Confessional: My 4 Biggest Middle-School Makeup Mistakes

Photo courtesy of seventeen.com

I was never allowed to wear makeup in middle school. I was always told that I could apply it when I was sixteen, so before that my acne and bad eyebrows would never be leveraged by a good mascara or lip-gloss. Well, not really. I would often just bring a cheap makeup kit to school and apply my makeup in the poorly lit, dirty bathrooms and then take it off, of course, before I went home. Middle school was not the highlight of my life and I would like to believe that I’ve improved since then. Looking back on it, I cannot believe my friends didn’t slap that kohl eyeliner out of my hands when they had the chance.

1.    Block Eyebrows

Photo courtesy of pinterest.com

 My eyebrows were so penciled in sometimes I remember they resembled a caterpillar or something. Eyebrows should not be a thick marker line, instead they should be gradient. I mean, there’s supposed to be hair there. Would you draw with sharpie all over your balding head to insinuate there was hair? No? Of course not, that would make no sense. However, for some reason I thought taking black eyeliner and drawing that over my eyes would be a great idea. It wasn’t.

2.     Dry Lips + Matte Lipstick

Photo courtesy of weheartit.com

This was probably my biggest sin. If you’re going to apply a matte lipstick in the middle of winter, please just apply lip balm if your lips are a bit Sahara desert. For some reason, I thought it’d be okay to just swipe on really drying lipstick and hope for the best. No. No lipstick would have been better than looking like I had flaking lips. No one needs to see every crack in your lips, it’s scary looking and you look dying and unhealthy.

3.     Clown Blush

Photo courtesy of messywands.com

Have you ever seen anyone blush and two perfect circles represented by all the digits of pi appearing on their face? No, you haven’t. Why? That’s because seeing such a thing is impossible. Blush is meant to mimic an actual flushing face, that’s the point. Years ago, women would actually just pinch their cheeks for a blushing effect to appear youthful and flirtatious. What is youthful about two huge circles applied to your cheek? Nothing, that’s just mannequin looking. 

Regardless, I always thought I’d just stick brick red blush on my face without blending and hope for the best. It was very obvious I had blush on, and blush is one of those things you aren’t supposed to notice. Speaking of things you should not notice, continue to mistake number four…

4.     Non-Matching foundation

Photo courtesy of dailymail.co.uk

I can admit that even now matching foundation is pretty tough. I always sit in the aisle and wonder – am I sand beige or honey sable horse rabbit? Then I start to wonder what those names even mean, and before I know it I just don’t buy anything. Anyway, the point is, foundation is hard. In middle school, it was worse. Whenever you find yourself applying more foundation because the foundation you’re using doesn’t match your skin to the point you need more of it to make sure your face isn’t six colors, then stop. Put the bottle down, you’ve lost. In middle school I was either burnt or appeared a ghastly white. Either way, I looked horrible.

I hope you learned to learn from my mistakes, but I also hope that you’ve made them yourself. I am thankful for my ugly middle-school self. It would be worse to be a pretty middle schooler – because then I wouldn’t have any stories to tell. And life’s all about stories.