To better help you, dear reader, understand exactly what I will be giving up, I've written a detailed and if I don't say so myself, poetic and eloquent, account of my daily face routine. Enter my sick, self-obsessed world! The Base Of My Face Now, I have to admit being bad, because I never take off my makeup before I go to sleep, I don't know why, (I'm lazy) so when I wake up the next morning, not only does my pillow look like it's been eye-raped by Taylor Momsen, but my face looks like it did when I thought it would be fun to play in Mommy's makeup kit. So I have to take that crap off and start fresh, and mind you, by fresh I mean porous. I mean splotchy. I mean I've been breaking out lately because of stress and I've had dark circles under my eyes since god only knows because of my insomnia (did I mention I'm an insomniac? Fuck beauty sleep, give me 4 hours uninterrupted.) Where was I? Oh yes, fresh! So I even out with a base, I apply an allover foundation, I use Revlon Custom Creations Foundation, but you can still see the acne and dark circles. So I take my L'Oreal Paris True Match Concealer and I sweep it generously under my eyes, pat, pat, pat, looks better, and then I spot treat all the red marks, and I look like a fucking neutral-palleted cheetah, and I blend (blending is the secret.) And now it's starting to look like a normal person's face, but I have to seal it in with powder. So I take my powder brush, swirl it in my Maybelline Dream Matte Powder and sweep it across every inch of my face. So that's the beginning, and if I wanted to stop here then I'd look like I had no makeup on at all, but that's not my goal, my goal is to be pretty, and why with all the success and happiness I have, I can't be content with the face god or whoever gave me, especially with all my self-righteous feminist banter, I digress. And then it's time to add some color, so I take my angled blush brush and run it through some Clinique Soft-Pressed Powder Blusher, in Mocha Pink, I contour my cheekbones, making my face look thinner, warmer, and more feminine, flushed with blood, a sure sign of fertility! The Eyes Say It All Then it's onto the eyes, and let me tell you, this is both my favorite and most hated part. I love my eyes, I could get lost in my eyes for hours, in fact I have. They're big, yet seductive and a very pretty shade of blue. So while accenting them in the correct way can make them look even prettier, I'm a perfectionist, so if they're not just so, I get frustrated and end up stabbing myself with the eyeliner. But anyway, what I've been into lately is something more classic and looks simple, but is not simple at all. I love 60's cat eyes, and since I got these killer hippie-bangs I've been doing them a lot lately. I could never get the wing good enough with powder or solid liner and then I found L'Oreal HiP Color Truth Cream Eyeliner, in black. It's a cream! So I dip my angled Sephora eyeliner brush into the cream and I pull it across my lash line, and it looks okay, and then I do the other eye and I fuck it up. So I remove a little with some makeup remover and a q-tip and I reapply. It looks better now, but before I became such a pro, it has taken me several attempts in the past. And then it's the hard part, the wing. Making them symmetrical, not hookerish and perfectly fluid is like the hardest thing in the world, I cannot even begin to describe the patience required or the zen state of mind I must be in while doing this. But it works, let's just say it worked the first time (it's usually the 3rd, but I've gotten it down to the 2nd lately.) Of course sometimes I'll mix it up with some eyeshadow, I'm a fan of softer colors, light gray or brown, swept across the lip and more powerfully in the crease. Sometimes I'll even do eyeliner and eyeshadow, but that's only when I'm feeling extra fancy. Regardless, the hard part is over and now I can relax. So I take out my Revlon eyelash curler (which some of my male friends have looked at and been terrified by) and I get as close to the lash line as possible ,without actually removing my eyelids, and I do this a couple times on each eye. And I take my Clinique Lash Doubling Mascara, black, not waterproof, because that shit dries out your eyelashes, and I layer, layer, layer, and if I'm feeling frisky, I put some on my bottom lashes. Then it's the eyebrows, now let me tell you, I have some perfect arches so I don't need to pencil any shit in, and I wax my own because one time I let some salon bitch do it and I ended up looking like an angry chola. So all I need to do to maintain them (aside from waxing every other week or so) is brush them in the direction I want them to go and then seal them in with some Anastasia Brow Gel, because them caterpillars are finicky and don't always like to stay where I put them. Talk To The Lips But what about the lips? Now, I'm a biter, so unless I want some color on my teeth I generally keep them neutral, I'm a big fan of Neosporin Lip Treatment (it's medicated, it makes them go numb, I trip on that shit all day long.) However, yesterday I did get this new Nivea Kiss Of Flavor Strawberry Tinted Lip Care, which tastes, feels and smells great with just a tint of color. The Red Lip Now occasionally it's Friday night and I'm in the mood to get some male-attention, so I do a basic face and then I break hearts with my red lipstick. There's something about red lips that sends men over the edge, I think they see it as a challenge. It's sexy yes, but also unattainable. You can't kiss a girl with red lips, that shit will get everywhere, and even if it is Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Lipcolor, in Top Tomato, what I use, then it'll be like kissing a piece of dry wall. Either way, a guy can't help but trying; and there's something to be said about the confidence boost a girl gets when she sports a red lip, she knows she's got it, she can smile bigger (if there's none on her teeth) because it makes them look whiter, it draws attention to her face instead of her tits, she is the seductress, unattainable yet desired by everyone. No End In Sight And by the time it's over I look fresh-faced, dewy, youthful, glowing, whatever I'm supposed to look like after applying layer upon layer of chemical. To the untrained eye, it might even look like I'm not wearing anything, and that is indeed the point; but the question is, should I have to put in all that effort to look effortless? Now I will say that I've got it down to a science, and all the shit that I just explained usually only takes me 10 minutes. Nevertheless, it's daunting, to know that everyday I must wake up and participate in a routine that perpetuates the beauty myth, but damn, it makes me feel good!