About two months ago, I bought a “starter kit." Today, I decided I was going to try it. How hard could it be? After all, I had watched how to videos on YouTube. I believe I can learn ANYTHING on YouTube – I’ve solved website issues, computer issues, changed the headlight in my car, changed the taillight in my car, changed the inside cabin filter in my car, etc. My motto: if it’s on YouTube, I can do it. What I learned today is that that sentence is not binary, like so much of life. It is not that you did it…or didn’t do it. It is the level of how you did it. Up until now, I have leaned on YouTube for Yes/No items Changed light. Fixed computer. You know: Pregnant/Not Pregnant. No, I didn’t take lesson on that…I figured that one out on my own…thank you very much. I digress.
So today, I was going to try contouring my face. I was going to look more beautiful…younger…and it was a great way to procrastinate continuing the purging of my house (see yesterday’s post.) And BONUS: Who knew that I could further procrastinate after said contouring session by needing to blog, albeit for therapy. It was a great day!
I read the directions. Watched a video. I. Was. Ready.
I got out the tiny little sample bottles. I got my brushes ready. And I was off.
Now, it is probably important to remind you that I’m over 40. No longer can I “fake” being able to read any print that isn’t 18 pt. or across the room without my glasses attached to my face. My arms are no longer long enough to hold something out to be able to read it without my glasses.
As I was looking (strike that squinting) at the directions without my glasses because it would make contouring difficult to do with my glasses, I couldn’t see the type on neither the directions, nor the containers. “Did that say Contour 1 or Highlight 2? …Wait, do does that say with a round face or a square face? Contour 2…oh shoot, that was supposed to be Highlight 2. Ah, forget it, I’ll just apply it over, but then does that wipe it out? Neutralize it? Oh, just apply more.”
Finally, I was all marked up. Now if you have seen anybody contour, you probably have a vision of what I looked like. It was EXACTLY like I had seen on the YouTube videos—dark lines, light lines, darker lines. Well, not quite exactly…well, I mean, kind of. I mean the similarities were…a face…dark marks, lighter marks, really light marks, and WHITE marks. Well not similarities….o.k., truth: a face. A face was the similarity. But, my motto is “Go Big or Go Home!” Then I figured out I was already home (Thank God!), so apparently, I just was going BIG.
I took the blending brush, and away I went. Suddenly, I was transformed. Transformed into a middle-aged woman with too much make-up on my face. A middle-aged woman that apparently got an InstaTan right there in her bathroom. A middle-aged woman that went from pale skin to well, not pale skin. A middle-aged woman who went from a YouTube How-To Video to the next Pinterest Fail.
And so it goes. I will continue practicing…and until then, I’ll visit the MAC counter and let the make-up artists do their thing. …oh, AND, I’ll invent a contour sample pack with font type that all women over 40 can read without their glasses. …probably a MUCH better probability that the regular packs will sell.