Concealment

I had two revelations in Buenos Aires last year. One concerned knickers, the other make-up.
Despite my mature years I am, as I've remarked before, a cosmetics novice.
In my teens, once I could escape my mother's oversight, I plastered on foundation, white lipstick, and all manner of eye make-up, including blue shadow, thick black liner and false lashes. Yes, I'm sure I looked awful. But it didn't matter much because in my early 20s I dispensed with the whole make-yourself-pretty-for-the-boys routine when I discovered feminism. Or it discovered me.
For the next couple of decades I wore no make-up at all. Not a skerrick. Until a doomed love affair made me reach in desperation for Shiseido tinted lip gloss and Dove SP15 tinted moisturiser. I felt glam with a subtle shine on my lips, and liked the way the moisturiser took the shine off my nose without caking me in gunk, while also protecting me from the worst of the sun.
A few years more and I had graduated - or been lured, if you like - into real lipstick. Just once - when I had to do an onstage gig under strong lights - I bought and applied some Revlon foundation. Otherwise I stuck to the Dove, which I still buy in the supermarket. 
Then in the last two years tango has enticed me once more into eye make-up, though thankfully to nothing like the extent that I slapped it on in my youth - mascara and, from time to time for special occasions, subtle liner and real grown-up foundation. If I suffered the odd zit I would dob on a spot of extra foundation and hope for the best.
Until S demonstrated, as we getting ready to go out to a milonga one evening, the wondrous powers of concealer.
So the other day I bought some in the Kirk's sale - Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Ultra Lift and Firm Concealer, reduced from around $45 to $29. (The EA website claims it was "Voted Best Undereye Concealer in Parents Magazine's first-ever 'Mom Knows Best Beauty Awards'!". I'm glad I didn't know that before it reached my bathroom shelf or it probably wouldn't have got that far.)
I'm almost sure that the sweet-faced young woman who used my own face as the stuff's selling point had perfect dewy skin. Sadly she'd smothered it under layers of pancake. Why do young women so often do this? Because, like me when I was that age, they don't feel good enough as they are. It's sad. And it's also a horrible commercial conspiracy, and not for a second do I regret the years I did without it, and faced the world naked.
Anyway, she sat me on the stool, made a few dabs under my eyes, worked at them conscientiously with a nifty little soft-bristled brush and handed me a mirror.
My wow alarmed her - for a moment she thought I didn't like what I saw. I  was so smooth, so blemish-free. I handed over my EFTPOS card.
I will  never apply the stuff as liberally as she did. Admirable though the effect was, it was an effect only, it wasn't me. They might not be de rigeur but I like my age-related freckles. And I don't want to get to the stage where I can't go out of the house without concealing them. I can't say I've been aware of the product's vaunted "ultra lift" properties, but I'll keep an eye out.
I wanted to conclude this blog with a close-up of skin bearing too great a load of make-up. There are plenty of images on the internet of people we're meant to have heard of caught wearing no make-up, but I failed to find even one example of what I was looking for. Significant? I think so.
You wanted me to wrap up with the knicker revelation, though, didn't you. Sorry. Another time.

Spare my blushes

Today I bought my first blusher. My first ever. In my whole life. I suppose you might have one of two reactions to this announcement: 1) just exactly what sort of a feminist/flibbertigibbet/airhead (etc) are you?; 2) what took you so long, and what on earth have you looked like up to now?
And I suppose that having raised the questions I should answer them. Though the mindset of 70s feminism still causes pangs of sheepishness, I can only say that these days I'm the sort of feminist who wears blusher. And the sort of flibbertigibbet and airhead who ... I don't know, reads book with big words and goes to movies with subtitles. Will that do?
As to the second question, one answer will cover both parts. I never felt I needed colouring in before. The bloom of youth might have faded a while back but I had enough pink in my cheeks to pass muster. Just lately though - especially since summer came and went so disappointingly - it's been a very pallid reflection staring back from the mirror. And with Buenos Aires looming, I thought I should Do Something.
A sweet young thing in a pharmacy took pity on me. Two flicks of her little brush and I looked ... well, glowingly healthy. So she sold me a nice pot and brush, and now all I have to do is learn how to apply it myself.



Make-up Tammy Faye Bakker-style.



Predictable, really

The bargain-priced, smudge-proof L'Oreal mascara I reported on so eagerly yesterday proved to be neither a bargain nor smudge-proof. I got home from the tango ball at 12.30 this morning looking like this, only not so cute and furry. The question is, how long had I been looking like that on the dancefloor?

X Wear

Does there exist a woman over the age of 25 who doesn't understand X wear? This was Princess Di's choice - the stunning LBD she wore for her first public appearance after she and Whatisname anounced their separation. It's the look-what-the-idiot-is-missing look.

My own Waterloo was rather less public - no paparazzi showed up - but the personal stakes were just as high. The event was the launch of a book by a dear friend, and the X would almost certainly be in attendance. Throughout the day I toyed with the idea of not going, but always knew that in the end I would, I had to.

The X look requires exquisite calibration. You must balance your interpretation of the occasion's sartorial demands with the need to appear at your delicious best. To overdress would be tragic and invite only sympathy. To make no effort at all would invite even more, possibly even from the X himself, which would be intolerable.

I washed and blow-dryed my hair to its shiny but casual best. I applied eye-liner and mascara (adornments usually reserved for tango), and, because I'm still a bit peaky from the flu and lack the know-how to buy or apply blusher, I rubbed a smidgin of lipstick into my cheeks to good effect.

I put on my black Icebreaker merino tunic. No, it doesn't bear comparison with Di's LBD, but this was an early evening event in an antipodean bookshop, remember, and my version still exudes a certain understated panache. Besides which I'm old enough to know I don't look my best when I'm perishing cold. With it, I wore red, gray and black tartan tights, and the gorgeous red ankle boots that E passed on to me, with their killer heels and fuck-you pointy toes. And finally, my faintly rock-chick jacket in what the man in Melbourne's Victoria Market referred to as finest Italian vinyl and others call pleather.

Dressed not to kill, exactly, but to survive with honour. Which I did. Don't tell me appearances don't matter.