{"id":88084,"date":"2015-07-22T18:55:07","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T22:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=88084"},"modified":"2015-07-27T17:53:03","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T21:53:03","slug":"beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/22\/beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

From a 1960s Avon ad.<\/p><\/div>\n

There are certain unpleasant life experiences that are not palliated by the fact that you know that they\u2019re meaningless. I am speaking here of something specific: the particular horror of being pressured into spending money on things you know you do not want.<\/p>\n

When I was seventeen and had to go to the prom with a senior in my homeroom, my mom and I went to Nordstrom so I could buy some simple makeup. Neither of us wore any. My mom entrusted me with a credit card, went to do something else, and came back an hour later to find me miserable, clown-like, clutching a tiny bag and having spent a\u00a0hundred dollars, then an astronomical sum. And somehow it was very hard to explain to her that the saleswoman had had a wooden leg, and I\u2019d felt unable to deny her anything. I used the lipstick for six years, to justify it, even though the color looked very strange, and it was quickly caked with sand and grit. <\/p>\n

Seventeen years later, I decided to get a \u201cmakeup lesson\u201d at a local beauty store. \u201cDon\u2019t bother,\u201d said the girl behind the counter, Lauren, in an undertone. \u201cThey\u2019ll just make you buy a lot of products. Hire me to come do your makeup before your wedding; it\u2019ll be cheaper.\u201d She gave me her card. But the only thing that sounded worse than having to endure a makeup lesson was having someone show up at my house and poke at my face before I left for City Hall, and besides: teach a man to fish. So I flouted her advice, came back the next day, and made an appointment.<\/p>\n

The makeup lesson was, of course, an ordeal. The woman daubed my face with an ever-increasing number of primers and unguents and creams. Each, she explained, was essential. Look at how this made things glide! Look at how that made things stay! When I use this cream and these twelve powders, your skin is like porcelain! I dutifully imitated her motions, swooping and swiping and making the shapes of different letters on my face, willing the experience to be over, knowing I\u2019d never be able to interpret the elaborate hieroglyphs on the paper chart. Did I have this brush? And this one, and that? Fan and kabuki and blending? And what luck: today I could have all these makeups in this grotesque case for a merely excessive price rather than an exorbitant one. I could feel tears gathering behind my expertly contoured eyes.<\/p>\n

For many of us, beauty is scary. It\u2019s a daily small failure and then the occasional big failure. It is not fun; it is not pleasurable. We know it doesn\u2019t matter. It doesn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

When I got to the register, it was to find Lauren. She read me a total. I blanched under my foundation, bronzer, and blush. I swayed. \u201cI told you,\u201d she said with malicious satisfaction. \u201cYou could have paid me seventy-five bucks. And will you be able to remember any of this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I whispered. I was tearing up in earnest. \u201cNo. I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

She softened slightly. \u201cBrushes cost a lot,\u201d she said, \u201cand you\u2019ll have those forever. And we can probably get rid of these\u201d\u2014she removed a series of miniscule vials\u2014\u201cwhich takes off a few hundred dollars. And,\u201d she said as I turned to leave, \u201cyou can return anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you,\u201d I said humbly, giving her the card to charge the money I couldn\u2019t afford on things I didn\u2019t want. It is a horrible feeling. It is a feeling that some people probably never know. You despise yourself, and for good reason. You are capitalism, but not in a triumphant way\u2014in a scared, sad, desperate way. This is not to be confused with the euphoria some people describe when spending money; I felt no euphoria. I had not fooled myself for a moment into thinking I was anything but miserable.<\/p>\n

I stumbled into the daylight in my shorts and T-shirt and full makeup, and burst into tears. I felt sick. Perspective in such cases does not make you feel better.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are certain unpleasant life experiences that are not palliated by the fact that you know that they\u2019re meaningless. I am speaking here of something specific: the particular horror of being pressured into spending money on things you know you do not want. When I was seventeen and had to go to the prom with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[18883,5820,13254,18884,628,1080,6664,15491,232,604],"class_list":["post-88084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-appearance","tag-beauty","tag-cosmetics","tag-lessons","tag-makeup","tag-money","tag-shopping","tag-stress","tag-style","tag-weddings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBeauty Is Scary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein attends a makeup lesson.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/22\/beauty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beauty by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 22, 2015 \u2013 There are certain unpleasant life experiences that are not palliated by the fact that you know that they\u2019re meaningless. 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