Since, last week, I discussed my struggles with business casual, this week I’m turning to another element of my new half-career: makeup. That’s vague, yes, I realize, but what I mean is, I started wearing nicer clothes but my face still looked rough.

Oh, Mary, don’t say that! You look fine!

Okay, is that out of your system? Good. Now, to makeup.

My relationship with it is, like most things in my life, dictated by my laziness. During college, I would rather have slept an extra half hour in the morning than worry about my appearance. But now, I’ve gotten tired of looking in the mirror and seeing how tired I look. While I was in Central America, I went makeup free because I’d have sweat it all off before I got to school in the morning. New York, try hard as it may, does not compare to the heat and grossness I dealt with in Nicaragua but, especially, Panama. Plus, it’s not like I didn’t know how messy I looked when I was there. If you go through my photos, you’ll notice an abundance of landscapes and a lack of selfies. I didn’t want evidence.

So, now that the most I sweat is on the walk to and from Penn Station, it’s time to start looking like a member of society. I say all of these things with a grain of salt, obviously, since if you don’t wear makeup and rock it, that’s a-ok by me. Personally, at least recently, I’ve become more conscious of how I want to look, and makeup is one way in which I will tackle that particularly difficult hurdle. That red-faced hurdle.

Buying makeup was similar to buying nice clothes in that I haven’t looked for any in forever. I went to CVS because I’m poor and am not calm enough to walk into Ulta or Sephora. Even so, I spent an hour trying to decide which BB Cream I wanted, which powder, which brand. How do people do this professionally? SOS.

So, stay tuned for my misadventures in makeup. I promise it will be entertaining, if not informative.

mary