When Tessa comes home from The State's University it's an event. We're expected to offer a standing ovation and post welcome signs and hire a band and, well, I'm getting a little carried away. But it IS a big deal when the nest gets filled back up, even briefly, with either of our daughters or our son-in-law.
When Tessa comes home she often uses my dressing table to get herself ready for whatever the next thing is that requires more than her "I'm at home and no one can see me" uniform of sofie shorts, a sweatshirt stolen from my closet and a makeup-free face. She often leaves some of the essentials of beauty back at the sorority house, since her arms are full of laundry and books when she makes her entrance. And she knows my chi is her chi. My blush, her blush.
The last time she was home though, she had a few words of admonition for me. Apparently my collection of beauty products is, well, pathetic. A woman of a certain age, she instructed, would typically have more invested in her beauty products.
What can I say. I'm low maintenance.
When I heard she was headed to the mall I hitched a ride in hopes she would take me by the hand and show me the wonders of Sephora. And she did. She scoured the store looking for just the right shade of eye shadow, a self-sharpening eyeliner and a really good makeup brush. She definitely knows her stuff.
My one contribution was to suggest looking for an eye shadow primer to help that expensive eye shadow stay put. We rounded up one of the many roving Sephora experts, who was happy to show us three options. If you've frequented these types of places, you know they have samples open for you to try. Except the one brand I wanted to try didn't have an open sample.
Stick with me. I have a point.
We stood there and watched her open a brand new primer, stroke it across the back of Tessa's hand to demonstrate, then wait while we decided on our purchase. Tessa went with another brand, but I wanted the brand we had just sampled. It made perfect sense to me to just grab the sample out of the woman's hand. We opened it ten seconds ago, for pete's sake. Why waste it! Apparently that's just not done. After a brief game of tug-of-war, the Sephora woman won, insisting that I should take an unopened primer. No amount of my low-maintenance, mother-who-apparently-doesn't-get-out-much logic would convince her otherwise.
At one point in the brief wrestling match I looked over at Tessa for moral support but she had miraculously teleported herself to the far corner of the store and was engrossed in reading the fine print on a $50 tube of mascara like there was going to be a pop quiz. Judging by the disappearing routine, I was doing it all wrong. Fine. I'll take the stupid unopened tube and get the heck out of Dodge before humiliating my makeup savant any further.
Apparently you can dress me up, but you can't take me anywhere but Walmart.
3 comments:
You are brave to even talk to one of the Sephora people. I like that store, its very shiny. Hey Tessa!!! Come help me find makeup!!!! I don't have anything but neutrals!! I also frequently get mascara in my eyes!
As a woman of similar age (give or take 4 minutes) I was just shaking my Walgreens foundation bottle upside down this morning, trying to get the last bits out, when it occurred to me that I might need to get more serious about the quality of my paint. I hear there are products that might do something for my puffy eyes too. They probably don't sell that at Walgreens. Would Tessa enlighten the aunty? (Did I just hear a sigh?)
FIFTY DOLLAR TUBE OF MASCARA!!!! They only cost five bucks at Walgreens!
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