My makeup skills when I first started work as a journalist were as rudimentary as my ability to write a decent news story.
In a word: crap.
Yes, I knew the pyramid style of writing a story. They did at least teach me that much in three years of uni. But any flare factor my employers had been hoping I might bring to the job were well and truly lacking.
Similarly with my ability to apply makeup.
Turns out that makeup application is indeed hereditary. How your mum wore her blush or her lippy is likely to be how you do – or did – too.
For me that meant a dust of face powder, a single unflattering eye shadow colour across the lids, a little bit of mascara and a bright ’80s fuchsia lippy courtesy of my girlfriend who “wo-manned” the only makeup counter in the small town in which I was working.
OH. DEAR.
I would like to say that things improved dramatically and concurrently with my on-the-job journo training. But they didn’t.
Makeup remained a great mystery to me. A mystery I never really grasped until post-40. Which is a bloody good thing because that’s when I’ve needed it even more.
So, how did solve the mysteries of makeup? It’s a work in progress but part of that progress has been getting lessons from makeup artists. They are the experts, after all.
Want to know what I’ve since learned that I wished I’d known 20-plus years ago? Head on over to The Hoopla.
What did your makeup look like when you were 20?
