Makeup, Makedown, Make It All Around

I've always had somewhat of a delicate relationship with makeup. I wasn't really that interested in makeup as a child because I considered myself a tomboy. When my sister and I played dress-up, usually the only makeup I was wearing was a mascara mustache. 

As I got older though, it became more and more apparent that I look like a pale dead zombie person without makeup on. I have pretty light colored eyelashes and not a lot of natural color in my face, especially under florescent lights. My mother used to hold me down and put blush on me before we went to church so it didn't look like she kept me in a dark attic room all the time. She did, but she didn't want people to know that.

Eventually I got into high school and I decided that I needed to start wearing makeup so boys would like me (spoiler alert: they don't care) so I starter painting my face of my own accord. One would think that, as an artist, I would be super pro at putting on warpaint, but alas. Turns out drawing on a paper and drawing on your own face are two very different skills. All the YouTube tutorials on the internet couldn't save me now.

I have the kind of face that isn't made for makeup. Firstly, I have combination skin, so finding makeup that doesn't either turn my face into the desert sands or turn it into a greasy mess is a challenge. Add to that the fact that, try as I might, I can't resist touching my face all the time, and you have a total disaster. Plus, somehow my facial features make it so there is a veeerrrrrry fine line between undead and The Joker. 

These days, I'm trying this grand social experiment where I wear gradually more and more makeup until I look so horrific, people actually think I look better without makeup. It started from no makeup:

"Oh, Jackie, you look so pretty today!" people would say. "Did you change your hair?"

It wasn't a noticeable change at first really, maybe a bit of mascara and some powder to put some life back in my face. But the comments were encouraging, so I tried to take it maybe a step further.

I have pretty beefy eyelashes, so I got a volumizing mascara, and people noticed! "Wow, look at your lashes! Do you have fake eyelashes on? How do you deal with that? Are those REAL?!"

I didn't usually point out that I can barely get past putting my hair in a ponytail in the morning, so why on earth would I bother gluing wads of Barbie hair to my face. People tend to overestimate how much time I spend on myself in the morning. I'm reeeally lazy.

Versus, without makeup, people would say things like "You look tired." or "Rough night?"

Nevertheless, the winged eyeliner trend came around and I learned that I could make my eyes look bigger with some black eyeliner and a wee bit of shadow. I've always  been self conscious about having beady eyes, even though my dad says I have Bambi eyes. He has to say that though, he's my dad. So, I stepped it up again.

"Wow, Jackie, you look cute today! I wish I could get my eyeliner to look like that. You're like a princess!"

Versus "You look sick" or, one of my personal favorites which a person actually said to me, "Are you okay? Because you look like you got punched in both eyes really hard."

"Wow, uh, you look fancy today! What's the occasion? Why are you all dressed up?"

Yeah, okay, at this point I'm trying too hard. It clearly took longer than usual to get ready and I'm pretending to be someone I'm not. 

Now, this is the part where things take a turn. In all my overcompensating, I start to cross a line. Of course, at this point it's semi-deliberate and also revenge for the black-eye comment. Here is where I jump the border between "lots of makeup" and "Snooki-face."

All of a sudden, No-Makeup Jackie doesn't look all that bad! Suddenly, I start hearing things like "You look so much better without makeup. You look so natural! You should try to go natural more often."

I haven't quite passed the Lady Gaga stage just yet, but I don't know if I'm ready to full-on commit to one of those air-brush contraptions or taking the time to actually bother to address the secret horror that is my eyebrows. Maybe there's a way to gradually work my way back down the makeup scale?

Either way, in the meantime maybe I'll try to stick with the old classic.