Thursday, March 28, 2013

male make up artists are just as dangerous

i don't usually wear pancake batter on my face. but i had a wedding to be in so i thought i'd invest in some and look nice for pictures. originally i went to the local drugstore looking for makeup but felt convicted to stop breaking open seals and testing out foundations in the mirrors of the sunglasses rack.

off to ulta i go! when it comes to makeup, all i know is the limited experience i have doing my own face, my own way. so i assumed i could entrust my skin to this place where magical on-site make up elves reside and lead me to the perfect choice of pancake batter.

i walk in and am instantly approached by a dude. neatly waxed eyebrows, distinct cheeckbones, slight curl of eyelashes and tight black pants. am i skeptical? shore. but what do i know about the world of fashion and beauty? i kindly tell him my dilemma of not wanting anything thick that would melt off my face as i stand erect in the sun while my friends exchange vows - but wanting to give my face that ethereal, soft glow that's so sought after in wedding pictures. when it comes to knowledge of different products, he seemed to be able to sound convincing enough for a critic like me. apparently you can't just buy pancake batter. there's moisturizer, primer, the batter itself, powder, and finally a finishing spray. seriously?! lemme just wear a kabuki mask.

so we decide on a bb cream with spf. despite the horrid smell of spf, i conclude that the aboriginal mountain people blood in me is gonna want it when the sun starts turning onto me at 4pm. my private make up consultant sits me down on one of their highball chairs and proceeds to paint my face with some sketchy looking brushes he keeps in his fanny pack.

he starts out with the lightest color on hand. in my head i'm thinking, really?! mind you, i'm not one of those pale, i'm-afraid-of-the-sun asian kinda people who wear face shields while they're driving (some people will know what i'm talking about =/ ). i have mountain people blood in me so generally i look closer to ethiopian during the summer months. going with a light cream on me means you must have some issues with the rods in your eyeballs. so i ask him to try a few darker shades just to make sure i get the correct shade of expensive goop.

here's my own personal mistake that i'll 'fess up to. ulta has the worst form of fluorescent lights in the store. everyone knows these long white rods of light turn even the most attractive skin into a pale, grayish blue green tinge look. the putrid look of your skin under such conditions makes it nearly impossible to distinguish subtle changes in shade as you're testing out different batters. i should have known this and not let the tattooed artist decide the fate of my skin.

so now that he'd painted my face into a mosaic of nude colors, i had the great joy of distinguishing which color was best for my skin. as i said earlier, i'd originally walked into the store with the hopeful anticipation of placing my face in the hands of an expert. as he tried to convince me that i needed the light color, my inner 1/16 aboriginal taiwanese conscious was chanting "serious?!?? clearly i am not light". but the naive trust that i'd innocently given over to the experts was pulling me to concede with the guy who shaped his eyebrows every morning. and so i found myself at the registers with my smashbox bb cream in light.

fast forward a few hours later. i'm standing in front of my sink under the gangsta light of my 1940s bathroom sink, smearing glop all over my face. what the heckama?! i look like a freaking vampire.

ughh.

so the story comes to a close. i only hope to impart to you the wisdom i've gained from this experience: when a dude tries to tell you he knows how to paint your face, be skeptical.