Did NOT Wake Up Like This

    Hey! This is one of those posts that are (what I hope is) humorous at my expense. So, I was the stereotypical teenage girl with the phase of fighting against being mainstream, and for the longest time I resented the idea of being perceived as a 'girly girl'. A few years down the line, and I realize, that I am, in fact, just that. I am the textbook stereotypical definition of girl. I don't like sports. Not even a little bit. (And girls, it's really ok to not pretend that you do. But then...maybe don't take advice from a single girl). I like makeup. It's fun to see my eyes go from deadened to popping because of one swipe of eyeliner. Actually this post is about my journey to where I am today, makeup-wise. Which is really just 'looks put together...ish'. [Side note: I'm listening to Rihanna's 'Te Amo' and I swear, even though I know the actual lyrics, I thought she said, "Listen, we can dance but you've gotta wash your hands", and I thought, an unusual request but not unreasonable. But I digress.]
    I'm a little fuzzy on the timelines, but the first time I used eye pencil on myself was probably when I was 16 in Form 2 (equivalent of 10th grade). I was likely bored at home and I got into my sister's makeup (because this is the sole purpose of the existence of The Little Sister). My makeup knowledge was sub-zero at that point, so the extent of my expectations was, 'Oh, my eyes look different. Cool'. When really "different" meant "raccoon-like". Yeah, for years I used to draw the liner on my lower lid, and for people with oily faces, it ain't pretty friend. Then there were the eyebrows. Sweet Lord. I'm equal parts wishing I had evidence of the massacre to my face, and immensely glad no such atrocities exist. As one of my classmates ever so helpfully pointed out one time in primary school, back then from afar you couldn't even tell I have eyebrows (this was before the discovery of the wonders of castor oil). So sixteen year old me decided to overcompensate for this shortcoming by drawing on some Angry Birds eyebrows. This may or may not be an exaggeration, I'll let you decide.
    Fast forward to post-high school, and homegirl gets formally introduced to Sleek (and briefly experimented with kohl eyeliner, which felt like I was applying menthol. So many tears. There was a short stint with liquid eyeliner, but the sensation of it pouring into my eyes and damn near blinding me is not one I relish). I got my act together and learnt to draw human eyebrows. Even got a complement from a girl I didn't know all that well, (she thought they were real!) and perfect eyebrow status was achieved. Sadly, Raccoon Eyes phase was still a thing. This proved most inconvenient my first winter here, and with that, the discovery of this delightful 'wind tunnel' on my path to class that made my eyes water every time. Which made me swipe at my eyes. Which smudged everything. Fun times. So anyway, summer of freshman year, and I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but one day I randomly decided to draw my liner on my upper eyelid instead, and my life was inadvertently changed forever. I mean, can I do a decent cateye? ...Bit of a stretch. But it's something. Of course that is very little consolation when YOU WEAR GLASSES AND NO ONE CAN SEE A BLOODY THING YOU DID AND WHY EVEN BOTHER. But then there are those occasional moments when you need to remove your glasses, y'know, to clean them or something, and then you can showcase your hard work. LOL.
    So, here I am. I'm a fan of makeup, but my abilities on the art are (clearly) limited, so my makeup routine is five minutes long and consists of 3-5 items. It's also too much work for someone who touches her face as much as I do. And if Sephora's magic wand thingy can't find me a foundation colour that doesn't look like a mud mask on my face, is there hope? Not left to my own devices, that's for sure. Not to say I don't have 2 makeup bags' worth of stuff and own like 15 makeup brushes, even though I couldn't tell you which brush did what. I should mention that freshman year Amazon came into my life and 15 brushes for $3.50 made a lot of sense. I'm probably more in love with the idea of makeup. But, yeah...that is the story of my evolution. The goal is pretty much to look nice and still look like the same person the morning after. And since nowadays liking one thing is immediately misconstrued to mean being anti-the-other-thing, this is not to say caking your face is a bad thing. It's your face, go to town on it if you want. (I love those 'boys don't like girls with lots of makeup' posts. Can we please have a chat so that we can pinpoint the point at which in my decision to load up my Sephora shopping cart with $25 worth of shimmery and/or matte awesomeness and thus earning even more awesome free samples, a boy got factored into the equation). So, yeah. Do you, and please get yourself at the very least one friend who will tell you when your beloved hot pink is a hot mess on you. There is hope for you yet!