24. Makeup

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as Youtube. (The first ever Youtube video went up in 2005 and it featured one of the teenage founders at the zoo - it's really not worth watching, no really, don't do it). 

It meant that teenage girls had to learn how to put on makeup through a challenging, and frequently mortifying process of trial and error. It involved nicking foundation from mum’s cupboard, or possibly from Boots (ummm, just kidding). Many mistakes were made, green eye shadow being one of them. Baby blue eyeliner another. Navy mascara...you get the picture. 

These days, there are more makeup tutorials online than you can shake a mascara wand at. It’s nice, watching smooth-skinned beauties play about with lotions and potions as they describe the “literally life-changing” effects of a tinted moisturiser, and say things like, “I’m just blending this cream into my eyelids, right up to the crease.” 

As ever though, I have my doubts.

You see, when it comes to makeup, I believe that a certain amount of natural intuition is the best weapon against looking a touch clowny. It’s the same with clothes. Just as a short, generously thighed gal should steer clear of oh-so-fashionable calf-length culottes, so should some people never wear orange lipstick. In short, fashion is not our friend and trends conspire to make us look ridiculous. 

The problem is, these Youtube tutorials make out that everyone can copy the same makeup style and still look good. There are tutorials that promise to make you look like Emma Watson or Taylor Swift or Bella Hadid that never acknowledge that those people have had their makeup meticulously matched to their faces.  
It’s nothing to do with attractiveness, it simply comes down to skin tone. One of the most formative books I ever read about makeup (okay, the only book I ever read about makeup, I do have a life you know) was called Colour Me Beautiful (available in all good book shops, by which I mean, Amazon). It's an excellent tome, published some time in the 1980s. 

The book asks a series of questions and then divides everyone into four seasons depending on skin tone, hair colour etc. It then provides a set of colours to suit each season. So, a black jumper that looks striking on a Winter will only wash out a rosy-cheeked Summer. Brown eye shadow that would compliment an Autumn, will look like poo when smeared on the eyelids of a Spring.

The book is, it has to be said, quite eighties. Some of the hair styles are frankly intimidating. But these women knew their stuff. Most importantly, they knew that blindly copying some else’s style is not a recipe for ravishing beauty.

Another thing the book offers is a sense of simplicity. Less is more and other such cliches apply. Is it me, or are there an awful lot of products around these days? Whenever the opportunity presents itself on the morning commute, I watch women go through makeup routines of alarming complexity. Pot after pot of flesh-coloured goop emerge from heaving, powdery sacks, probably home to more bacteria than the average toilet seat. At best, the products simply disappear into the general mass of stuff already on the face. At worst, they don't.

You see, humans are fairly good at seeing. It means we can normally tell what a person looks like beneath their makeup. An eight-out-of-ten might jump to a nine with a bit of mascara and concealer, but a nine is where they will stay, even if they apply fifty more products. And that is why, from now on, I shall be eschewing any product that calls itself "highlighter" with a firm hand.

P.s. I’m talking about real life people here. As we all know, people on screen are a totally different kettle of whatsits. And that is the trouble with screens. Whichever fool said the camera doesn't lie must turn in his grave every time someone applies a filter.

I’ll tell you what doesn't lie - sunlight. Which is why it’s very important to make anyone you admire for their looks stand in direct sunlight for as long as it takes for you to feel less bitter.