Linda G Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: “butter.”
When I was in my late teens I went in for one of those makeovers at one of the high end department stores at our Mall.
I was pretty excited because I loved makeup, plus this was the late 70’s and the sky was the limit as far as colors and how to use them so I saw it as a chance to have a little fun with my awkward look.
I took my seat in the chair and there I was surrounded by lights and pretty people and I was this close to not looking like a turd in the punchbowl anymore. Needless to say I was very excited about that!
The salesgirl peered into my face.
She bit her lip.
She had the same look on her face that my Doctor had when I fell off my bike and bashed the side of face in and told him it didn’t hurt, but I couldn’t feel it or move it either- and then she called over another sales associate and said:
” She has such a yellow greenish complexion. How do we fix that? ”
I was pretty embarrassed, I mean. I sounded like a bruise.
But a sale is a sale and those girls went to work.
They ‘fixed’ my skin coloring by blending two different shades of liquid makeup and then slathering all over my face. When they were finished I felt like a little kernel of popped corn drenched in butter.
At the time I didn’t realize that what I looked like a cadaver that required a lot of ‘work’ because of decomp. The difference was, if I had done that kind of a makeup job on a corpse, I would have been fired. I looked awful. I was a million times worse looking then before they had started.
In addition to that, I went from having a medium tan complexion ( I’m half Filipina ) to having a complexion that you could compare to an uncooked hot dog.
The result was: I was fixed.
I was afraid to move my head for fear that everything would slide off.
But they weren’t finished. Oh no. Not by a long shot.
The salesgirls had a little conference and came back told me that I should probably dye my hair because it wouldn’t ‘work’ with my makeup.
I didn’t by the makeup, I didn’t dye my hair. I didn’t say that their sales pitch was a pretty crappy way to treat a person.
I just went home and put the mirror on my vanity into the closet and the ones I had hung up for decoration in the living room into storage.
I still don’t have any mirrors in my house except for the one in the bathroom.
I am painfully aware of what I look like without one.
Those sales girls needed to be told off. How rude. I haven’t worn makeup in years but for a while I did to cover all my flaws. It was a useless waste of time and money in my opinion.
The idea about beauty and what it looks like is very inflexible, isn’t it? Creamy white skin, shiny blond hair- that was the ideal back in the 70’s and we like to pretend we are beyond that but as a culture we aren’t. However, I do like to wear makeup, but I prefer to use it it enhance my mixed race looks as opposed to hiding it.
I’d like to think our make-up artists have moved on A LOT since the 70’s.
Although, a few years ago I went with my two daughters to get their make-up done. I think it was a voucher they had, and if I remember correctly we were going out that same night.
My eldest daughter looked amazing when they were finished with her, but the other one looked like someone made a bad job of carving their pumpkin!
So well written, the humour had me laughing and the sadness of the scene was conveyed. I loved it Anita 🙂 🙂
Urgh. I sure hope this is fiction. Those sales girls sound awful!!!!!!
Sorry to say it’s all true. But those salesgirls were selling an ideal and I think that when they couldn’t sell it because someone had dark skin they really thought they were failing at their jobs. I use to be really angry about this experience, but now I am looking at it this way- we were all looking for boxes to crawl into in order to belong .