My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places

Counter Attack

It is my personal belief that the people who install the mirrors and lighting in department store dressing rooms are in direct cahoots with the cosmetic companies. All down the rows of rooms, you hear the sad moans and horrified gasps of women confronted with their own fluorescent-lit reflections. My eye bags, I realized the other day while shopping with my friend Wendy, had ceased to be an anatomical feature and were approaching the status of an actual piece of luggage. “You can almost see the little handles,” I wailed. Wendy was in the next room trying on a jacket. “My skin is green,” she was saying. I assured Wendy it was light reflecting off the jacket. “But the jacket is brown,” she said.

We went directly from there to the makeup department, where a facialist determined that we needed help; a whole new approach. As with all major renovations, this one was to begin with foundation. I told the salesgirl I don’t like foundation, because it sinks into my wrinkles and makes them look even deeper, if you can imagine any deeper wrinkles than the kind I’ve got. She could not, of course, for she was 19 and the only wrinkles she owned were the kind that appear on her nose when forced to contemplate the horrors of middle-aged skin.

“That’s because you’re not using a primer,” said the girl. Her name was Elaine. Her company actually sells a product called Face Primer. “You wouldn’t paint a room without putting on primer first, would you?”

“Of course not,” I said, because my husband was not around to expose me as a liar. We recently painted our den and I had tried to argue for a single coat. Why spend an extra two days painting when you could just put a lower wattage bulb in the overhead light?

In keeping with the home repair theme, this brand of makeup was to be put on with brushes. The salesgirl, who had gotten me into the makeover chair, was applying primer with one such brush. She suggested buying their four-pack of specialized makeup brushes, which came in a pink leatherette case. “It’s an investment,” she said. Did that mean that over time the brushes would become more valuable, and that one day I could cash them in and retire? It did not. It meant they were very expensive. The foundation brush alone cost $42.

“What is it, mink?” I asked. I was trying to be funny, but the line landed far shy of its mark, for the brush was, in fact, Siberian blue squirrel. “I’ve never seen a blue squirrel,” Wendy commented.

“Now you know why,” I said. I pictured entry-level makeup company flacks, sent out to stalk the northern forests with BB guns.

“Maybe they just trim their little tails and let them go,” Wendy said charitably.

Elaine said that my brush portfolio would last 10 to 15 years if I took care of the bristles. This entailed using the company’s Brush Bath and Brush Cleanser. “You want to treat them like your own hair,” Elaine said. She was wrong. I wanted to treat them like squirrels treat their own hair. Shouldn’t that be enough?

Elaine wasn’t listening. She had moved on. She was applying a $35 skin luminizer, which, she said, “minimizes fine lines.” For instance, the fine line between luminous skin and highway robbery.

“That is so pretty on you,” said Elaine. Notice the structure of this sentence. It is the makeup that’s pretty, not me. Wendy told me I had a bad attitude, that I looked fabulous. She handed me a mirror. I had to admit that I looked, if not fabulous, a bit less washed out.

I considered buying it all: foundation, makeup, makeup remover, primer, sealant, luminizer, cleanser, moisturizer, brushes, brush cleanser, brush bath, brush masseuse, brush finishing school… Instead, I went down the street to the hardware store and bought some 25-watt bulbs.