Picking Up the Lipsticks of My Life

Blog soundtrack (um, still stuck in the 80s!):




Several years ago, as I was hurriedly moving about my bathroom, I hit a basket on a shelf and its contents scattered to the bathroom floor. Unfortunately, it contained all my lipsticks.

How many is "all" you ask? Well, it was quite a few. Here’s a re-enactment of this event, though there were many more, um, like about 20 more.



After I cursed Clarins, Clinique, Shiseido, Christian Dior, Lancome, Elizabeth Arden, Mac, Origins, and Smashbox, I bent over and began to pick them all up. I then thought to myself, “Wow, I have a lot of lipstick.”

Again, I’d like to reiterate a point I’ve made before with friends. Just because you have a lot of anything (for example, shoes, cookie cutters, cats, vintage clothes, gel pens, or Post-it note pads, which I’d know absolutely nothing about by the way!) does not mean you have an addiction; no, you just have a collection.

I began to think about how I ever acquired so much lipstick. But, in retrospect, I really don’t know why I even had to think about it. Perhaps I was, err, in denial about my collection. Of course, the Sephora voice in my head said, “Hey, Lipstick Chick! Remember that whenever you get a tad bit blue, you go and buy a lipstick?!” Still in denial, I said, “No. I’m just collecting various shades from various cosmetic makers in order to make my collection well rounded, of course.” The Sephora voice then said, in a rather bitchy way I might add, “Hello? Lancome “Jezebel” – work deadline. Mac “Oddessy” – fight with boyfriend. Clinique “A Different Grape” – PMS. Christian Dior “Plum Plot” – last episode of Sex in the City. Okay, we’ll make an exception for that last one.”

In my defense, I read somewhere that once Melissa Etheridge was so distraught over a break up, she had a few beers, and then proceeded to buy a 70s muscle car on eBay. Lesson learned: Don’t drink and eBay. Well, at least, I was spending $18 and not $38,000!

All Things Lipstick Tangent:

Who forgot to tell me that Mac makes Hello Kitty lipstick?!?!!?



Again, in the vein of my blog being educational, I must throw in some art. Pay attention now and take notes if you need to!

“Lipstick as a weapon! In 1969, the Pop Art sculptor Claes Oldenburg created this giant “lipstick” and mounted it on a tank-like base. The sculpture was installed on the Yale University campus (and a refurbished version still stands there).”



I don’t know about you, but I think I need to make a pilgrimage to Yale to get a picture of myself next to this baby. And, I would imagine that this is probably a $380,000 lipstick!

Lipstick pepper spray! I guess this would be the lipstick to buy after you break up with someone where a restraining order was involved.



On the website where I found this, the Keychain Knife is featured above the Lipstick Pepper Spray and the Ninja Throwing Spikes is shown below it. Note to Self: Come back to this website to shop for Christmas!

And this is the EarthGirlHippieChick part of me chiming in. This is the lipstick vine.



Ah, if only lipsticks grew on vines, so I would haven’t pay $18 a pop for one; I could grow them out in a box on my porch!

And, does it get any better, well, for me at least, than lipstick and shoes?



Never be without your lipstick again! I guess the pepper spray lipstick version of these shoes could be handy fending off unwanted suitors at a bar.

Here’s my favorite lipstick tube; it’s Christian Dior.



I love the angles, the blue, and there’s nothing quite like saying, “Christian Dior”, especially when you say it like I do in my very best Polish super model accent*.

*Look here to find the Polish super model: http://goddessofallthingslovely.blogspot.com/2009/04/job-opportunities-for-moi.html

And finally, what was my first lipstick?
It should be obvious, err, yeah, especially to all you male readers, since I was a teen in the late 70s, but I’ll tell you rather than making you guess.
A Bonnie Bell Lip Smacker!



Mine wasn’t a Dr. Pepper. I don’t think Bonnie Bell had branched out into soda flavors yet then. And, this begs the question, when will they ever make the Veuve Clicquot Lip Smacker, the Gin & Tonic Lip Smacker, or the Cosmopolitan Lip Smacker?

Anyway, mine was purple and grape-flavored. The thing about the Lip Smackers was that they were rather large, really too large. It was almost like carrying around a Chapstick on steroids. And, I’m sure Christian Dior frowned upon the design as well!

I remember them being sweet tasting as well. I have a favorite lip gloss now that is quite tasty. When you think about it, it’s really a rather self-defeating make-up concept to have a sweet lipstick/lipgloss. You want to spruce up your lips, you apply it, and then you have it all licked off your lips within 30 minutes.

As I was writing this, I thought that I never put a lot of thought into how I applied my lipstick, well, because I was too busy increasing my collection to worry about it. I do know that this is the wrong way to apply lipstick.



But, look, if you are challenged in that area, you can always use the lipstick stencil!



And, who knew that applying lipstick was a 10-step procedure falling under Life Sciences?


Lipstick & Lips: How To Apply Lipstick To Mature Lips

I just slap the stuff off and go.
And, “mature” lips? What exactly is the age cut off is between young lips and mature lips?! With my luck, it’s probably 47.

Anyway, my Mom never wore much make up. So, I have no idea where I got my love of the stuff from. I only knew that when I saw her wearing lipstick that someone had died, someone was getting married, or it was November 9th (my parent’s anniversary), and it was the one time a year my Dad was taking her out to dinner somewhere nice, well, a lipstick-worthy restaurant like The Wayside Inn and not an lipstick-unworthy restaurant like the Sudbury House of Pizza.

Anyway, no matter how disheveled I am (one of those I-have-to-run-out-of-house-quick-slap-on-the-Hello-Kitty-hat-and ratty-jeans kind of days), I always feel somewhat less of a wreck when I put lipstick on. I guess that’s why when I’m a bit down, my car goes on autopilot to the Pheasant Lane Mall, and the Sephora voice in my head says, “Do not pass the mall; do not leave without an $18 lipstick!”

I think that my Mom would say, if she were reading this, that buying something is not the way to pick yourself up, and I would agree, um, somewhat. I recently found this quote by the actress, Emily Deschanel.

“The advice Mom gave us was to put on lipstick and that would solve the problems of the world.”



I now suspect that Mrs. Deschanel is my real mother! :-)

Some, like my Mom, might consider an $18 lipstick a pricey pick-me-up. But, I’m willing to lay out the cash for those 5 or 6 times a year when I really need to. Even if when I look in the mirror, I still see the same woman who is stressed over a deadline, had a fight with her boyfriend, is lost without new episodes of Sex in the City, and is in total PMS mode; it’s a little new, unexpected, and most welcome splash of color in my world. It doesn’t solve all the problems but is what I like to think of as an $18 band-aid to temporarily make the hurt go away.