COLUMN: Running away from lipstick

From Emily Lieff's, "Sassy Peach," Fall '99 From Emily Lieff's, "Sassy Peach," Fall '99Some people are scared of the dark, others fear speaking in public and I have a gnawing fear of cosmetic counters. For my 19th birthday, my two best friends decided that I had waited long enough and that it was time for me to actually purchase make-up. They dragged me kicking and screaming from my house and practically had to hog tie me and throw me into the car, but somehow managed to get me into the mall. I finally gave in and let them buy me some non-threatening lipstick, which promptly took its place at the bottom of my desk drawer. In the past three years, I've worn the lipstick they bought me around five times, for special occasions. With trepidation, I entered the local cosmetics store and felt my heart drop to my feet. Any newcomer who has ever made it inside a cosmetics store can attest to the frighteningly chaotic array of colors and mountains of intimidating creams and powders. I looked around for a few minutes, trying to get my bearings. Personally, I don't understand the differences between emollients, exfollients and astringents and I hope that I never will have to. I walked over to the lipsticks, trying to look as though I fit in, but soon found out that the cosmetics counter is no place for a girl like me. I was faced with hundreds of lipstick choices and no clue as to which would make me look like Christy Turlington and which would make me look like Tammy Faye Bakker. I tried a few out on my hand, as is the custom in these boutiques but soon found that my hand and my lips look nothing alike. Bewildered, I finally decided to give in to my worst fears and let the professionals take over. The woman who helped me was irritatingly perky, well-dressed and completely color-coordinated. One look at me and she knew that she was in for a long afternoon. At a fashion-conscious school like Penn, where the women seemed to have received their first eyeliners at age three, I was certainly an anomaly. She started our session by asking me a barrage of questions: What color lipstick did I want? What kind of tube? Long-wearing or not? Frankly, she could have been speaking Swedish to me and it would have made about as much sense. Then, as I started to let my guard dawn, she sneaked up behind me and attacked me with a lipstick. I seem to have blocked out many of the events of that afternoon from sheer terror but I recall physically pushing her away from me when she approached me with that wand of death. Recoiling in fear, I ran out of the store -- lipstick smeared all over my face and frazzled from facing my worst nightmare head on. There is a girl that I know who takes two hours every morning to do her makeup and blow-dry her hair. When people would mention how great she looked, I would explain defensively -- as girls tend to do -- "it's not her? it's the makeup. I would look like that too if I had two extra hours in my day." After my visit to the cosmetics counter from hell, however, I realized exactly how untrue that statement is. If someone left me at a Clinique counter for two hours, I would emerge with a fashion statement more commonly known as "war paint." Wearing makeup truly is a skill. Some of us have it, and some of us would be better off applying to Clown College. Actually, I wonder if they give graduate degrees. This frightening experience led to a number of deep, meaningful, soul-searching questions: Can I be happy just being me? Will I look like a pale, uncoordinated fashion victim if I resist this trend? Will it matter if I never learn the purpose of an eyelash curler? I suppose none of these questions are really important, yet most women still continue to seek out the perfect shade of plum and waste their energy trying to make themselves into people that they're not. So, until that changes, look for me in the cosmetics aisle -- I'll be the one having the panic attack.