Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. I have a question.
That question is: where does the make-up go by 5:00 p.m. that I so artistically apply at 6:00 o’clock in the wee hours of the morning? Huh? Inquiring minds want to know.
I gently apply foundation. I whisk on a delicate layer of blush. I artfully line my eyes. I apply highlight colors to my brow bone, mid-tones to my eyelid, and darker accent colors to the creases in my eyelid. I brush on mascara to make my eyes look bold and daring. I finish by adding a succulent defining lip color. (Actually, I usually say I swab the decks but that doesn’t sound very sophisticated . . .)
When I leave the bathroom, my eyes sparkle with light. My complexion glows. I’m off for a great day at work.
When I trudge home at 6:00 p.m., nary a sign of make-up can be found on my face. It’s back to the blah, boring, brown-ness of me. Where did all that color go?
Did the ‘ugly’ fairies swing by rappel lines from my eyebrows with rags in their little hands to scrub off my eye shadow? Do they skate across my cheekbones with buffing cloths wrapped around their feet to remove all traces of blush and foundation? Do they take hammer and chisel to chip off my mascara?
Do they spray cans and cans of ‘naturalizer’ onto my face to bring out every freckle, pimple, and blemish that I so craftily hid with concealer? Do they use Harry Potter’s invisiblity cloak to hide the make-up so that everyone see the real me instead?
You, my Dear Reader, would probably tell me that my skin absorbs my make-up. To that, I say hogwash.
If you spill red Kook-Aid on white carpet, the carpet absorbs the Kook-Aid. But you can still see the red punch.
If I splash grape juice from my sippie cup at breakfast onto my white corporate blouse and I wipe off the grape juice, you can still see the purple blotch on my blouse because it has absorbed the grape juice.
When my children wear white socks while jumping off red sand dunes in Moab, no amount of bleach or Tide will make them white because the socks have absorbed that Moab sandstone red-ness into the very fiber of their being.
So, once again I ask: Where does my make-up go by the end of the day?
By the way, wrinkled was not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up . . .