Not Just Another Mouth in the Lipstick Vogue

Honestly, there’s nothing like a trip to Sephora to raise the spirits after both an appalling week at work and all those sinking moments of time spent watching the current world news. (For which I can find no satisfactory method of dealing with apart from healthy, regular shots of denial). Historical justifications, finger pointing and frantic hopping trips to news sites across the web have all proved hugely unhelpful to me. People who offer compact, intellectual summary statements are exceptionally irritating because, really, nothing is that simple, is it? The best advice I have heard thus far – apart from going on a total news fast – seems to be making a relentless effort to be absolutely the best person you can be, in your own day-to-day life. It’s the only strategy that makes sense – apart from letter writing and lobbying obviously – and really, it’s sort of a mash-up of that grassroots notion of “Think Globally, Act Locally” which I also love.

But I digress. Because perhaps I could do a much better job if I had a really top-notch lipstick.

The sales assistant who greeted me was stunning: no pores, soft, matte lip colour that likely took 30 minutes to smudge on in careful layers and eyelashes like a cartoon woodland creature. She was also intelligent and answered all my questions carefully and with genuine interest. I felt she was looking into my soul and directly addressing the everyday sadness that dwells there. I speak of that bleak, dark feeling women have that is fueled by the absolute conviction that you are repulsive (komodo dragon-repulsive) and no, it will not be helped with the correct foundation shade. I especially liked the way that this salesperson never once used the phrase: “This colour will really make your [eyes/lips/medulla oblongata] pop!” People, this imagery is DONE – yet I continue to read this in every magazine …

As she spoke, I began to unwind and feel tentatively more hopeful. Perhaps that mirror in the staff room really is bathed in sallow light and would be better housed at the circus. We don’t all have to look like The Great Airbrushed, do we? It’s better to be an individual – preferably with great cheekbones obviously but can’t we give ourselves a collective break? My cuticles are never going to rival those people in the Chanel ads but those women aren’t making pastry or scraping eggshells off the driveway after the garbage has been looted by local wildlife either …

At least not directly before the photo shoot for Rouge Flamboyant

So dear readers, I then spent my winter coat allowance at Sephora.

But it was worth it.

Anyway – don’t judge me for being vacuous (obvious disclaimer, no one at Sephora has asked me to mention them and sadly, I will make no gratuities from this! Even more sadly, my coat allowance was only going to the thrift store anyway …)  I am merely identifying the faint sparkle one can get from a new lipstick – it’s not going to change anything major but there’s a slim, chic hope that this may definitely be helpful in staving off the bleakness that comes when we  catch a glimpse of all the sadness in our world: stripped of its everyday veneer in cold, sharp focus.

And for that, yes, I will take every trick I can get.