For Women: Makeup and Fur-Ripping

How about the self tanners - anyone use those? I love them - a good way for me to get tan without the bad health effects. I usually use the moisturers ones - the ones that are more subtle.

I also went to a tanning place end of last year and got one of those spray tans for a Florida trip. That works well too - but much more expensive.

yeah, Lady Diane does my feet that way every sunday night.

I am not what I would consider a girly girl. More of a wash n go kinda gal..

Sunscreen foundation, a little black eyeliner, natural brown color eyeshadow, a tiny hint of blush and clear lip gloss.

Hair is washed daily, conditioned about twice a week. Spray a bit of gel in just as hair begins to air dry, curl with a curling brush while blow drying. A bit of hair spray to hold and I'm showered and out of the house in less than a half hour. That's if my clothes aren't covered in cat hair.

Shave legs and pits once a week (maybe). Use hair conditioner as a shaving cream.

Had a pedicure for the first time a few months ago. Was heaven!

Ya know, I consider myself a "natural" kinda woman... and yet, I'm frequently amazed at how much time I actually spend on grooming.

I'm not trying to look beautiful, just socially acceptable.

Is it just the U.S. that requires this routine? Here, we must be Squeaky Clean, for one thing, makeup or no.

We must be almost hairless... except for our heads, oh wait, except for our (MY) mustaches, beards, eyebrows, ear fur, and facial hair, they hafta be Kept In Line...

Then there are the gray head-hairs that must (at 47, anyway) be covered up. And this is before we even touch a makeup brush to our faces, should we choose to do so.

Don't even get me started with the pet hair! Cripes, with 3 cats and 3 dogs in the house, I've come to just accept that my butt will be Fully Furred at all times. My advice is: If you don't want to see Fur, do NOT look at my butt!

Hubby and I have invented the term "Drive-By Furring," where your cat rubs on your legs just before you go to work.

This is much more likely to happen if your cat has a fur-color which contrasts with your outfit. Wearing black today? Your white cat will perform a drive-by furring... etc.

I've never felt girly or primpy, but still, if I added up all the hours I've spent making myself "acceptable" over the years, I suspect I'd <thunk> right on the floor.

Never tried these. In Florida, if you're pale, everyone knows you're a native.

Anyone else?

Any suggestions for bribes, to make this happen?

Linkat, please tell me this is just an exaggeration, and not the truth!

If it's really true, are you looking for a different job? (Did I miss your work thread here?)

Yes I have, and I like Dove the most.

Agreed! I don't like my "salt-and-pepper" look at all.

My mother quit dyeing her hair right after she had a facelift, in her early 70's. By that time she had a nice, even, bright gray going. Shortly thereafter, she got herself a crew-cut, and damned if she didn't look great!

Still, ma looks great no matter what she does. She has an extraordinary fashion sense, which unfortunately I don't think I inherited.

To scared to try really. Every pic I've seen of people with those self tanners look orange. >.< ew!

Saving up!

I figure I simply must have one pedicure in my entire life.

My 18-year-old co-worker stopped by work today, just to show me her matching manicure/pedicure.

Dang, it was so freakin' cute! She had full orange-glo toenails with a matching manicure, with the orange-glo just on the tips. I loved it!

Still, at my age, do I want to expose my feet at all? Esp. at work?

What grey hair?..I don't have grey hair!!

Umm, my hair is sun lighted..yeah that's it!

I think so too!

Here's where we might learn together: Ladies, are there better self-tanners out there these days? Ones that don't look orange?

Brand names, pleez.

(Not that I'll actually use them, but hey, you never know when you'll have a Tanning Emergency!)

I wrote some long time ago on a2k about when my parents and I, at the later stages of thirteen, moved to Los Angeles from Chicago, and we lived at my aunt's (another story) until we bought a house a couple of years later. Sometime not long after we moved. I got a letter (a letter!) from my apartment friend in New York, as she and her parents would be coming to LA for a vacation. Anyway, we met up (I think we took them to the Brown Derby), and I couldn't believe my eyes, she was - good looking girl that I knew from third grade - totally caked with makeup, at thirteen. That's the 'seat' of my eastern girls thing.

I can see makeup for, say, eyebrow loss. Some cover up needs, especially if you've had a face transplant. On occasion, a bit of glow. Certainly for on stage/movies. The rest of it - as a girl brought up with Glamour and Mademoiselle, rarely without eyeliner for years, I am just realizing I see it all as a trillion dollar industry of perceived need.

I see the fun, the continuing girliness, the sexiness at times. But... I just don't understand all the work. Lots of posters here saying they're putting little time into it, when I'd need a nap after all the effort described.

I suppose I'm a beach girl after all.

In the meantime, perhaps on Huffington Post, or maybe somewhere else, I think in the last week or so, there was an article about showing models in magazines without digital touch up.. apparently a brave scenario.

So many issues, Osso, in so few words (as usual)!

Makeup certainly IS a huge money-making industry, but so are other, similar industries, at least in our country.

I just got a magazine the other day (a free subscription, was it "Women's Health?") that headlined "Firm up your Butt, Thighs, and Hips in 30 Days!"

Of course I looked down and thought, "Well, heck, what ever is WRONG with my butt/thighs/hips?" Answer: Nothing. Nothing at all.

I'm a bit underweight for my height, in perfectly good shape for my age, yet I had a (brief) moment of thinking: "Oh NO I have to firm up, I'm not Perfect!" and then a longer moment (OK, days) of thinking, "Cripes! My body is perfectly fine, just as it is!"

Thank goodness I've not had TV of any sort for the past 10 years. Who knows what that might have done to my self-image?

We are taught, in my opinion, esp. in the US, that we are not nearly good enough as we are.

Now that I'm over 40 I can happily reply, "Oh, screw that! I'm a good, honest, healthy, law-abiding person who cares about my fellow human beings, and that's good enough for me!"

I've only come to enjoy makeup, as the TOY it is, after realizing that I do NOT, in fact, have to wear it to be accepted as a decent human being.

Those 10-12 years without any makeup taught me that makeup is a huge toy, that it can be just plain fun, a bonus, NOT a requirement.

I had one of those "Aha!" moments some 20 years ago, when I was chatting with a (corporate) co-worker, and she said, "You know, if you don't wear makeup to your interview, and you still get hired, you never have to wear it again." (And she didn't, ever!)

At the time, however, I DID wear makeup to my interview. On my next many jobs, however, I did NOT wear it, and I still got hired! Gads, I thought, people are actually able to perceive Ability, regardless of Looks! What a revelation. Sort of pathetic, in a way, isn't it?

In my real life, makeup has not mattered.

But.. I get it as toy, delight, play.

Mine, either!
When I wore makeup to job interviews and still got hired, as far as I could tell, my hiring had nothing to do with my makeup.
All of the interview questions were kinda hard, like "Why do you want to work here?", or "Describe your most difficult work challenge to date."
Nobody, I could tell, cared whether I was wearing makeup at the moment.
In fact, I can't think of a single instance in my 47 yrs when makeup made things easier for me.
Even the very first time I met my husband, on a sorta "blind date," it was what I said (and joked about) NOT how I looked, that really mattered to him. I could have looked Perfect, I'm tellin' ya, yet if I'd missed a verbal lick, so to speak, I would have been rejected in his eyes.
Maybe this freed me to see makeup as a Toy, not a Requirement?
Sure, this whole topic sounds kinda trivial, but I have to disagree.
As a woman in the US (in our era, at any rate) Youth and Beauty are supposedly highly valued and much favored.
By the same token, it was always my smarts that got me anywhere.
My looks got me nothing... and years ago, I was, in fact, a pretty thing.
Did it do me any good? N.O.! To heck with the "firm butt and thighs," I did much better, being able to beat a guy at a game of chess.
Just my experience? Tell me your experiences!

Osso, I must beg your wise advice yet again.

I plan to sing with my husband on stage, and seem to recall you mentioning singing on stage, yourself.
Cripes, I haven't yet figured out how to redirect you to my "Singing on Stage" thread, so for the moment I'll just address it here: It seems to me that stage makeup must be WAY more dramatic than work makeup (and these are the only times I'd bother to put on makeup at all, minor for work and major for stage).

Here's where my inability to apply freakin' eyeliner becomes a real liability, on stage (which I haven't done yet, but I'm working up to it).

Advice? Tips? Red lipstick, even though my eyes are my "best feature?"

What the hell do I wear? Sparkly (thrift store) evening gown, short skirt (whole new experience, for me) or blue jeans?

My usual "look" is all-linen, 'cause after all, I'm in Florida. Comfort comes first, at work: socks with dresses; after all, it's a public library, you know?

Oh, I follow that thread, or at least did for a bit. I've never sung on stage (hah, in the choir 'molti anni fa' ( a million years ago). May the heavens forgive, as I can't carry a tune and sang funeral masses. Those poor families in the church below!
I was in commercials for Hallmark and Toni as a kid, an example of nepotism as I look back with my adult eyes. Have 8 x 10's of me undergoing 'makeup', smiling.

I was also long married to a playwright and slightly involved in set design. I met him when my gallery partner and I tried to rent out some of our 3500 square foot space and chose this ##@% theater group... over all the other flakes.

I'm not so wise, just loud.

You're talking with ms. wrinkled linen. I have an iron, it's in the garage, just in case.

On the stage makeup, I'm no expert. I'd have a friend or husband take photos, perhaps in rehearsal, from the audience area, and thus document what the audience sees.

I bet Mac11 could offer advice, as she's been very involved with theater, but she's on a well earned trip to Italy right this minute, for a couple of weeks. Also, our songstress, Letty, may have some opinions.. And finally, gads, Bipolar Bear could be a font of wisdom.

I should add ehBeth, I bet she has opinions.