So I was heading to the gym, in black yoga pants and a big shapeless T-shirt given me for donating blood, with the straggly bits of my past-due haircut scraped back in a two-inch semblance of a pony tail and the bits that were still too short sticking out crazily, no makeup, and wearing my son’s cast-off athletic shoes.
I had to stop for gas, though I thought seriously about waiting until I was decently dressed. I zoomed in to pay for the fuel, and of course ran into someone I knew. Blessing, to be precise.
“Sorry,” I said, “I’m on my way to the gym, and was hoping I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew.”
I thought about it while climbing imaginary hills on the treadmill. If it is wrong to subject Blessing to myself looking like a derelict, why is it right to do the same to the strangers at the gym? Or alternatively, if I can comfortably go to the gym looking like a derelict, does it really matter if I see someone I know?
I had just read Leonidas’s suggestion that makeup is like armor. I think it is — for women in my age and circumstances — like the galactic hitchhiker’s towel.
In case you haven’t read Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it is recommended that a person hitchhiking through space should always keep a towel handy. Not only is it useful, it also causes others to assume that someone who has a towel must also have soap, a facecloth, and all other needed accoutrements, and must therefore be on top of things. The others will then respond with friendliness and helpfulness, not fear.
“In my circumstances” is important, because I assume that the expectations for women who work as roustabouts or spend their free time organizing spontaneous grrl power performance art are different. For a woman like me, having an intentional-looking hairstyle, tidy clothes, and makeup is the default option. It means that I took the trouble to get dressed and am on top of things.
Not wearing makeup is a statement. The statement can be anything from “I won’t buy into patriarchal strictures on women” to “I’m too depressed to bother.” Woodall and Constantine suggest that we often think we are saying one thing and are really saying another. We think we are saying “I like a natural look” and really we’re saying “I’m afraid you won’t take me seriously if I dress well.” We think we are saying “My children come first” and really we are saying “I feel invisible.” We think we are saying “I just like to be comfortable” and really we are saying “I’m not comfortable with my body.”
Back in my hose-and-heels days, I attended a seminar on personal power where they told us that women in our positions should have “polished” makeup. If we wore it some days and not others, they said, we were saying “I am on top of things…. sometimes.” It made us seem less trustworthy.
That’s where I am. Some days I bother to get properly dressed like a grownup and some days I don’t. I may know that on the days when I don’t it is because I have been too engaged with Art or Study and ran out of time, but the people I meet don’t know that I wasn’t too engaged with soap operas and online poker, do they?
Our song for today has some image problems. It is a Victorian hymn by John Goss, “See, Amid the Winter Snow.” The Victorians never seemed to catch on that Bethlehem wouldn’t have been all that snowy, even if Jesus had been born in midwinter. And there is the line right near the beginning of the hymn, “See, the tender Lamb appears” which reminds British singers of lunch. The last verse asks the Virgin Mary to pray for us, which kicks it out of Protestant churches. It also extols humility and meekness in true Victorian fashion, a choice which isn’t popular in America today.
So it probably isn’t in your hymnal. But that is a mistake, because the tune has everything. The verse is simple and lovely, just the thing to showcase a pure, sweet treble solo voice. Then the refrain has repetitions of “Hail!” in mighty trumpet-like voices followed by a grand and stately bit. The whole thing finishes up with a sustained high note which you can do triple fortissimo for a big finish.
If you go caroling, consider doing this song. The people you visit will be rushing around looking for good cookies and hot cider for you. No matter how you are dressed.
Here are the completed moccasins I was telling you about.
And here, some completed omiyage.
Maybe being a grown up is also realizing that you can be natural and beautiful all the same. Isn’t it when we transcend the superficial that we truly reach a place of enlightenment?…
A note for later readers: I’m not talking about beauty here, though I understand why a young (?) man would think that is what makeup is about.
Handsome moccasins; beautiful omiyage; way to go!
As for your “grooming” habits, lack of attention to “power dressing,” and the like, it’s probably not your fault. I suspect that it may have something to do with the way you were brought up. The blame for it should, I believe, be laid at the feet (or wherever) of your mother, who may not have been an adequate role model in this regard.
What if you never wear makeup or a purposeful looking hairstyle? What does that say about you? (Wondering since that’s the case with me. I’ve just never cared enough about the way I look to get up an extra twenty minutes early for grooming).
the moccasins are quite handsome! as are the omiyage. are they for tiny little gifties?
as to makeup, i was counselled by my mother (at an appropriate age) that getting up, washing your face and putting on a dab of makeup are the minimum requirements. she used to often say (in regards to her unhappy younger sister) “…just a dab of lipstick and mascara would make all the difference…” which i thought was so funny. now i think she meant putting a little effort into her appearance might have helped her feel better about herself.
i do not wear gobs of makeup. i will not, however, go out makeup-less even if it is only mascara & lipstick….. i think i look invisible without it.
RYC: Well, the times that I have worn makeup have been for unusual occasions that required me to have prominent makeup (i.e. stage shows or auditions) – so maybe I just don’t know how long it takes or how much is neccessary for “everyday” wearing. But, yes, it seems like doing makeup and hair for me would take at least an extra twenty minutes in the morning, if not longer.
And – I’m twenty-seven, so I guess I’m just on the verge of not being “charmingly natural” anymore 😉
I don’t wear makeup much of the time because I’m just too darn good looking to bother with it.
I also do not wear makeup except for the times I’m on stage, or the rare occasions I am all dressed up for going somewhere fancy. When one starts working at 17 in a job that requires one to climb up ladders into dusty, dirty attics and climb down stairs into damp and dirty basements and clean oil and grease off telephone eqpt, makeup is not a viable option. Imagine, lubrication oil on your fingers, fingers rubbing a made-up face, wonderful smears of a conglomeration of oil, makeup foundation and eye makeup. None of the few females I knew who worked as techs wore makeup on an every day basis . I hated makeup anyway because I was dancing on stage as a child and we had to wear lots of makeup then. I hated the feel and smell of it then and I guess that dislike never left me. When I was older I also remember speaking to married women who told me that they would always get up early in the morning so that they could have their makeup on before their husband woke up in the morning. They bragged that their men had never seen them without makeup. I find that deeply disturbing. The thing with makeup is that it only looks really good on people with a good skin as incorrectly applied it emphasises all the flaws and lines in the skin. If you have a good skin however, you don’t really need to wear makeup. I have a cousin who has the most amazing skin I have ever seen. She is 45 , does not wear makeup and still looks as if she is barely out of her 20s. (She does however keep her hair dyed so that the grey does not show but because her face looks so young I can understand why she would like to hide the grey)
As someone who is in her heels and hose stage of life, I believe there is something to this notion. I myself am required always to be polished, not that I am often slovenly looking (b/c let’s face it, you have 30-60 seconds upon meeting in which you will be measured and labeled – all we have is how we look).
I was actually just talking to my Saturday date about this – we are both stylish dressers (he more fashionable and I more classical, but still) – and on our way out were sniggering at a teen, listening to gangster rap, dressed in A&F, driving his mother’s Nissan. My date commented that it was “things like that” (I assume people who are spoiled yuppies listening to the music of the down and out, if you will) that make him despise little towns.
We concluded, however, that perhaps he just dressed convincingly and was a little downtrodden – not that anyone could have known from his dress.
Grooming is like posture. It isn’t a sign of conceit or the need to be seen as prettier than normal. We do not look at people with poor posture and think “they stand that way because they are naturally beautiful” anymore than we look at people with good posture and think they are hiding something.
It is important to note that I also think judgements based on visual cues about a person’s appearance are not entirely conscious.
Yet still, Coco Chanel put it best when saying, “Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.”
I don’t know how to put on makeup. When I was in a friend’s wedding back in April I had to borrow another bridesmaid’s foundation, and she had to put it on me. My mother didn’t wear makeup often, and I didn’t have the kinds of schoolfriends who would show me that sort of thing.
By now it’s pure stubbornness that keeps me away from the stuff. It’s also possible I really am saying “I’m not comfortable with my looks.” That is certainly a true statement, if not one I would have guessed was reflected in my lack of cosmetics.