SingleLife Tips @singlelifetips-blog - Tumblr Blog

comedyhaze

This school year

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sometimes texts between single girlfriends looks like this.

hollywoodassistants

WHEN I PRETEND TO HAVE A GOOD TIME EVEN THOUGH I’M MISERABLE

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me at all the functions, solo.

tastefullyoffensive

and i got that red lip classic thing that you like

here’s a thing girls do.

and yes, i’m generalizing that all girls do this because of my one very tiny and informal poll of my girlfriends that confirmed that they all do this, so clearly that’s what is happening.

we think about things. we obsess about them. and then we never explore them. it sounds ridiculous to expend so much mental energy on something, only to never try it out, but it’s a thing that happens.

for me, that thinking and planning and obsessing happens around one thing: makeup.

I’m a bare-bones makeup kinda gal. I have worn the same moisturizer, foundation and blush/bronzer for ten years. I have five eyeshadow palettes in various nude colors. i do smokey eyes sometimes. occasionally i’ll wear a shimmer or shine, but nothing too crazy. i have a favorite mascara, and have recently added another favorite into the fold. i wear cream eyeliner, black only. i don’t usually participate in trends, but strobing works for me since I’m on the paler end of things.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that I have a makeup routine which is to make myself look like I’m not wearing that much makeup...by not wearing that much makeup. and it works. I feel like I look classic, polished, put together and never overdone.

Now, all of that being said, I find myself obsessed with makeup. browsing in sephora or ulta gives me immense pleasure, even though I walk out with the same products I always do.

I follow several makeup artists on instagram. lots of beauty bloggers on youtube. I watch hours of tutorials on how to scuplt perfect brows, perfect date-night looks, perfect transformation looks, and finally how to achieve that PERFECT RED LIP.

I have never worn lipstick. Not regularly, anyway. I’m a chapstick kinda gal. and my lips have always had a natural, nude flush that has worked for me. whenever I used to see a picture of myself in lipstick for an event...say...a wedding...I would cringe. I’m also a compulsive lip-biter. I don’t bite them till they bleed, but enough that any sort of lipstick would end up on my teeth or in my digestive system.

Then I entered my 30s.

That natural, nude flush on my lips? Gone and replaced by sad, pale lips.

I relied on chapsticks with a tint to help me out, and so far, it had been working. But I still found myself gravitating towards red lipstick photos and ads and tutorials.

Elsewhere in my life, I was unemployed. By choice, I quit my crazy agency job and spent a year and a half traveling, volunteering and finding myself. My own gap year, complete with road trips and a jaunt to Europe. But finding a job is hard. And here I was, slogging through it, just trying to get something. 300+ applications later, I was starting to get callbacks, but still hadn’t found anything. I felt like I was sinking, and the prospect of moving back in with family wasn’t inspiring me to positive thinking.

One thursday, deep in applications, I needed to get out of my apartment. I walked over to CVS and bought a matte red lipstick, and a coordinating lip liner.

I did it.

It was important to me to get a matte lipstick. I knew from past applications that anything glossy was going to make me more likely to play with it/touch it/worry about it.

I came home and immediately prepped my lips. I knew from tutorials this was essential. I used a sugar scrub, light chapstick and went to work.

I used the lip liner over the entirety of my lips, and covered with the red lipstick.

I felt....transformed. Partially because it’s hard not to feel a sense of accomplishment when you do something you’ve been thinking about for a while. Partly because makeup had never really felt like fun. And it was really the first time in my life that makeup gave me that. I even felt a little powerful.

but how would I feel out in the real world? my apartment was safe, but the streets of nyc? surely I would look like an imposter - a non chic person trying too hard.

the next day I gave myself the works. I spent time blow-drying my hair. I picked an outfit I really liked. I applied the red lipstick. and then I went out in the world.

Look, I know this transformation was entirely mental, but it was crazy what wearing red lipstick did for me. I made more eye contact. I smiled more. I held the gaze of men (and women) who were looking at me instead of looking away. I’m a friendly person, but am usually guarded. Wearing the red lipstick changed that up for me.

I’m not entirely sure wearing red lipstick is a daily thing for me. But if I need that extra surge of confidence? You bet I’m putting it on.