#28 - Face Facts

Face Facts

5/21/04 (#28)

"We hold these truths to be self-evident", Jefferson wrote. Yet he chronicled said truths none the less, in case what was self-evident to some was an unspoken mystery to others. There are other self-evident truths that require discussion, and using Jefferson as my model, I will speak of them here. Certain women might be offended that I dare to tread upon ground that is theirs to walk; certain men may curse me for suggesting a revolution that they have no desire to see occur. But it needs to be spoken.

The truth is this: Women of the world, I assure you---you do not need cosmetics.

Of course, I recognize that my opinion is moot, since most of you don't wear cosmetics to impress men, let alone me. After all, men are so easily impressed that judicious use of a catchy phrase like "Hi" can easily take the place of a 15-minute make-up application. I think most would agree: Women wear cosmetics to impress other women. Even the most fabulous, powerful, independent women I know are sometimes party to the cattiness about which most woman complain. (Case in point: My wife, who is the most fabulous, most powerful, and most independent woman I have the pleasure of knowing (and my life is blessed with many of them) accompanied me to a semi-dressy event recently. We were there for about 5 minutes when I leaned over and said, "Check out this woman's shoes." Without looking over, she said, "Bill, I'm a woman. I have already seen her shoes.")

But shoes? I get shoes. Despite a circle of male friends who single-handedly attempt to keep Converse in business, the theory of "accessorizing" was clearly illuminated to me with the first pair of discounted Cole-Hahn lace-ups that I took home from Nordstrom Rack. They were a revelation to my feet, so comfortable and stylish that I actually felt a rush of confidence wearing them; it was impossible to repress the swagger that these shoes brought to my gait. The cheapskate in me (who is, frustratingly, the chairman of the internal committee) still prefers to shop at Target for togs, where the options are perfectly sensible, fiscally prudent, and not at all like those Cole-Hahns. One does not swagger in loafers from a department store. Despite this frugal nature, when we go to Nordstrom Rack, my eyes scouring the sloppily piled shelves for something affordable, something functional, my gaze is inevitably drawn to the beautiful, classically styled footwear that even at the discount price sell for upwards of $100. I hate that I like them; I loathe that my eye is even attracted to them; but damn, there are some bad-ass shoes out there.

Make-up, though, that's a different story. (And not simply because I haven't tried the Cole Hahn equivalent in rouge.) Cosmetics is an industry built around diminishing the self-image of their own clientele. They claim to make the wearer more vivacious, alluring, irresistible, but in such claims imply that without it, well honey, you look like the lunch ladies in your junior high cafeteria. I have known women who look very attractive wearing cosmetics, but all of these women look just as beautiful without the synthetic mask. And imagine this fabulous irony: Americans spend $45.2 billion dollars* on eye-liner, foundation, mascara, lip-stick, and facial creams, yet much of this is spent on facial creams designed to help the skin heal from damage caused by cosmetics themselves! Now there's an industry with effective diversification---it's like the NRA owning a chain of hospitals.

45.2 billion dollars! By comparison, total sales of books in America that same year was 16.2 billion dollars.* Admittedly, eye-liner doesn't last as long as a book, and when you're done with it you can't use it again, but none the less, that's a strange juxtaposition of unrelated figures. Doubly so when one considers that likely half of the books are purchased by men, a percentage much lower in the case of cosmetics. (Robert Smith excepted, of course.)

Allow me to illustrate the make-up/book dichotomy with a story from my youth: Jenkin's beach, a lake-front sandbar popular with many of the teens from my region of Maine. Every summer day, it would be populated with a wide array of pale-skinned adults, bratty little cherubs, professional-tanner teen girls in bikinis and horny teen boys pretending not to care about the bikini-clad girls. There on the beach was my very beautiful classmate Anne, wearing make-up applied at 9 that morning, unable to swim for the inevitable raccoon eyes that would result, and a gaggle of boys sitting just out of ear shot saying things like, "man, she's so hot", "man, if only...", blah blah blah. On the other side of the beach was equally beautiful Irene, who every time I saw her at Jenkin's was reading some ancient text, the quintessential star of a thinking-adolescent's fantasy. Irene wore no make-up, swam to her heart's content, and when boys out of earshot spoke, the tone was completely different---our voices were lower, free of adolescent braggadocio, aware of the reverence her personage deserved. Irene elicited little more than groans and hums from the boys, each lost in a daydream that we sensed would never come to reality but which our hearts could not help but imagine. Anne got attention; Irene got adoration.

And yet $45 billion gets spent on cosmetics, and $16 billion on books? This youthful recollection juxtaposed against those sales figures clearly illuminates the complexity of the situation. (Well, perhaps not "clearly", but it certainly seems suspicious.)

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the cosmetics industry---there are many occasions where their products play a vital role, including:

• Sporting Events: nothing shows team spirit like painting your face to match the team mascot, and who better to help you to that goal than Mac and Maybelline? Lipstick goes on easy, covers completely, and effortlessly transforms your face into the New Jersey Devil itself.
• Pre-dawn attacks: the indigenous Americans were on to something with their war paints, their faces transformed into menacing expressions that clearly indicated that they meant business. (Admittedly, some modern club-goers seem to use their make-up kits for exactly that effect.)
• Disguises: incognito-in-a-case, that's what Revlon offers. Need to sneak out the back door in a restaurant whose floor plan provides no such option of discretion? Quickly transform yourself into a distorted version of yourself, and you will be out the door well before anyone can say, "Hey, was that Krusty the Clown?" (It should be noted that Krusty is a professional. For him, make-up is not a fashion statement, it's a way of life.)
• Membership in Motley Crue: with their revolving cast of characters, mullet-sporting fans might get suspicious if they realize that Nikki Sixx is in fact playing with a roster of no-name hair-band has-beens. But as long as everyone in the band dolls themselves up like original members did for the Shout at the Devil album cover, the average Pabst-compromised rocker is just going to raise his fist and yell "Girls, Girls, Girls." (Hopefully referring to the song, and not the band members themselves.)

But outside of those circumstances, I can see no place for it in the life of the American woman. You are all beautiful. Let yourselves be.

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* I got these figures on the Internet. I didn't make a note of where, but they were from reliable sources. And if that's good enough for G.W., it's good enough for me.

©2004 wpreagan