Baby Chicken is a makeup aficionado. She’s really, really good at it. Except she believes in minimalism for skin. Moi, not so much. The more I paint and hide, the better.
“Stop using foundation,” says she.
My heart skips a beat and I have to call for my fan. Since senior year in high school–my mother wouldn’t let me wear it before then–my skin has yet to breathe on its own in the wild. Cosmo taught me how and I never looked back. And thank Baby Jesus. Once you find your match, people actually believe you have poreless skin.
Except you age. Suddenly, makeup sets up camp in fine lines, dries before day’s end and casts a pall Baby Jane style. I complain in the presence of Baby Chicken.
We venture outdoors. The lighting is best out of doors for whatever she is about to do to my face. I do my serum– hyaluronic acid girls–keep that skin plump, moisturizer, and the latest holy grail for old girls with old faces, moisturizing primer. Pick elf, cheap cheap cheap, and gets your glow on.
Here’s what I see: Pale, like should we take your pulse pale. A mass of lines across the chin gifted to me by radiation to the head and neck. Thank you, go away. And freckles that are way too old to be labeled, “cute.”
What Baby Chicken says: “You don’t need any foundation. Your skin is so good. WTF–is this child blind? She blends and contours and powders. No, no, little one. You can’t powder an old face. Wait, what? Just right there. Damn, girl, you’re right, it does brighten that under eye area.
She highlights under the brow, above the brow, the tip of the nose, the cupid’s bow, the chin with all the radiation wrinkles and draws a highly highlighted line from mid-eye up the side of my face. Whaaa?
She paints eyelids one color, eschews a smoky eye (even the daytime kind) and recommends one coat of mascara. Evidently, the child has forgotten who I am and believes my mascara will no longer be as black as my cold, dead heart and as thick as the La Brea tar pits.
“Damn. I don’t have my cream blush.” She says cream blush is a must. But, when your skin is still in its twenties, you can forget yours at home.
I take lessons with me, but life is a compromise, non? My makeup look is that I have a better place to be later. I take Baby Chicken’s list and buy the cream blush stick in berry along with her other wares.
Flitting about foundation-less isn’t happening and neither is one coat of mascara. But the rest of her advice is taken, including the sweep of cream blush. The heavens open and angels sing. I send Baby Chicken a selfie, “I think I’ve got it–glow.”
“Your skin looks flawless,” she gushes. Did I raise my children right or what?
The Duchess Diaries 