FIFTEEN MINUTES

“In the future, everybody will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” – Andy Warhol

Fifteen minutes isn’t a lot of time.

But it’s time enough to make scrambled eggs and toast; take a shower; walk the dog; get dressed; lift a few free weights; answer emails; or put on makeup.

Of course, when I was a teenager, I could put my face in order in two minutes flat. I slapped on some Noxema skin cream, slicked on some lip gloss, gave my lashes a flick of mascara, and I was done.

Now it takes a lot longer to achieve results that are not only much less satisfactory, they cost a lot more than the price of those long-ago tubes of Bonne Bell Lip Smackers and Maybelline Great Lash mascara.

Youth really is wasted on the young, isn’t it?

Every morning I get up, brush my teeth, and look into the bathroom mirror. And every morning I see one of three people staring back at me:  Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, or Severus Snape.

Don’t get me wrong; I love all three.  But I don’t particularly want to look like them.

So I’ve developed a daily morning beauty routine, and it takes about fifteen minutes. It goes like this:

I cleanse my skin, followed by the application of a serum which costs more than the per capita income of Tonga and requires a few minutes to be absorbed. Next, I apply a primer with stuff like yarrow extract and vitamin E, and let that sink in for another couple of minutes.

Yes…I’m reduced to prepping my face like a painter who primes a wall or an artist who brushes Gesso on a canvas before slapping on the oils or acrylics. The primer smoothes out the odd crater, masks imperfections, and evens out skin tone.

Which means that after a full five minutes in front of the bathroom mirror, I still haven’t actually put any makeup on.

So I reach for the foundation. The trick with foundation, especially as a woman ages, is to use less of it. A lot less. Otherwise, we end up looking like Carol Burnett channeling Norma Desmond, the washed-up silent film star from Sunset Boulevard.  Not pretty.

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Next comes a dab of under eye concealer on the inner corner of each eye, followed by a hint – the merest, tiniest hint – of blush. Then a flick of eyeliner, a swipe or two of mascara, and lipstick.

Lipstick presents its own set of rules and problems. Red is a good color on almost anyone, but too dark a red makes lips look thin or vampirish; too bright a red and you end up looking less like Catherine Deneuve and more like The Joker. Not to mention troublesome issues like color bleed, chapped lips, or (gasp) lip liner that’s darker than your lipstick. Très 1990s.

And one can’t forget to tweeze any stray hairs, followed by grooming the brows with brow powder and/or gel to fill in sparseness and tame those random flyaways.

Guys, do you feel sorry for us ladies yet?

There’s still the hair to deal with. I’ve joined the ‘less is better’ crowd when it comes to washing my hair. Instead of shampooing every other day as I did for many years, once a week is my new normal. I use dry shampoo in between. My hair is healthier, my color lasts longer, and I save money on shampoo. Win-win.

But my hair still needs to be brushed, fluffed, parted, and spritzed into submission before I’m finally ready to sail out into the world.

Andy Warhol was right. A lot can happen in fifteen minutes.  Maybe I won’t ever achieve world fame; but with the help of primers, skin serums, hair products, and a dressing table full of cosmetics, I can go from looking like Severus Snape to looking…not bad.

In my opinion, that’s fifteen minutes well spent.

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