While the 'popular' girls discovered foundation I barely knew how to apply mascara. It was never an issue to me, I was always happy with the way I looked.
I guess I didn't care what I looked like, there was never any reason for me to look my best because there was never anybody I was interested in looking good for.
When the hormones kicked in age 13 and I also started dying my hair dark as I was going through a 'goth phase' which I didn't really grow out of, despite now having blonde hair and currently wearing a floral top. I started wearing heavy eyeliner and resenting being told to take it off. I was convinced there was a double standard; the orange girls were never told to take their layers of the wrong shade foundation off - probably because they would quit the sports teams if the sports staff had a go at them. I was probably right about the double standard but I was young and didn't know how to deal with it.
At college I changed to just mascara and lip gloss, I still didn't see the appeal in foundation, I'd never been taught how to choose the proper shade or how to put it on and I found women at cosmetic counters in department stores a little intimidating.
But one day sat in the back corner of our college library (as we always did) my good friend Beth told me to stop moaning about the state of the skin on my nose and smoothed some of her foundation over it. She then thought it made a good fit and applied a little along my jawline to check it was as good a match as it looks. She didn't know it then, but she had created a monster.
I lasted about 6 months only applying foundation to my nose - covering up the slight difference in colour by the skin being dragged by a bump in the middle - before progressing to applying it to my T-Zone to cover spots for a night out. Now, I wear foundation all over my face, everyday. I was taught to apply it by the girls at college and I've never looked back.
You always hear about girls calling other girls 'fake' because of their application of make-up in this way; and in some sense I agree with this because the skin tone you see on my face is not the skintone that I actually have. My eyes aren't as big as the eyeliner tricks your eyes into thinking they are and my lips are not that dark. My eyelashes are not as long as my quest for the best mascara is gradually making them look; but that is what you see when you look at me. And it isn't a case of what you see is what you get like a lot of people think it is, it is far from that. What you see is what I want you to see, and I don't see any problem with this.
I don't wear make-up to be more attractive to other people. Whether that is or isn't a side effect is up to you to decide and not me; but it isn't the reasoning behind why I do it. If anything, I wear make-up to make me more attractive to me. Sometimes I look in the mirror and can't believe how ugly I look. I hate my spots and my bumpy nose and the fact that one of my eyes is bigger than the other and it does restrict how I think about myself; no matter how much I try to convince myself that it doesn't. An application of foundation and mascara can make me confident enough in myself to face the day if my self-confidence is hit - even if it's only because I don't want to have wasted the effort.
So if I look in the mirror after applying full make-up following a few days slap free and feel like I look fake, it's probably a good sign and not me insulting myself. And I'm certainly not comparing myself to the girls in high school - it's not natural, but it's not orange.
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