Make-up Tricks

   I love makeup. In fact, I adore make-up. But it was not always so. It all started in the eighth grade when I became  the envy of every girl in Sister Ursulina's class.  Their mothers had you-can't-wear-makeup laws that they enforced like police while my mother chased me around the house chanting "a little lipstick will do the trick!" The implication that I needed a "trick" was mildly insulting but I soon realized it was easier to make-up than fight.

   I started my aversion to addiction journey with a smear of Revlon Love That Pink. By my Sophomore year in high school I had advanced to the daily ritual of heeding home room teacher Mrs. McGuire's request to "please wash off that eyeshadow."  It was cream Revlon in a little lipstick-like tube and it matched my green uniform perfectly. Darn Mrs.McGuire!
   I like the idea of a signature look but I've never had one. For years and years I've tried scores  of products and hoped that the next lipstick or eyeshadow would do the trick. But it hasn't happened yet and it probably never will.  In fact, thanks to a fabulous gift, at this moment I am wearing the latest Chanel Eye Gloss and my entire eye lid looks like black patent leather.  It is very au courant and edgy but I do not think it's doing the trick.
   I didn't think, though, that opening another great gift, a Rouge Dior Serum de Rouge #760 Rose Figue/Raspberry (don't you just love the names?) would be so educational.  I was a cereal box reader as a child so I can't resist scanning all the small print that comes with the make-up.  Can you believe that Luminous Color Lip Treatment has fifty ingredients in its 2 gram, 0.07 ounce tube, including trimethylolpropane trisostearate and octinoxate iethylhexyl methoxycinnamate? What?
   The real fun for me, though, was the info/warning sheet.  Praise for the lip treatment's "unparalled formula" and  how it "instantly delivers a sumptuous glow to your face" appears in no less than fourteen languages!  That is amazing and you feel so ooh-la-la internationale. It's like a trip around the world in a tiny tube and that more than justifies its exorbitant price, of course.
   I have to admit, too, that the stuff does give "unique pleasure when applied" but I regret it isn't life-changing. Damn, though, if it doesn't  look darn good!  Thank you, Dior, for the education and especially for at least  trying to do the trick.