Women of the South fascinate me. Always have. Their “je ne sais quoi” (pronounced with a southern drawl), their grace and their demeanour are all a part of some feminine mystique that I can’t be a part of, by virtue of geography, of course. But they fascinates me none the less.
Dolly Parton was on Ellen the other day when I was home from work, positioned on the couch in such a way that slightly relieved the pinched nerve in my pelvis but that also allowed for my chest to be unobstructed and able to fully inhale (this baby is sure maximizing her real estate). Dolly was telling Ellen how she never took off her makeup, but rather went to bed “with her face on”, hung her hair on a lamp post by her bed, and simply scrubbed her face in the morning before re-applying her visage. This was because, she explained, if she was hauled out of bed in the middle of the night for some emergency, like a fire, she didn’t want to be out in the streets without her makeup on. Oh, southern women.
I have always been lackadaisical about makeup, not paying much attention to it other than to apply the basics in the morning before work or school. In the summer, I rarely wear any because, being a bad skin care girl, I let my suntan be my makeup, colouring the apples of my cheeks and the skin beside my hairline just the way I like it: golden brown. A few years ago, I helped research a book for a NYC beauty expert and started paying a bit more attention to how makeup can be maximized without having to shovel it on like Mimi on Drew Carey. I know this concept is elementary but, like I said, I hadn’t paid makeup much attention.
I learned to pick out quality eyeshadows over nearly transparent drug store ones, which tools cut it and which were fillers, and the Bobbi Brown secret: that if you start off with a great foundation, the rest will take care of itself. When Sephora (god bless franchising) finally expanded into the Rideau Centre in Ottawa, I gleefully stocked up on the products I had only dreamed about, put it on credit so the husband would not know I’d spent hundreds of dollars on makeup, and got butterflies.
Bare Escentuals mineral foundation, Nars blush in Orgasm, the Kabuki brush, the Shu Uemura eyelash curler, they all were invited into my arsenal. A couple of Urban Decay eyeshadows and some Estee lauder ones too and I was set. Set for Ross River, anyway, where I now sport what I jokingly call my $70 face to the school every day to hang out with kids that wouldn’t care or notice whether I came to work made up or with lesions on my face. But that’s beside the point.
As I prepare to enter mommyhood, I am gearing up to not be the frumpy ladies on daytime TV talk shows who beg for makeovers after having lost themselves to sweatpants, ponytails and sneakers. I am a woman, maybe not one of the South (but in my dreams…) and I still believe in the importance of putting myself together every morning, playing up what a lovely face God gave me. If not for the aesthetics then for the psychological benefit of taking time for myself now and as I get set to be a mama (as the Southern girls would say).