Jane Green
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Posts Tagged ‘make up’



How Much Contour Does One Actually Need?

January 30th, 2018

Part of my adjusting to my new hair color has involved me changing my make-up, which I am realizing is far easier said than done.

I once knew a woman who continued wearing her brunette hair down to her waist, with heavy dark eyes and pale lips, into her seventies. It looked absolutely terrible, but no one had the heart to tell her how dated she looked.

I realize I have essentially been doing my make-up (and my hair) in exactly the same way for years. I will happily adjust my hair color, and I am worried that I am reaching the age where I am beginning to consider going short. Not short short, but shorter. Perhaps a style rather than boring old long hair.  I’m reaching an age where a fringe seems like an awfully good idea. Far less expensive than Botox, and surely just as effective?

My eyebrows were plucked into submission some years ago, and of course have never grown back in quite the same way. I now spend hours with an eyebrow pencil every day. Some days, they look magnificent. On others, I look like Liz Taylor on overdrive, and this is not a good look.

I regularly find myself poring over pictures of the Kardashians, wondering how their eyebrows look like that, and after I dyed my hair back to dark, when everyone told me I needed darker make-up, I found a make-up tutorial on YouTube which promised me that I would look like Kylie Jenner.

Oh reader, this was fun. I spent an hour contouring (the contouring! So much contouring!), blending, dabbing, brushing. I put brown eyeshadow under my cheekbones (one must make do with what one has), and pale above, then blended furiously so I didn’t look like I had been rolling around in a muddy field.

I lightly sketched in my eyebrows so they were perfectly arched, with actual sides (that was the weird bit with the over-plucking – the sides were the only bits that never grew back at all). I added gold sparkly stuff to my eyelids, and drew my lips on with lip liner in a way that made them look bigger and poutier than ever before.

No longer was Cher staring back at me in the mirror. Nor, it has to be said, was a Kardashian. It was me, only much, much more glamorous. My cheekbones were so pronounced I was worried I might cut myself on them. My lips were positively pillow-y, and my eyes were dark and smouldering (helped somewhat by the magnetic lashes that I have now decided are genius).

If only I had the time to do this every day! I almost didn’t wash it all off because I’m quite sure my cheekbones may never look like this again, but I took the obligatory selfie, so I can always remember that I too can look Kardashianesque, with a few spare hours and an awful lot of make-up.

In the meantime, I shall be going back to the make-up I’ve always had, and the hair I’ve always done, and I will pray that it all stays on trend for just a while longer.

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