How I rediscovered the joy of makeup

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2014/jul/02/rediscovered-joy-of-makeup-vintage-years

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One thing that anchors me in the past all too firmly is my makeup. Lately I've been thinking about this quite a lot because some things – eyelids, lip line, cheek "apples", eyebrows – are definitely on the move. I thought I was doing quite well. I even finally mastered the art of the eyeliner flick – although sometimes, somehow, my face is less likely to be the way I left it yesterday. This, I suppose, is because I'm growing old and all those things that mysteriously leech out of my skin with each passing day – collagen and whatnot – mean my face is less fixed. Sometimes all it takes to turn me from Chrissie Hynde into Alice Cooper is a millimetre's extra bagginess on my eyelids. For all my bold exposition on the confidence boosting properties of a scarlet lipstick, I suffer from the same "is everything still where I put it?" self-doubt as the next person. This is annoyingly wobble-making when I want to be a strong "pulled-together" woman of style. The question is, what's the solution?

What I usually do is go somewhere and get myself "made over" – or "done over" if the person doing it is giving me the hard sell, which is increasingly the case if stopping by a makeup counter on spec. Older women make easy prey for salespeople, and when they've got you there, bare-faced and vulnerable, you'll do almost anything to escape, including handing over the plastic for a substantial spanking. Then you get home, examine your face in the mirror and decide they've done nothing more taxing than apply a standard middle-aged-lady face and that's how we end up with a guilty drawer full of stuff we'll never use – because it reminds us of a painful experience that ended with us getting fleeced. What I want to be shown is how to make up my same-but-different face in a way that makes me happy, and I was tremendously, deliriously happy in the 70s with my Biba bottle green and bright yellow eye shadows, spidery false eyelashes, Mary Quant black cherry lippy and a dusting of sparkle. This is partly the problem, because I also know that if I did that now I would probably look ridiculous. But it's not the actual look Icrave but the feeling that came with it.

Enter Sharon "Spob" O'Brien, who in addition to her work as a makeup artist is head of professional development at Illamasqua. I confess that Illamasqua is a brand that hasn't really registered with me because I'd always found their Selfridges counter intimidatingly youthful. I love the art of it but scuttle past, head down, with "not for me" on repeat so as not to risk further humiliation. I'm happy to tell you I was completely wrong. Their USP is "a dedication to self expression through makeup art" (right up my street) and they use older models such as Patricia and Evelyn. They also educate through a series of courses, one of which is called Timeless Beauty and while they have a reputation for quite eccentric artistic collections – take Imperfection, for example – they also do low key.

Having spent an hour being "made-over", what I feel Illamasqua has which say, Boots "ta-dah" No 7 does not, is the possibility for playfulness which women my age want but feels increasingly hard to find. Why must we have all the fun greiged out of us? It's depressing. I also learned (or re-learned?) how to do a light base that still shows my freckles but won't melt off my face in an epic hot flush; I was reacquainted with the pleasure of eyeshadow and shown how it can be used to subtly lift a droopy eyelid; how to put my eyebrows back without looking like TOWIE and – best of all – lipstick. Lipstick in a colour an "expert" once told me I should never wear: a fabulous purple-y vermillion called Salacious. Over the course of an evening I wore this makeup to flaneur around stinky, humid London, make a boiling Turkish bath of a commute home, shower and wash my hair, eat a very messy supper and slump on the sofa. I'm delighted to report it did not budge and when the time came I didn't want to take it off either – usually the first thing I do when I come home. I even, wait for it … posted my first selfie on Twitter (not that I intend to make a habit of that). That elusive thrill of pushing the boundary just a little and still feeling confident about it has been restored to me.

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