My friends often sing this song to me because of my obsessions with makeup, perfume, hair products. Beauty products, in general, just make me ecstatically happy! My motto has always been that nothing can ever be so bad that you can't fix it with a new shade of lipgloss. Well, that is an exaggeration but seriously, all I have to do is buy a new shade of lipgloss and I am all smiles, back on track, queen of the world.
This past weekend was a busy one in the lives of moi, Mr. Man and the cheerleader. Last night, Mr. Man suggested a night out, the three of us, for dinner. I needed to get ready and pulled out my trusty makeup bag. As I was standing at the mirror applying my eyeshadow, I started to think about my makeup obsessions. How did they start? How did I come to love makeup so much? The odd thing is that I am not a full mask of makeup wearing kind of girl. I go for the natural look but that takes time and product. I wondered if all girls share this obsession.
So, in the minutes that I was applying my makeup, my ever changing moods drifted back to the beginning...the woman that started it all for me...the makeup enabler...The Avon Lady.
Growing up in the late 60s and early 70s in suburbia neighborhoods, who didn't have an Avon lady ringing the doorbell? I would get so excited when my mother would announce that today would be the day that our Avon lady would be stopping by with an order for my mother. My heart would pound and I would make sure that I stayed at home (only in the summer months...during the school year, I would be in school when the Avon lady came to call) until she showed up! I loved how dressy she was and she carried the coolest aqua suitcase full of makeup samples. I loved watching as she unzipped her makeup suitcase and started to display the latest products and samples. I would sit in a trance wishing that I could buy every item in her bag. My mother was never on my same page and ordered just a face cream or a replacement lipstick. She never ventured into the more exotic colors of eyeshadows or lipsticks. After my mother would place her order, the Avon lady would always turn to me....and take out plastic bags. Plastic bags full of the older samples that she no longer used in her case. ALL FOR ME. She was like a makeup fairy descending on my house and bestowing me with these beauty products.
I would swiftly run to my room, empty the bags and immediately start going through the loot. They were the little white sample tubes of lipsticks and those awful bright blue and green sample tubes of eyeshadows. And, I sampled them all. And snuck them out to my friends. And stuffed them in my purses so that I could sneak them to school and we could all sneak makeup in the bathroom. I became the elementary school Avon child.
What I didn't realize was I was setting the course for a lifetime of addiction. The eyeshadows, the lippies, the powders, the creams, the sparkle...it has never ended. Except, the Avon Lady no longer rings my doorbell and my new enabler is now Sephora but I get the same sensation as soon as I put a foot into any Sephora. It is the same rush as when the Avon lady used to step foot into my childhood home.
In my ever changing moods, makeup offers me happiness, excitement, hope and the never ending feeling that anything is possible with lipgloss!!
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