when my oldest daughter (a very modest young woman) was seventeen, she mentioned that she wasn’t sure she wanted bunches of kids. why? because moms with so many kids look so worried and worn out.
she was talking about me.
since then, I’ve worn makeup almost every day for the last 5 years. if i go out, i wear make-up. i’m out of the house a lot. i’m 46.
when i look at pics of me in my 30’s i cringe. my hair was long and unkept, my clothes sloppy (i was thinking Bohemian, but they were really just sloppy) my face was blotchy, half pale, half red, and i had dark circles under my eyes. i showered every day, but i looked like i was dragged down the street by a tractor.
no wonder back then, with 5 or 6 or 7 kids in tow, people (including rude strangers) felt like they had permission to make suggestions about my lack of sleep/ family size/ eating habits/ etc. “Oh honey, when is it time for you…?” i didn’t know it, but perhaps i was a negative witness for Catholic marriage and openness to life. worse still, maybe i was becoming a negative witness to my own kids, especially daughters.
Saint Paul said, “when you are in Rome…”
well, i’m not in Rome, but here in un-Rome, well-groomed women:
keep their hair neat (I cut mine quite short)
wear decent clothes (now i buy the best i can find at salvation army, not the most funky bohemian styles)
groom their nails (i stopped biting mine and wear a clear gloss every day)
wear make-up if necessary (and it’s necessary for me if i don’t want to look exhausted and harried.)
folks seem to perceive me as happier/ better adjusted/ less harried/ now with ten kids than back when i had half as many. that good impression makes me a more positive witness for Catholic motherhood. smiling helps a lot, too.
what make-up do i wear? a lot. i start every day with a skin care routine-- cleanser and moisture. i wear a some concealer, a light foundation, mascara, blush, lip gloss and a cream colored shadow to lighten my old-looking eye lids.
i didn’t know how to put makeup on, so i learned from a Mary Kay consultant. when one of my sisters watched me put my make-up on, she was amazed that i wore so many products and they were so invisible. they simply make me look better, not made-up. (the mascara looks like make-up.)
coffee/ shower/ hair/ make-up and more coffee takes me 20- 25 minutes. i always have the company of several kids while i’m at it. i’m never alone.
i wear earrings every day too.
and many days i wear a natural scent called “Holy Water” which is misnamed. it is precisely the beautiful scent of a baptized baby.
my husband absolutely prefers this look.
“Wives should ask yourselves whether you are not forgetting a little about your appearance… Your duty is and always will be to take as good care of your appearance as you did before you were married and it is a duty of justice because you belong to your husband… husbands… have the obligation to show the same affection as a young man who has just fallen in love. It would be a bad sign if you smile ironically as you hear this; it would mean that your love has turned into cold indifference.” Jose Maria Escriva,*** Christ is Passing By***
as others have mentioned, it ***could ***be expensive. but for several years i’ve been selling MaryKay-- not a huge business, just enough to sell products to all my family and friends at a good discount, then i get my products for free. i place 4 big orders a year. my gal pals and sisters know when it’s time to order, know they’ll be saving 25% and they love that. and i get my stuff for free.
This is a lovely post. Thank you. I love Mary Kay products.
My mother, God rest her soul, wore makeup every day, even after she got arthritis and all of her joints, including her jaw joints, were twisted and deformed. She enjoyed having the ladies in the nursing home make her up and also do her hair. Even when she was at her sickest, my daughters said she was “cute.”
If my mom said it was OK to wear makeup it’s OK! End of discussion as far as I’m concerned!
I have such red skin (rosacea) that I have to wear foundation, or people stop me and ask, “Are you alright?” I literally look like Freddy Freeloader (red nosed, flushed skin, blotchy) without foundation. I don’t think red skin is what God gave me–I think that’s what the Fall of Adam and Eve gave me–bad skin. It’s a symptom of the fallen world we live in and the sinful condition of all mankind–flawed, red, blotchy skin. It’s not normal and it’s not pretty at all.
I remember back when I was younger–I had gotten out of the habit of wearing makeup. One day I applied makeup (foundation, eye makeup, lip color), and went to teach the children’s choir. One of the little boys said, “You look beautiful!”
Expensive? I disagree. If you divide the cost of foundation up over the number of days you apply it, it’s only a few pennies a day. Same for other makeups, except for mascara–that should be tossed after a month or so (bacterial buildup in the tube).
However, I do not wear perfume and I wish that all of YOU and the rest of the world wouldn’t wear perfume. I get such bad headaches and sometimes I throw up. I especially hate it when people wear perfume to church, the theater, a restaurant, the gym–well, anywhere, because I don’t like having headaches and throwing up. That doesn’t make me feel pretty. Perfume is FORBIDDEN in the hospital where I work, thank goodness. If I am near someone wearing perfume, I move away from them.
And I don’t dye my hair. (My daughters do–my older daughter dyed her hair lavender when she interviewed for her first theater job, and got the job!) My hair was blonde until I got older and started going gray. Right now it’s a gray-blonde, and I really like the color! Lots of people on my dad’s side were the same way.
I have no objection when other people dye their hair, although I really don’t like that “blue” color that some older people have. And I hate it when roots show!
DH is a TV news anchor, and would look like a ghost under the lights if didn’t have his Max Factor pancake makeup at the ready.
)
But, he knew the time constraints and was considerate.