It's all about me and makeup.......

This post is about me and is more like a little personal history, I would like to think for my granddaughters:-)

When I was a little girl I loved make-up. Most of the women in my family would wear it, and I would watch them go from pretty to gorgeous. My Grandma also wore wigs, she had them on cool styrofoam heads and would sit and watch TV in the evenings and fix her “hair.” For my 8th birthday, I begged for a toy that had a girl head and hair. You could put make up on the face and fix the hair. But it was fake makeup and I couldn’t do anything with her straight doll hair except put it in a ponytail. I was bummed.

My mom was very strict as I was growing up. She knew she was, so she let up on the make up end of things. I was allowed to wear makeup when I was 12 years old. I had already been sneaking pastel eye shadow once in a while at school. When I was about 14 my Aunt Sherry got a hold of my eyebrows with some tweezers and opened my eyes to new possibilities:-) Everybody in my family wore perfume or cologne. We all fixed our hair and wore hair spray, even the men, that 70’s feathered look, took hairspray to hold. I loved make up and even though we didn’t have the internet or all the glamour magazines that are out there now, I read everything I could find about it. I talked my mom into letting me become an “Avon Lady” when I was around 14. So I could get makeup and pay for it. That didn’t work so great for me, but it left me with some awesome color samples. I would use 3 sometimes 4 colors on my eyes. My friends would ask me to do their make up, my mom would have me do hers. My dad would have me style his hair before he went to church or on a date with mom.

I now realize that like my Steven having his beard at 15, that was his signature. Well mine was make up. I don’t have any pictures of me as a teen to show you (because my husband threw them all away 20 years ago, that is a whole other story). But I was cute. I did my make up very tastefully and I felt very good about myself. In the early 80’s the colors got darker and more dramatic. I had navy blue, deep purple, rusts, and dark brown and I loved it.

Then I met Mike and married him. My mother would call me on a regular basis and remind me to keep fixing myself up and wear my make up. She would tell me, “too many women just let their selves go after they get married” I agreed. But on the other side of it. I married into a family that didn’t do most of that. They kept it on a more simple level, minimal make up and I don’t think anybody wore perfume or cologne. I would buy Mike cologne but he never wore it. I would be drawn to men who where wearing it. Not because they where “hot” just to smell the cologne. Mike smells really good naturally, but he knows I LOVE the smell of a man wearing cologne. Then my mother-in-law would talk to me and tell me, “a woman should only wear lipstick and a little rouge.” Bless her heart, she told me that so many times. She would talk about other girls my age and how ridiculous they looked in make up. Little did she know I was way to deep into make up to quit. I would laugh and tell my friends that, my mom is calling me telling me to wear my make up and my M-in-L was telling me not to wear it.

I look back to see how it effected my marriage. Mike would tell me I was always beautiful with or with out make up. I would get so upset. Now, I realize that make up was my “signature” and I needed Mike to be wowed when I put it on. Skip ahead 26 years, now at my age, things have faded and he actually likes me to wear it. Either he has figured out after all these years to acknowledge that I look nicer with it on or Aging Sucks!:-)