For me its just generally some blush and maybe mascara if I’m going out. I’m mostly a jeans girl but love to dress up for special occasions. There’s just something about “feeling pretty” once in a while that is quite a turn on.
My favourites when I was a kid were… you know you would be pretty if:
you would stand up straight, I didn’t pay for all those years of dancing lessons for nothing.
you would hold your shoulders back, chest out (funny they never realized I didn’t have a chest ;))
you would pull your hair back from your face.
you would get rid of the jeans and show off your legs once in a while.
I stand up straight, hold my shoulders back, forget about the chest. Now that I’ve grown my hair long again, I wear it up, down, a lot of different ways. Funny how one’s perception of what makes you pretty is never really what you think.
Lord. This is the story of my life. I file it under in the Well-Meaning-Mothers-Who-Want-Their-Daughters-To-Be-As-Beautiful-As-They-Can box. And I will tell you what my mother told me when I informed her that I didn’t WANT to do what other girls did–or look like them. She said that the only reason she said things like, “You’d be so much prettier if you’d trim your bangs/lose that weight/wear some rouge(yeah, rouge)/pluck your eyebrows/stop wearing your dad’s sweaters/etc” was because she knew that I was sensitive about being perceived as attractive and that my personal choices/tastes sometimes clashed with traditional definitions of beauty. Didn’t mean I wasn’t a pretty girl–just that if I was thinking that I wasn’t…well, there was something I could do about it. She meant it to be a loving, motherly way of telling me that I wasn’t as ugly as I thought I was.
It did not work. It made me feel worse. I understood her harmless motive. But I still felt that something about me was inherantly ugly. It was when I decided that I liked myself and began to feel comfortable with myself that I realized THAT was what made me beautiful.
Interestingly, just last night my daughter asked me what I thought made a girl pretty. What would make her pretty. I said…be yourself. NEVER be what you think other people want you to be. You won’t be very good at it and it’ll show. You be yourself…nobody knows how to do it better than you. When you feel the best about being you, you are the prettiest inside and out.
Now, we’ll wait five or six years and see if she’ll feel that way in high school…
“And Eve, if I thought I could look like you do, I’d get up three hours early every day and do my hair and makeup! You look great!”
Thanks, dear—but if you mean my photo in the People Pages, it’s called “lighting” and “air-brushing.” In order to really look like that, I’d have to hold a piece of gauze in front of my face where ever I go, like Cybill Shepherd in “Moonlighting.”
I’ve been realizing lately, mostly from watching my friend with her two daughters, that my mom was never one of these types. Oh, sure, she would take me to get a perm so I would look “cute.” But she never really fostered my sense of self-image, inner beauty, etc.
The thing that pointed this up for me recently was as I was growing out my hair after 10+ years of having a buzz cut. Now I have two major cowlicks at either edge of my forehead, so the bangs she was always having cut on me never really worked well (hence the perms). So I decided that now I would try growing everything out – no bangs – reasoning that the cowlicks might work well with the long hair. (Think Lisa Kudrow.) So I mention this to my mother, and she says, “Oh, no, you need to have bangs because you have such a high forehead.”
Now it’s true that my forehead rises pretty much straight up until it reaches my hairline, so my profile is pretty flat. But SO FUCKING WHAT??!! Thanks, Mom, for pointing out what YOU think is a flaw instead of appreciating what makes me unique and/or attractive. No wonder I still have trouble believing my husband when he says I look good.
Wish I’d had a mother like my friend. She tells her daughters they’re beautiful all the time.
Oh yeah, I got this all the time from a so-called best friend. I’d look great if I’d just get in shape. Maybe with a new hairstyle, I’d have a new lease on life. I’d seem much more 'feminine" if I didn’t tell racy jokes. Crap like that.
While I’ve never been much on hairstyling and cosmetics, I used to make a real effort to get my bangs just the right degree of fluffiness and framing of my face, which necessitated blowdrying, styling products, curling iron, etc. Then I realized that this was adding too much time to my morning, putting me in too many bad moods when it didn’t work right, and making me freak out about humidity and rain (which undid my efforts). So I stopped, grew out my bangs, and just have wash-n-go hair. I know I would look better with a “style.” I could probably look fabulous if I wanted to do the hot-roller thing. But you know, my time is just too precious. I’m willing to settle for being a little blah. It helps that I’m in a business where my appearance doesn’t matter. I don’t look down on anyone who does find the time trade-off worth it–it’s just not me.
And anyone who isn’t willing to accept THAT can kiss my flabby tuckus.
I have nothing against getting “dolled-up” for a special occasion - dinner at an expensive restaurant, awards ceremonies, openning night at the opera, etc. It’s fun to do once in a while. I just can’t bear to go to all that trouble on a daily basis, and I don’t think it ends up making me look better, just different, flashier. For five years in the theater (before I switched to directing), I had to spend a lot of time in make-up and messing with my hair. It trashed my face and made me reluctant to ever wear it if I didn’t have to. For me, I would no more wear make-up to work/the gym/Home Depot than I would wear a slinky satin dress. But I certainly have no problem with other people doing so.
On a side note, I have three nieces, 18 to 22, who regard make-up and hair in the same way I do. One is a poly-sci major with very liberal/feminist politics who regularly wins beauty contests to get scholarships, one is a professional model, and the youngest is a pro dancer who also is just won her first beauty award. They think the whole lookism thing is hilarious and easily manipulated for their personal gain. I love those girls! I’m such a proud aunt.
Just wanted to toss in, I have never had a guy say to me, “You know, you’d look a lot better if…”
(Of course, if you saw my picture, you might wish they had.) This comes from a guy whose idea of a hair dryer is walking into the wind after showering. And, yes, fortunately Mrs. D. dresses me in garanimals.
I was a seriously abnormal teen - never learned to put on makeup, and never really cared. I went thru various stages of curled/straight/permed/colored hair. I find I’m the happiest when I’m low maintenance: run a comb thru my hair after the shower, rub a little moisturizer on my face, and MAYBE use a touch of lipstick if I have something important on my agenda. My job permits jeans and T’s or casual blouses. I own a couple of dresses for funerals or the rare dressy occasions that enter my life. And apart from my mother getting on my case about my hair and my weight, no one has ever said anything about how I look. Maybe my self-satisfied vibes throw folks off.
Here I am, world - take it or leave it.
<stepping down from soapbox and assuming doze posture>
I once wanted to make a line of Garanimals for adult men, with the animals printed or embroidered on the tags or somewhere inside the clothes. I’d make them really manly animals, so that Dinsdale could leave the house thinking “grrrrrrrrr I’m a big manly tiger today.”
They should make adult underoos, too. Then Dinsdale could say “I’m a tiger. And I’m Batman.”
I got lucky with my husband. He is very vain about his appearance and usually takes twice as long as I do to get ready to leave the house. He’s also a major clothes horse, owning about twice what I do. He finds it amusing that a large number of men think he must be gay (yuh know, one o’them homosekshuls) just because he doesn’t go out looking like an unmade bed. This has gotten much more prevalent since moving from Souther California to Iowa.
Magadalene - if you start up that line of Grranimals, make some for me too. I always try to buy my work clothes so I can grab a skirt, top, and jacket pretty much at random and not be too embarrassed after that second cup of coffee when I see how I left the house.
(hee hee)
No, but seriously, why get angry about someone else’s advice? If you are comfortable with how you look, then who gives a damn what your coworkers have to say? They ain’t worth the energy.
Love the Garanimals idea! Hubby is colorblind so it would really help!
I look great in make-up, I just don’t have the time. Before the baby was born, I might take a few minutes for the basics, but now? Let’s just say that the general public should be thanking the God of it’s understanding that I have a home office. At fist, if I could get my hair combed, teeth brushed and face washed by noon, I was way ahead. It’s a little better now, but not much.
Fuck those rude people who think they can fix you (or that you need fixing!). And find a great way to verbally burn them without them immediately realizing that they’ve been insulted.
I’m mostly just a ‘lurker’, reading your posts when I have nothing to do at work but just this once, I’d like to add something…
My mother was a very popular cheerleader-type back in the 50’s and could never understand her oddball daughter. When I was a teen-ager I would try to live up to her expectations with hair styles and makeup she suggested, usually phrased as “you’d look so much better if you would only…” Then, after much effort on my part, all she’d say was my hair looked like it had been done by MixMaster and my eyes looked like two piss holes in the snow. Not very good for the old self-esteem.
So, back in my 30’s, I decided that I was never going to please her no matter now much unsolicited and presumably well-meaning advise she gave me and I just quite trying at all. I look like me. She can’t stand the fact that I can be happy with myself just as I am without ‘gilding the lily’ but, I figure, that’s her problem!! I think I look pretty good and my fiancé thinks I’m gorgeous!!
As an added bonus, most of my acne cleared up when I gave up makeup. Not too bad a trade-off!!!
Sometimes I get the same feeling from people like this that I do from religious proselytizers - they’ve got so much invested in their way of life that they feel threatened by anybody who doesn’t aspire to the same goals.
Might be pretty crushing for someone who spends hours a day working on their personal appearance to realize that you can live happily without all that obsession.
Ever see one of these when they have not had time to do their makeup? Our department secretary came in one day with big sunglasses on would not take them off for anything. She had not had time to conplete her makeup at home so she went to the bathroom and completed it, making sure there were no witnesses.
I can’t believe that the world would come to an end if she skipped makeup for one day. I bet she thinks it would.
I have been up close and personal (i.e. - sitting next to in a restaurant) to Uma Thurman sans make-up. I’m sorry to say she was one of the more frightening sights I’ve seen in Barney’s Beanery. Nicholas Cage was with her (this was a few years ago when they were dating) and he was someone I’d hate to wake up next to after a one-night stand as well. They both looked pale, unwashed, and unhealthy; like heroin addicts recently crawled out of the basement. I guess some people really do need make-up and that extra 10 lbs the camera adds to look good.
You gals would love my job. It’s actually in the dress code that hair and make-up must be impeccable (it even mentions how fingernails should look). Luckily I know how to apply it good and fast so that I can get some sleep. It takes me longer to shower than it does to do my hair and make-up.
MaryAnn,
It’s interesting- do they have the same dress code for male stylists? They can’t force you to wear makeup or do your hair in a certain way unless they require BOTH genders to do it. If they wrote it into their dress code, I think they’re opening themselves up for a lawsuit. Everyone here seems to be of the lifestyle that they keep themselves neat and clean, just not made up and curled.
They can require proper hygiene, etc but they can’t possibly require you to wear makeup. (IMHO)
Zette
I went through this at a place I worked that tried to tell me I “had” to wear a skirt. I refused, and they found out they couldn’t enforce the code unless they required male employees to do the same.