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Girls and Makeup

It's not about boys.

Makeup is both super-childish-eye-roll and very sophisti-femme adult, a combo of qualities shared only with French kissing, which is also gross and the best.

Just like everything that is sexy without being sex (which is: kush, clothes, shoes, jewelry, cars… rappers and girls are just the same), makeup is less about the gilded pots and Big Chemicals and what the product really does (which is: nothing, in reality, but ostensibly makes you hotter) and more about how it feels for you to get it and hold it and put it on and push it around on yourself (which is: pretty, pretty, pretty good). The whole thing of doing makeup is a communion between you and your beauty (like, I defy any girl even on the low-end of self-esteemies to not be even a little bit in love with her own angles), and also between the management of your beauty, with scary/nice/zero makeup or whatever situation you have going, and being looked at.

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For a girl who digs makeup, every morning is a sticky, powdery memory palace of feelings and identities and etc etc etc, because makeup isn’t about being more attractive. It’s about being more… more.

FREE SAMPLES

There’s absolutely no need to buy makeup, ever, when you can get bizarro grab-bags of free samples at every makeup counter that exists in a department store or mall. Don’t let those mean ladies give you any cuntface, either. Picture me with a deep side part and my face too close to yours, putting my nails (currently polished with the Muppets x OPI collabo; I DUNNO EITHER; IT RULES!?) so hard into your baby-skinned forearm, crushing a dying cigarette under my boot heel, my knee twisting next to yours, and saying “Listen to me, bitch. We don’t owe nobody shit.” Also true for skincare.

EYELINER

Eyeliner is best when you never take it off and keep your googly doll eyes constantly surrounded by several strata of black grime. It’s convenient that this look is a good one, because most eyeliner is not in the business of coming off without a lot of touching on your eye skin, and you shouldn’t do that (WRINKLES).

My favorite makeup look of all, in the entire fucked-up repertoire of what I do to my face, is this wet Chanel eye gloss I have that I line all around my eyes with a brush and then attack with some Q-tips and then pretty much take off and do again until it gets really sad and sick and real, and looks like I got punched but for fun.

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LIPGLOSS

When you clock a girl putting on her lip gloss, it might seem as bummer-obviously sexy as eating licorice with lots of tongue, but it’s not. Even public lip glossing is a private event. Boys, makeup is not about you. Get over yourselves with your “You look the best in the morning.”

Anywaysies, you know when you let a silver tunnel of smoke out your mouth very, very slowly, like a lizard taking it easy? And you watch it go, while you feel that X-routed river of blood engorge your downstairs and then move back up and then go down again? That’s what the bottom-lip swipe of gloss feels like when you do it properly, all along the fat part. And, and! Whether you’re pushing gel up to the applicator, like a C.G. Bigelow Mentha Lip Tint, or pulling a padded wand out of the slim rectangle that characterizes elitist packaging like a Chanel Glossimer, or a brush like Make Up For Ever’s Lab Shine Diamond Collection (which are the three pinkys I have on my desk this afternoon), each time there’s a different kind of physical tension and experience. They even have different temperatures, have you noticed that? It’s shameful, really, how many times I can get myself off, in a certain way, while I’m at my little desk in my little chair.

VASELINE

Sucky-sucky has a dollar and wants her teacup face to look like a mermaid’s glistening pussy? Vaseline (which is literally petroleum and deeply suspicious as an item to be basically eating, but so it goes) will keep your shit moist. Put it on your eyelids, eyelashes, cheekbones, lips!

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BENETINT

Benetint is a rosy liquid that was made for strippers to put on their nipples and labia; your mom uses it for blush and maybe lip tint. It’s really good but the bottles suck; I spilled a thing of Benetint all over my bed and was just like “Fuck you forever.” Then I bought a Nars Orgasm powder blush, which I dropped on the sidewalk outside of a bar that my cab driver basically begged me not to go into. He knew things.

MASCARA

Let’s take a little break here. Mascara is the most essential makeup tool, but it’s not that fun, really, because you just do a few black swishas every day; I only use one of two hyper-approved brands (DiorShow or Lancome Hypnose, obviously) and that’s it. Lots of girls go bonkers for those eyelash curlers, but I wouldn’t know anything about that (have you seen my eyelashes? They’re my infinity pool, except, when I’m tired they make me look like an old whore who’s trying too hard).

RED LIPSTICK

Red lips are like two big tits in a white t-shirt: perfection.

And, this: a bare eye and a sneak-attack matte red lip is, sensibility-wise, the same thing as being flat-chested but having a fat ass: the ultimate.

Also, this: the first time I ever heard of a blowjob was after I didn’t understand a joke about a dink that had red lipstick all over it. (“It wasn’t a rash after all!”) I was all “OMG you’re supposed to kiss it?” Aw.

LINDSAY LOHAN’S CHEEKS

Look at this degenerate’s face on the internet from her court thing this week, when you get a second. She has a dark brown poo rub on either one of her waxen cock-pockets. It’s too weird. See also: the caterpillary eyebrow extremism. Lilo is a great example of how boring and bored famous people are, but don’t you just want to hold her down for a half-hour and get her sorted out with a wet wipe?

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SEPHORA

Sephora isn’t even that good anymore. What it should be is an emporium equiv to that True Blood fairy place that Sookie gets caught in, a store that justifies dense adult glitter and shows you things you don’t know about and provides histrionic gays to give you new, minutely refined foundation techniques. But aside from the Korres stuff (I have, I think, every one of their all-natural, way-pigmented lip products, and pretty much just get into application trances), it’s become really stressful and kind of grody. Is this about the democratization of luxury or something? Now I’m sleepy.

EYEBROWS

The eyebrow cognoscenti is all about a full eyebrow with just a gentle curve, which is correct. At some juncture every chick thinks she needs to pluck out the majority of her eyebrows, especially the insides, which is exactly where you shouldn’t pluck. Not at all! I blame this compulsion on Disney indoctrinations: if you look closely at the princesses, they all have chola eyebrows. It’s kind of great actually. But, yeah: don’t. Go to a threader and make her stop every two minutes to make sure it’s not getting too skinny.

Before you smarten up about it, you can fill in your holey, mangled eyebrows with some powder or pencil, which is like doing a little construction job every day. First you brush them up and make a floor with light little strokes, then you brush them down and make a roof with juuuust a slightly heavier stroke, and then you brush them off to the side, regular-style, and check out the structural integrity. And makes sure that they’re not so intense that your mouth can’t keep up.

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LIP VENOM

On a really special and retarded day in my still quite retarded life, I got daytime drunk with my friend James, put a half-full forty in my purse, and then went to the big mall and spent many dollars at Sephora on a tube of Lip Venom, which uses a cinnamony ingredient to give your lips a panic attack and make them swell up into a shape that looks fantastic (but with which you cannot, I repeat cannot, deliver an ow-job-blay with). Then I sat down in the change room of Banana Republic and drank the rest of the bottle while trying on sundresses and very shortly afterward was escorted outside. Later I went pee-pee in a bush in a park in Kensington Market in Toronto, which is well-known for its many varieties of disgustingness, so when the new Lip Venom fell out of my jeans I just left it there and Snoopy-walked away. That’s an allegory.

SUGAR

Once a week put some sugar in a dish and mix in some warm water and rub your lips with it, just gently, then wipe it off with a soft facecloth. So kissy-yummy-baby.

Previously - Girls and Girlfriends 

Follow Kate on Twitter @KateCarraway