My first three weeks of beauty school was a true test of patience, devotion, and a dose of humility. Why? Because the topic was makeup. And for the last eight years, I have worked for one of the world's leading artistry brands of cosmetics. So I hoped for the best but had to give myself a dose of shut-my-mouth when I walked though the classroom doors. When I saw my teacher, I was shocked. She was older and [I can respect experience] but the neon green eyeshadow I just cannot respect! Especially for someone in their 70's! It's just not a good look. Sadly, she was still a practicing makeup artist. And for the next three weeks, I painfully suffered through her tales of working on celebrities and how she came to be a makeup artist. She asked if anyone had experience in cosmetics and I slowly raised my hand, like an automatic car window not properly functioning, squeaking the whole way up. From that moment, whenever she would need consensus on a makeup topic, she would look at me and shake her head yes and say "don't you think?". "No" is what I wanted to say but already knew that a debate would only make the class longer. So I would give her a half smile in acknowledgement and she would move on with the lecture. Every class, when she wasn't raving about her own experience, she would rave about mineral makeup. I started thinking she was a network marketer and we would all soon be converted to minerals through her subliminal messages, or should I say, not so subliminal.
Have I mentioned the tapes? Because there were tapes (yes, that's right, VHS tapes) of dated makeup applications, circa 1980. I gasped when I saw how they were trying to "fix" the faces of the models. According to the video, the desired face shape is oblong. For the rest of the 90% of the population, you have to fake the funk via contouring of the foundation. For example, for a round face, the makeup artist on the VHS tape advised the model to use a darker foundation along her jawline to minimize the roundness of her face and make it appear more oblong. Of course! That's it! No one should accept who they are and feel pretty!!! I've been teaching women wrong for so many years. (If you haven't detected it, this is sarcasm).
On the days we were to do "makeovers" (I loathe this word) on each other, I did learn something. I learned that when women confessed to me that they do not know how to apply makeup, they weren't lying. I watched the Gilligan's stumble around, not knowing how to pick color, match skin, etc. This was the best lesson I received from these three weeks. In teaching other women how to apply makeup, I need to watch them apply it to themselves and see how their application can be tweaked. I digress.
Makeup section complete and now onto skincare techniques and clinics. Two months down!!
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