TMMI*

*Too Much Makeup Information

My search for a simple, natural-looking makeup regimen had to be put on hold for a bit while I was sick. I wanted to make sure that I was completely better first, because I look fairly awful when I'm sick, so buying makeup to match my I-just-threw-up-from-the-flu skin tone seemed counterproductive. Once my skin had resumed its healthy glow, I was off to Sephora for a consultation.

By the way, "healthy glow" is a bit of a relative term with me. I've never actually known what my skin color was, professionally speaking. Apparently light skin, fair skin, ivory skin, and pale skin are all different things (!) and I had no idea which of those applied to me. The term that I usually used to describe my skin was "night-of-the-living-dead pale," but they don't sell makeup in that color. I don't know much about marketing, but I do know that "Fair" will sell better than "Zombie." I used to wear a little blush just to avoid looking like I was on death's door.

My skin has gotten a bit better in recent years, but in my early twenties, if I needed to leave work early, I would just skip the blush; my coworkers would express concern about my health all day before suggesting that perhaps I should go home and rest. Definitely unflattering, probably unethical, but undeniably useful. But I digress. The experts at Sephora tell me that my skin is "light, with slight pink undertones." I think that they imagined up the slight pink undertone bit just to make me feel better, but whatever. I have very light skin.

My goal was to put together a makeup regimen that was easy to do, looked very natural and understated, but left me looking slightly less exhausted than I actually am. Undereye circles look fairly dramatic when you have the coloring of a ghost. Also, I need something with an SPF. As you can probably predict, given the light skin, there's a lot of skin cancer in my family, so I really truly need to be wearing sunscreen every single day. (When S and I got married, he told me that he was doing me a favor by marrying me, because he was strengthening my gene pool by adding some much-needed melanin.) In fact, my daily use of an SPF moisturizer was a lot of why I hated makeup -- I could do a decent job of applying makeup to go out at night, but in the morning, once I'd put on moisturizer, I could never get the makeup to look right. The nice folks at Sephora demonstrated for me that my problems were because I was using a cheap-ass moisturizer. I kind of always assumed that it didn't matter, but you know what? It does. I bought expensive moisturizer, and I've day-by-day compared it to my old stuff. The new stuff disappears into my skin in a way that the old stuff never did. Which is good, lesson learned, but now I need to buy expensive moisturizer for the rest of my life.

Anyway, here is my new morning face routine:

1. Moisturizer with SPF. Because cancer is bad.
2. Concealer under my eyes. To make me look like I'm well-rested, without the trouble of actually getting more sleep.
3. Very very light mineral powder foundation. Because I have almost no confidence in my ability to do a good job with the concealer, so an overcoat of powder evens things out.
4. Blush. So that people will quit asking me if I'm feeling okay. I use very very little, just enough to stop the comparisons to Casper the Ghost.
5. Mascara. To further disguise the under-eye circles. I didn't really understand how this worked, even though the woman at Sephora droned on a bit about mascara making my eyes look wider, which minimizes the appearance of the circles. Finally she just put mascara on one eye but not the other, and then handed me a mirror. The difference was dramatic. One of my eyes looked awake!
6. Lipstick. In a color that more or less matches the natural color of my lips. I'm not entirely sure what this does for me, and I predict it will be the first thing that I drop from the regimen, in favor of chapstick.

All that time spent with experts at Sephora, and I ended up with the exact regimen that K recommended in comments. Thanks to all of you people that recommended the trip to Sephora so that stuff actually matches my face! Oh, and the reason that I ignored all the suggestions to combine steps and use a tinted moisturizer: I don't trust myself to put it on evenly. It seems too advanced for me. Maybe I'm totally deluding myself, but the powder seems more forgiving. Maybe once I've built up some skills, I'll give it a try.

Total purchases: moisturizer, concealer, powder, blush, lipstick, and two brushes (for the powder and blush). I didn't buy mascara because I didn't like the one that Sephora recommended and I didn't have time to stay and try a different one. I'm currently using a little sample one that I hate, so I should really buy something else to try. The current stuff flakes easily and bothers my contacts. Recommendations? Since I was starting from scratch and had to buy everything all at once, I spent way too much money, but I justified it because (a) this stuff should all last me a while; and (b) my total makeup expenses for the last ten years has been somewhere around $20, so I think that I'm due. Also, ten-year-old makeup is kind of a health hazard.

Last question: cleanser? I laughed hard when Sunny commented about her clueless friend who used Dove body wash to wash her face. Because, um, I have Dove body wash. But it's cucumber scented, and I've seen women in movies getting facials that involve cucumber slices, so surely I'm doing okay?!? I found an old, old bottle of Oil of Olay facial cleanser under my sink, so I've been using that, but it's probably way past its expiration date, so... suggestions?

S has always been anti-makeup. He very much prefers the natural look, and tends to make fun of me when I put on makeup, even if it's for a formal occasion. So he was a bit anxious when I told him that I was going to start a daily makeup regimen. He admits, though, that the above regimen isn't too bad. He claims that it doesn't look "natural" only because the powder makes my skin tone look too even, like it's been airbrushed, and nobody has skin that perfect. Which I guess is a compliment? He can't tell that I'm wearing blush or mascara or lipstick, so that's good. He stumbled over his words for a bit ("It's nice! It makes you look older. Not old, just older. Not in a bad way. Maybe more mature? But not like you're old. Just... like you're not a teenager anymore. Which is a good thing. Right?") before finally just saying that now when we're together, everyone will assume that I'm getting tons of sleep while he does all the work, because why else would HE still have dark circles under his eyes but I don't?

I've timed myself a few times, and the whole thing takes six minutes to apply. I'll probably get faster at it with more practice, but even six minutes isn't too bad. I can spare six minutes each day. It's definitely less time than achieving the same result by actually being well-rested, which would take several hours out of my day.