Don’t Be a Makeup Chicken

My name is Marianne. You might, since readers of brand new blogs are almost always friends of the blog writers, know me from my livejournal, the fatshionista livejournal community, or from my fat blog (The Rotund). I’m a 31-year old writer and artist, living and wearing makeup in Orlando, FL.

So, what makes me qualified to talk to you about makeup? Not much. *grin* I played with makeup as a kid but I wasn’t ever encouraged to experiment with it. Still, I was an art major for a little while (I was a lot of different majors) and the fun of painting color on my face was irresistable.

Here are my freshly formulated 3 Rules of Makeup:

1. Practice. Makeup application is a skill and, like any other skill, it helps to practice. Why would you expect to be able to do a perfect smoky eye 30 minutes before it’s time to go out when you’ve never done one before? Set aside a few hours one evening every now and then and give yourself time to try new stuff without the pressure of having to leave the house.

2. Remember that it washes off. Want to try a crazy color combination but you’re scared it won’t turn out? Give it a shot! You aren’t tattooing this stuff on your face. Makeup remover wipes can erase unfortunate color choices or evidence of an unsteady hand - I’ve had more than my fair share of liquid liner disasters, let me tell you. But they come off! It’s okay to go nuts and make mistakes.

3. You don’t HAVE to wear makeup. No one does. Makeup is a choice and we all have our reasons for wearing it or not wearing it. If you choose not to wear makeup and you’re happy with that, it’s no skin off my nose (though I’m curious why you are reading a blog that is about unabashedly delighting in makeup). We’re going to talk about the feminist implications of wearing makeup and the socio-economics of makeup and makeup counters. But we are never going to say you need makeup to be a better person/woman/whatever. that’s ridiculous.

Check that out, I love it when things come in threes.

There’s more, of course. But if I put it all into one entry, what would I write about tomorrow?