Beauty for a Price

Did you see on TV all those women standing in line at major department stores? Apparently the stores are giving out $175 million worth of free makeup in response to some class action suit. Ha. At the prices of department store cosmetics that’s about two tubes of lipstick and a foundation!

Do you remember the first time you bought “good” department store makeup? It is like some kind of female rite of passage to go from drug store makeup to department store cosmetics. (When you pay that much it’s called cosmetics not makeup!) Sure you might have sat in those makeup counter chairs for the free demonstration but nobody actually bought the stuff. Who could afford it?

I waited until my first job after college and then decided I was “grown up” and needed more than the “cheap” drugstore makeup. It was time to graduate to the upscale cosmetics. The first big decision was in choosing the right brand. I settled on Clinique for no particular reason other than I liked their packaging with the blue colors and shiny mirrors. I also liked the look of their clerks who seemed more professional and knowledgeable in their white coats versus many of the women at the other stations.

I told them that I really did plan to buy makeup and gave the young lady free rein to create “a face” for me. That was my first mistake although I did feel very pampered and indulged as they applied layer after layer of makeup. But I never knew I needed so much stuff! First I learned I had a “mixed” complexion of both oily and dry areas so I needed a special moisturizer. As a redhead I next needed a good foundation to give my pale face some color but without looking orange. Next came blush and after a few false starts she found two which I needed to blend together to give the illusion of cheekbones.

The Clinique clerk spent a lot of time on my eyes. She started off with the eye concealer for under my eyes followed by an anti aging eye cream to hide the crows feet at the sides of my eyes. My pale blond eyebrows needed a pencil to draw in natural looking eyebrows. Three shades of eye shadow, two eyeliners and four coats of mascara later and my eyes were finally completed. She tried a couple of shades of lipstick before settling on a coral shade with matching lip liner, of course. Topped it all off with a powder which was supposed to settle the makeup and keep it in tact. Whew. I did look good but my bottom was getting tired from sitting on that uncomfortable stool so I was glad we were done. Wrong.

For it turned out that was only the first step. I then needed a whole slew of products to remove everything at the end of the night. I also had to have a handful of bottles and lotions to apply before I go to bed to keep my face young, wrinkle free and moisturized. And I needed special brushes to apply all this stuff. Now she really was done and there was a mountain of bottles, tubes, brushes, applicators and containers of all the stuff needed to make me look nice.

I must admit that she had worked magic on me. So of course I needed all of it - until I saw the final tally. Oh my.  Talk about sticker shock. To buy all of these wonderful products used to make me look good would cost me over $500! {gulp} But hey, I needed this stuff, right? Well I did manage to eliminate a few of these products but I still spent close to $300 at the Clinique counter. Of course I never did manage to duplicate all the work she had done on my face. And over the next few weeks I tried to remember to use the moisturizer and all the other “clean up “stuff before I went to bed but these bottles soon found their way to the back of my bathroom cabinets.

I also discovered that within a few days when applying makeup I would reach for my old drugstore eye shadows and liners instead of the expensive stuff; partly because I liked the old stuff and partly because I wanted to save the new expensive Clinique stuff for special occasions. I must not have many special occasions for that was twenty-five years ago and I still have the original blush and a few other products! Did you know that you are supposed to throw out your makeup after a few months? Yeah right. As I said, I have some cosmetics that are old enough to vote, hell a few are almost old enough to be president!

Over time I eventually went back to the inexpensive drugstore makeup because if I were honest, I really don’t see any difference between the expensive and cheap products. So my wallet wins and I am back to the drugstore brands. But I must admit, it is still fun to occasionally stop by the department store cosmetic counters where they are really selling more than cosmetics. They are selling a dream, a fantasy where they pamper us and flatter us with their lotions, foundations, blushes and lipsticks while we pretend that we can be beautiful if only we would use these cosmetics…