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How To Be a Girl, sort of

I almost never used to wear make-up, and I'll admit to being conflicted about using it now. On the one hand, it's fun and makes me feel girly and I like the way it makes me look. Also, it's necessary to any kind of adorable 40s/50s look, of which I'm a fan. On the other hand, I live in fear of getting to the point where I'm more comfortable with my face with makeup than without. The embracing of a kind of artificial, post-war, exaggerated feature beauty brings with it its own set of questions.

However, given all that, I still gain a perverse amount of joy from watching the Jane Marie How to Be a Girl videos. Her attitude is hilarious and I think I like them bc she seems to be saying, "I'm doing this crap and it's fun and if you want to do it too, that's cool, but if you don't, that is also cool. Also, playing with colored eyeshadow is fun and you can put almost anything on your face, and if you work it, people won't think you're crazy." Or maybe I'm just reading into it what I hope she's saying. One of my favorite examples is the eyeshadow trilogy.

And another favorite blog, Jezebel, has a feature called Worth It, in which they endorse totally useful products that they have not received for free and actually use. They recommend all kinds of crap, but a lot of the initial posts were about beauty products and I am super thrilled that I use a whole crap ton of the things they recommend, such as my favorite moisturizer. I'm sure there's some mental in-grouping happening here - Oh, I use the same stuff, so I'm cool like them. But also, having come late to the makeup game, I've tried lots of different products without a lot of youthful brand loyalty. It's nice to know that I've manages to end up using products on my face that don't suck. It's like confirmation that I'm doing this whole thing right.

And, a final note. Jane Marie often mentions her highlighter and how much she loves it, and I always thought that was silly, except then I bought one. Specifically this one:


It's from Smashbox and I bought the pearl one. It's subtle, yet gives me this little glow that is amazing. Even when I'm tired, which is often. It's probably the most expensive single product I've bought to put on my face ever ($32 from Ulta), but it blends really smoothly and doesn't make me look like a clown, so I can safely say that when this one runs out, I'll be buying another.

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