One for the Ladies (Because the Guys Will Have No Idea What I’m Talking About)

Moving to a new house across town has caused Trent and I all sorts of logistical issues that tend to make my head swim. The most important, and hand-wringing, of all of these is Lucy’s school situation. Lucy’s school (which is the best school in the world, forever and ever, amen) is in our old neighborhood, about 30 minutes from where we live now. Well, 30 minutes in no traffic, so during the morning and evening rush hours when we’re dropping off and picking up, it’s more like an hour each way. She’ll switch to a new, closer school in mid-November, but until then Trent and I spend much time coordinating who is in charge of picking Lu up from school. Most of the time, it’s him, as it’s on his way home from work and I have to drive 45 minutes out of my way just to get there.

Now my ADD is going to take me in a completely different direction, but I promise, it will all make sense in the end. When I started my new and much higher paying job in February, I had a few stipulations in terms of our budget. I had spent the last three years wearing clothes I bought for my post college interviews, basically three pairs of pants and five shirts, mixed and matched. My big PR job out of school was at a pretty laid back office (wardrobe wise, not crazy boss wise), so I spent a good portion of my early career in jeans. Then I got pregnant and huge and refused to wear anything without elastic in the waistband. So when I got this job that was going to help out my family in ways I can’t even describe, I told my husband that I needed to invest some money in a new work wardrobe. Along with the clothes, I was also going to need to invest in some good makeup. The reason behind this being the fact that I am VERY young for my job, and my cheap-ass drugstore makeup was making me look even younger. I needed to invest in, at the very least, some good foundation that would last all day and cover the freckles that tend to make me look twelve.

Trent agreed, but not without a lot of huffing and guffawing and grumping about. Then he bought a Playstation 3, and that shut him up for a while.

After much research and testing, I decided on Lancome Teint Idole Ultra Foundation. No, I have no idea what that means. Does anyone here speak French? I picked it because once applied it lasted all day and the bottle lasted 6 months, so the $40 price tag didn’t seem so scary. Also, my sister and my mother-in-law use it and they are very pretty. If Lancome wanted an ad campaign with real live people, they could totally be the spokeswomen.

Yesterday, after I realized I was off the hook in terms of picking up the kiddo, I headed to our local mall to replenish my supply of the foundation that makes my skin look like Natalie Portman’s (it does, really, it’s awesome). I went in to the department store and found the Lancome counter, where I asked for my foundation in the lightest shade they had. Really. I am that pale.

Of course the ladies behind the counter insisted they color match me and made me sit in the scary chair underneath blinding lights while they smeared different shades of makeup all over my face. When they decided on a color, they asked if they could touch up the rest of my face. I looked in the mirror and saw the person that had been up since 5 a.m. and said, “Yes, please.”

They primped and prodded and made me look like I was going to be the guest of honor at Cinderella’s ball. A bit extreme for a night at home building shelves, but whatever. When it came time to put on the mascara, they asked if I wanted to use their new Oscillation brand. I said sure.

A word of warning, if anyone comes at your eyes with a vibrating mascara wand, RUN AWAY! They explained it as a mascara wand that was similar to an electric toothbrush. It vibrated so you don’t have to do any work, just hold it on your lashes and it vibrates its way through them. Have your eyelashes ever tickled you? Trust me, it’s not a feeling you want. I am literally shuddering just writing about it here.

And of course they couldn’t just give me one coat and move on. The put that vibrating wand a centimeter from my eye over and over. I thought my eyelashes were going to vibrate right of my lids. You’d think when you notice the tears in someone’s eyes as you apply their makeup you’d step back a bit, but not these ladies. They were going to convince me that vibrating makeup applicators are the wave of the future. The next big thing. Even if they had to take my eyelashes with them.

And the worst part? When I got in to my car in the mall parking lot, I checked out my new face in the rearview mirror. My eyes looked like spiders were hanging off them. My eyelashes were so clumpy and gross, which was the whole thing this stupid vibrating mechanism was supposed to avoid! The moral of this long-winded story. Vibrators are not made for makeup applicators. I won’t say what they’re made for, as this site is sometimes perused by my father. Hi Dad! Aren’t you proud?!