There I was, alone and very afraid of what would come next. My palms sweating as I opened the double doors to my fate. The night my confidence and dignity was zero percent.
I had only been to ULTA one time in my life, and that was in my prime. That was ALSO before a pre teen looked more put together than I ever will be. ( where is their ugly right of passage? How can they skip this? It humbles you. )
What is happening to this world? (( tiny soap box )) because I was ugly in middle school and most of high school, it’s made me a better person. They are skipping this compassionate and grounding season, now what will they do? Work at ULTA?
I knew immediately this was my personal hell as soon as the freaking UV LIGHTS hit my face, revealing every inch of blemish and sleepless nights. Surely I was getting sun burned walking in there. Do they want me to get sunburned so they can sell me more expensive products?
My first mission was to avoid eye contact at all times. Though I was clueless, I didn’t want to chit chat with perfect eyebrow Barbie about how I look like I am 56 at age 30. I had about thirty minutes to pick out a foundation that made me look rested and a liar before my baby wanted to nurse. I am not tired, see! I wasn’t up at 5:45 AM sipping coffee and contemplating running away to Puerto Rico.
I just wanted some foundation to cover up the fact that I haven’t slept in ten years, how do you explain this to a woman that you aren’t sure has your sense of humor? Will she feel sorry for me? Probably. Avoid the eye contact, keep walking. Act like you know what you are doing, just like being a Mom.
I would like to go back to the lighting in this place. I am fully aware that they make it this way to make you feel fugly so that you will buy more things from them. It’s basically a genius idea, I mean they had me passing every mirror in utter horror that I walked out into public looking like that. Even my own mother wouldn’t have claimed me as her own.
Each mirror I would pass I made a mental list of things I now needed to better my face:
No more pregnancies.
That’s all I could think of.
I realized I must have filled in only one eyebrow, the best I know how , ( like my 5 year old could do ) then must have gotten distracted by a child or 4. Or a husband that was looking for something in the kitchen, because he hasn’t lived here as long as I have.
After spinning in circles and crying from my blemish exposure and lack of self confidence I started the journey to find the foundation I had gone for. The one my sister ( cosmetology major ) had recommended. She said it would make me look 17 again, and I believed her. She’s so sweet.
There are 4,457 types of expensive foundation in ULTA. It makes it difficult to choose. Luckily for me I have a keen sense of direction and it only took me 3 hours to find the brand I was looking for. Ha! Jokes on them.
So I find the brand, only to notice that there are more choices than an olive bar at Harris Teeter. First of all, who needs that many olives? Second of all how do I choose which one will make me look less homely?
I want one that makes me look responsible , yet rested and alert. Less dehydrated by coffee. Is that a 3.0?
I started testing different shades on my neck. Three shades to be truthful. If we’re being honest here, and since it’s my blog.. it was 6 shades. By then end I looked like I had a skin disease and I chose one that I thought matched the best. Actually I nervously took three of them into my hands, mixed them up and chose one. I had to get out of there. The fluorescent lighting was toying with my mental state.
Foundation, check. Now I needed something to help my brows since that is the thing everyone and their Mother is into right now. Right now I’m into finding LOL dolls on Amazon and eating my kids leftover Tyson dino nuggets. I’m also super into not getting pregnant. Do they have a brow package for this?
Several sales women passed me, looked me up and down and probably knew that there was no hope for me. I was dressed in my maternity Target sweatshirt, and skinny jeans that are two sizes two small ( THANKS BABY NUMBER FOUR AND CARBS ).
No one even asked me if I needed help because they knew that answer. Yes. Yes I do need help in more areas than my face. Are you also a nanny slash makeup consultant?
I found something that resembled a brow kit , threw it in my cart and hoped for the best with my life. They say a woman’s brows are the frame of her face, but I say how do you do that and can you teach me in very hushed tones while I drink a nice Merlot?
I army crawled my way to the check out after choosing something I knew everything about. While looking for face masks I found one that has red wine in it. It felt like home holding it in my hands. Mommy is here. Shhhh.
The cashier asked for my phone number and email address, I was hesitant to share for the simple fact of maybe she would enter me into a makeover contest…then the people would show up when I wasn’t wearing a bra. Everyone watching would be traumatized but my before and after would be redemptive to millions.
I walked out of there confident that I have a lot of work to do to be more attractive, a little baby weight to say goodbye to and a lot of concealer to use.
But most of all I learned to love myself more, so I stopped to eat my feelings with a Wendy’s frosty that I downed quickly so I wouldn’t have to share with my offspring.
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