Lipstick, For People Who Don’t Use It – Hive and Nest

It’s Makeup Monday! Yay! A few weeks ago I was mentioning something about lipstick to one of my friends and her eight-year old daughter was standing right next to us. “Why do you wear lipstick?” the little girl asked, “you’re pretty enough without it.” I thought that was terribly sweet of her and I didn’t really know what to say. What I thought was, “honey, you have never seen me without lipstick so you really have no idea.” The truth is that once you get to be a grown-up you need a little something extra. Whether it’s a lot extra or a little extra is up to each woman. Listen, I don’t care if you’re Victoria’s Secret-ish gorgeous; you need a bit of help. I hate to burst your bubble but if you’re not wearing makeup you probably seem washed out and your eyes look beady and little. I’m telling you this as a friend.

Think of it like this: you live someplace;  a house, an apartment, whatever. If you had nothing in it but necessary furniture, would you look around and think, “now that we have a sofa and a bed, we don’t need anything else.”  Of course not! You would start decorating! Because an undecorated house is a boring house. Even college guys decorate! (Not that it looks good or anything, but still).

Your face is the same way. It’s perfectly fine the way it is. But do you want to be fine or do you want to be more than fine?

One summer in college I had a roommate named Annie. She was the funniest person I have ever met. Seriously, ever. She said something to me once that has stuck with me all these years. She said, “I’m not pretty enough to wear makeup. I feel like if I do it will just make everyone look at me and think, ‘why is she even trying?’”

Again, back to the house analogy. Imagine that you live in a dumpy little house from the 70’s. It has no redeeming architectural features. It’s not old enough to be retro; it’s just plain ugly.  And it has a chain link fence across the weed-filled front yard.  Do you give up the day you move in and think, “there is just no hope for this house so why even bother?”  Or do you subscribe to some of the fantastic DIY blogs out there and get to work making your house as cute as possible?

Do you not agree that a fresh coat of paint, a picket fence and some petunias wouldn’t do wonders to start with?

Your face, even if you think it is nothing special, is worth fixing up. Lipstick alone does wonders. It brightens up your entire face and makes your teeth look whiter.

So my assignment for you this week is to wear some lipstick. If you haven’t bought a new liptsick in the last two years (or ever. My sister-in-law has never actually bought lipstick. She wears Clinique skin care products and only uses the free lipstick that comes in her Bonus bag that she gets every year. No matter what color it is.), get yourself to a store! Try the color out on your hand (but remember that everything will look pinker on your lips. I try to find a color that looks the same as my tongue.)

Nearly every makeup company makes a sheer, lipglossy-type product that is kind of like training wheels for lipstick. Since these are regular lipsticks (not long wearing-type things) they’ll wear off in a couple of hours. Which makes wearing this type of lipstick a lot less scary. The one that I’ve really been digging lately has been Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter.  It is so creamy and luscious. The colors are all really lovely and somewhat sheer. You won’t feel like your lips are a neon sign with these. I have “Brown Sugar”, a soft pinkish brown, and “Cherry Pie”, which makes it look like I’ve been sucking on a red popsicle.
I’ve also heard really great things about Cover Girl’s NatureLuxe  Gloss Balm. My friend Stephanie raves about the Peony color which is nice, clear pink (she’s blonde with fair skin).

Don’t be scared of makeup. It can be overwhelming, I know. But I will hold your hand. I wish I could go to the store with every one of you and help you find something that will make you feel so beautiful that you will look forward to being seen every day.