Make up tricks and the self

My relationship with make up has been long and ardent. And despite the long affair with the painted face, I have never really mastered the art the way some women have. Consequently, I slather on make up with shaky hands which suddenly seem infused with lead and wander out blinking into the sunlight or the neon as the case might be looking like Frankenstein’s bride. But I’ve been learning and taking tips and seeing how the professionals work on the face and trying to replicate the look with the little make up I have with me.
And asking friends who do their make up amazingly well for tips and trying to follow.
So it came to pass that two darling friends, who are probably the best put together women I know on a first name basis, told me I needed to get myself to MAC and get Studio Fix powder compact and I would be set. I wandered past the MAC store thrice at Inorbit. Put one toe in and pulled it out again as quickly. Make up intimidates me. And the impeccably done up sales people selling said make up intimidate me more. Then I was told red. Red lipstick changes the look. Russian Red. I girded mine loins (metaphorically speaking and did another perambulation of the MAC store but still couldn’t take myself within the perimeter. What can I say? I’m a coward. I get terrified of skin care and make up sales people. I have abyssmal self esteem. I feel compelled to buy everything at the counter to prove that I am serious about Taking Care Of Myself and Looking Good.
Finally, I gathered up enough courage to ask the kind person who handles the communications and PR for MAC whether she could set up an appointment for me with a make up expert who would be kind and gentle and take me babysteps into the world of make up. At the appointed time, I entered the MAC store with quivering limbs and confidence levels lurking somewhere at knee level. Shayli, for that’s what her name was, pretty as a picture and made up sharply as is expected of someone who is to sell one make up, was a lovely advertisement for the brand herself. She put me at ease completely, and having extracted from me that I was primarily concerned about not ending up like Dracula’s bride, set about colour matching my skin, showing me how to apply my base and how to blend and how to put it all so it just ended up looking very smooth and natural skin. I was jaw dropped with surprise when I saw myself in the mirror. Nope, I wasn’t Cinderella by any stretch of the imagination. But I was smooth skinned. I left the premises with a MAC Studio Fix compact, in a shade that matched my skin tone, and a promise to come back at leisure for a complete make up lesson.

I also had in my booty stash a MAC lipstick in Ramp Red, some subtle cheek colour, a lip glass, some eye shadows and felt ready to take on the world in technicolour.

For my next event, a dear friend got me to get self to a make up artist to get my face done. Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so I landed up, face wiped clean and bereft of any add ons as the day I was born. She began with spraying my face, putting a primer, methodically working the base, while I occasionally squawked I didn’t want to be bronzed up because the last event had the girl at Lakme deciding she wanted to bronze me up and ended up with me two to three shades deeper than my current skin tone, and finally I emerged blinking, and glowing with some judicious and injudicious use of highlighter.

Anyway, here’s what I looked like with the professional make up. Too glowy for my liking though, and the eyes were spiky overdone.

This is how I looked the next day when I did my regular routine, compact (Albeit the new MAC Studio Fix one now), eyeliner and lipstick.

I think the simpler look works better for me. Or is it that I am more comfortable without fear that my face will crack and fall off with all the multiple layers them make up artists apply?