My Mother and Makeup

Image from Feminiya.com

As we near Mother's Day I thought it would be nice to share a story about my Mom and makeup (this is a beauty blog after all.)  My mother and I have not always seen eye to eye with regards to beauty and makeup and sometimes we still do not.  As I look back over the years I can see how her style has influenced mine and vice versa.

My mother is quite old fashioned when it comes to makeup and beauty.  She believes that makeup is for special occasions and people who wear unnatural looking makeup are promiscuous or crazy.  She is a low maintenance type of person who wears very little makeup on a daily basis and has a basic skin, body, and haircare routine.  My mother claims her views on beauty come from her mother who was strict about not letting my mom wear makeup until she was old enough.  My mother tried to be strict with me about makeup and such, but I have always been a rebellious child.  I think I was thirteen when I started wearing makeup regularly; I would get to school and rush to the bathroom to apply it before class.  I was not allowed to wear makeup until I was sixteen and that was only because I was in a dance group and our faces needed to be seen from the stage.

My mother was born in the fifties and her beauty style has evolved through the decades.  I have seen pictures of her from the sixties with a beehive hairdo and false lashes; pictures from the seventies where she had long straight hair and black eyeliner; pictures from the eighties where she had big hair, wore blue eyeshadow and red blush.  Her style has not really evolved much since then.  Today's beauty looks focus more on enhancing natural beauty and looking like you are not wearing makeup at all.  My mom definitely does not know how to achieve the naturally flawless look.  Her go-to look is wearing mascara and lip gloss.  I can't really blame her because that was my go-to look as well (sometimes it still is.)

As my interest in makeup grew, so did hers.  She sees how I wear my makeup and wants to copy my style, but does not know how to get there. Because I am her daughter, she does not trust me to get her there.  She thinks that makeovers are the domain of professionals and that they know best (this is her belief in most areas of life.)  My mother is also a hoarder of products.  She grew up in a poor household and has an overly frugal mentality.  She has to use every last drop before it is okay for her to dispose of a product.  Unfortunately, she gets bored of products easily and decides to buy new ones before using even half of the old ones.  She will also continue using a product even if it is giving her a bad reaction (yikes!)

After I cleaned out my beauty stash I was curious about hers.  I took one look at the overcrowded, unsanitary mess that had been accumulating under her bathroom sink for the last 20 years and nearly threw up from disgust.  I tried to convince her that she needed to clean out her old stuff but the task was too overwhelming for her.  She would not even let me dispose of a mostly empty bottle of body lotion that was dried out and smelled really bad.  As a hoarder it is really hard for her to let go of things.  So I did what any good daughter would do;  I waited until she left home one night and went in to clean it out myself.  As I was going through things I realized that pretty much everything had gone bad or was mostly empty so I ended up throwing out EVERYTHING.  I found cosmetics from the sixties and seventies in there (kinda cool) but they obviously were not safe to use.  I also found mouse droppings and had to sanitize the area.  When she got home she was furious and panicking.  I calmed her by telling her that I would replace some of the items.

I told my mom that I would help her pick out new makeup, but she wanted a "professional" to tell her what to buy.  So, I took her to Macy's and she chose the Lancome counter to give her a makeover.  Unfortunately, she got a trainee or something who did not seem to know how to apply makeup properly;  My poor mother ended up looking like a clown. To make it worse she had me purchase all of the items the girl used on her because she felt bad and was too scared to tell the girl that she did not want them.  So I paid about $250 on makeup I knew she would not use.  We got home and the bag sat there for a week, untouched.  I had her tell me what she did not want, which was almost all of it, and I returned the rest.

A couple of week's later I booked an appointment at Sephora for a makeup application for my mom.  I though that Sephora would do better; sadly I was mistaken.  The girl knew how to apply makeup, just not on a mature woman's face.  She put way too much makeup on my mom and it looked bad.  Again, my mom had me buy the products only to return them.

After all of that I told her that I was going to buy some items that I thought she needed and might actually use.  She kept a purple Lancome eyeshadow palette and a coffee brown eyeliner from the first makeover and a pink Kat Von D blush from Sephora.  She is a lip product junkie so I did not have to worry about buying her lip products.  I bought her a Physician's Formula CC Cream and face powder because I know that she does not use foundation on a daily basis. I thought it would be an easy product for her to use if she wanted coverage and it is inexpensive so if she does not use it I did not waste too much money.  I purchased a waterproof mascara because she always complains that her mascara smudges during the day (I think it was a L'Oreal Voluminous.)  I purchased a neutral eyeshadow palette from NYX so she can do some easy natural eye looks.  I purchased an Eco Tools brush set for application.  I also purchased an eyelash curler for her from Lancome when I returned the other items.  That was about all she needed except for some cheap organizer trays.  So far, she uses the mascara, eyeliner, lip products, and blush.

One night when she was going out with friends she asked me to do her makeup and she was happy with the results.  I think she trusts me more now with her makeup than she did before the makeovers.  My overall goal was to get her to be more comfortable with makeup and to update her look and I think she is getting there. My goal this year is to get her a proper skin care regimen.

What is your Mother's beauty style?  Do you have any fun plans for Mother's Day?  Let me know in the comments.