my life.
And then I went to grad school in Chicago. 
While to the end I still dressed up way more than most grad school students, after a few months I definitely got lazy. I would leave the house wearing only powder and having penciled in my eyebrows, which for me was like leaving the house naked. (I have no natural eyebrows to speak of, so penciling them in makes a drastic difference in how I look.) Sometimes I would even go to class wearing jeans and a shapeless t-shirt. (This would have been anathema to me when I was in Seoul.)
Now that I’m back in Korea, I’ve definitely gone back to my old ways - makeup, accessories, and heels on an almost daily basis. Pedicures every other week. Girls definitely take more care with their looks here than they did back in Chicago, and it’s just easier to blend in if I take a little extra effort. Plus I have to admit, I definitely enjoy looking nice. I no longer spend so much money at MAC and Shu Uemura - thanks to my makeup obsession a few years ago I still have a substantial stash of stuff, which will last me a few years yet; also, having spent money on both cheap and expensive skincare I’ve finally figured out how to take care of my skin without necessarily buying that $100 jar of night cream.
If I ever have a daughter, I’m definitely going to give her some guidance about this sort of stuff. At the time I remember wishing I’d learned all this earlier. My mom didn’t really care how I looked as long I was neat and clean. I suppose those are the basics. 
My mom was awesome. She taught me about hygiene and femine stuff, helped with makeup and hair, and best of all, got me a subscription to Teen Magazine, which taught me hair and makeup that was more in style than what my mom knew.
SigmaGirl, I’m almost crying, too. I really want to hug your young self, and take her under my wing.
I think partly it’s that Doper women are more of a self-selecting group. I also wonder if mothers in the 60s/70s/80s were reacting against the way they’d been raised. Maybe they felt like their own mothers put too much emphasis on beauty and grooming.
A third possibility also occurs to me: during the 70s and 80s, many mothers were entering the workforce and/or going through divorces. They flat-out may have overlooked teaching this stuff to their daughters, since they were so busy trying to juggle careers and their own personal lives while keeping their kids fed, clothed and housed. My husband’s parents went through a messy divorce when he was 13, and both of his parents were pretty well consumed with that for several years. He didn’t have anyone to sit him down and give him the basics about wearing clean clothes every day and putting on deodorant. None of this is meant to be a slam against working or divorced mothers–just saying that as they were going through so many changes of their own, they may not have thought to pass along this stuff to their daughters.
I’m better now, thanks, Trouble. It freaks me out the other way, too, when there’s too much attention paid: “Oh, listen everybody! Susie got her first period! We’re going to have a Womanhood Party for her! There will be cake and everyone will bring Womanhood Gifts and share special memories and wisdom so she will be a strong, beautiful woman! Let’s all look at her right now!”
Mom taught us practical things. For example, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t understand what sex was and how babies were made. So that wasn’t a concern. But as for knowing about makeup and hair and finding flattering clothing? Forget it. In that area, Mom was extremely old-fashioned. I look back at my old pictures and cringe. My clothes were usually fashions you only see on old women. She doesn’t believe in anything being form-fitting. It was all baggy, baggy, baggy. And my parents would get upset any time I spent money on makeup. They made fun of my desire to wear dangly earrings and do my hair.
I didn’t learn anything about finding flattering clothing until I went to law school, when a friend of mine mentioned that I should consider buying things that were more form-fitting. What Not to Wear saved me by teaching me I should reject Mom’s pleated, tapered pants and sack-like sweaters. Makeup I learned from the Laura Mercier counter. Their artists are really good, and subscribe to a “less is more” philosophy.
I’m sort of odd, in that I am not a very girly-girl in personality, but I love girlyness in how I dress. I smash my own spiders and move heavy furniture and don’t flirt, but I wear dresses nearly every day and have long hair and wear a little jewelry and makeup. What I have learned is that my mother doesn’t truly disapprove of this stuff. She used all that to cover up for the fact that she didn’t know anything about fashion or makeup because she grew up on a farm, where there was no money for nice clothing and they didn’t wear makeup. So I’ve taught her a few things. We have had some really fun outings to Sephora and Lane Bryant to find things for her. So Mom is learning this stuff at the age of 63, and having a really good time of it. Turns out she always wanted to know.