Making It Up As I Go Along Read Free

about twelve I smothered my face in her
foundation and I was stunned – I looked … well, FABULOUS!My
whey-white Celtic skin was bright orange – I think it was actually the law at the time
that all foundation sold in Ireland be that colour – and the chic way to apply it was to
cut it off at the jawline so that the face looked like an orange lollipop, balanced on a white
neck.
    Mesmerized by my own orange loveliness, I gazed
at myself in the mirror, seeing that the white bits of my eyes looked extra-white and the green
bits looked extra-green and my shameful freckles had been banished entirely. The transformative
effects of make-up were never so obvious, and because I’d always felt like an ugly little
yoke I vowed that this magic gear would be part of my life for evermore.
    Funds, of course, were initially a problem. But
mercifully my new love of cosmetics coincided very neatly with the traditional early-teenage
shoplifting years and I was down in Woolworths in Dún Laoghaire most Saturdays, relieving
them of the odd kohl pencil or lipstick. (I’ve since repented and am very sorry for that
carry-on. If I could go back and change things I would, but that’s life, isn’t it?
We all do things we subsequently regret and the guilt is our punishment.)
    But enough of the philosophizing and on with the
make-up! I got my first job when I was seventeen, and from the day I got my first pay cheque to
one morning about three months ago I quite literally NEVER left the house without wearing
foundation. I really mean it. No matter how tired I felt, no matter how poor I was, foundation
was my bridge to the outside world. I genuinely felt I wouldn’t be able to look someone in
the eye without it. My desert-island product would have been foundation, because if I
hadn’t any, I wouldn’t have been able to jump around on the beach, waving my T-shirt
and shouting at a rare passing ship to please rescue me. Instead I’d have to hide behind a
coconut tree, to protect the pirates from getting ashocking gawk at my
freckly clob. (What happened about three months ago was I had IPL on my face which did some
quare business where my freckles all disappeared and my skin became – and forgive me for
sounding like a boasty boaster – very fresh and even. Apparently the trauma of the IPL
(which stands for Intense Pulsed Light) stimulated bow-coo de collagen. I was told that this
would happen, but in my heart I think that anyone who makes a promise like this is a liar and no
one was more surprised than me that it actually really did work. I mean, it won’t last,
I’ll have to go back and get it done again at some stage, and it’s a) spendy and b)
painful beyond description. But still!
    In my twenties I moved to London and shared a
flat with two other girls and lipstick became our non-negotiable product. Chanel lipstick, no
less. We lurched from pay cheque to pay cheque, borrowing and bartering, barely able to keep
ourselves in Jacob’s Creek, and yet we prioritized Chanel lipstick. Red, of course.
Because it was empowering, so we were told. We’d get promotions if we wore red lipstick.
We’d run the world if we wore red lipstick. We’d get on the property ladder and
learn to drive and get married if we wore red lipstick. Anyway …
    Despite the red Chanel lipstick, my life hit the
skids in spectacular fashion when it transpired that I’d become a little too fond of the
Jacob’s Creek and I ended up in rehab. (Even there, I wore foundation every single day.)
After six weeks I emerged and at high speed my life changed course and I started writing a book
and got a publishing deal and met a lovely man and got married – so maybe, in a roundabout
way, the red lipstick
did
work!
    Then I got a gig doing a make-up column, and to
this very day I still say it’s the nicest thing that’s ever happened to me. I swear
to God, you have no idea! Free make-up began arriving at the house in the PEOLs (Padded
Envelopes of Loveliness). My firstbatch