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What made you fall in love with makeup? Share your story!
I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup growing up, so when I went away to college, and I discovered MAC pigments – and they made me fall in love with makeup. The colors, the finishes. So pretty! So interesting.
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When my husband Ray first took me to a MAC counter, I fell in love with makeup.
pbi: I had no idea that it was Ray who got you into makeup! That’s so lovely — your one big love introducing you to your other 🙂
I first fell in love with makeup when my mom bought me my first Bare Minerals set. It was my 15th birthday and she sat down with me to teach me how to “not cover my beauty, but enhance what I already had”. I felt so special and grown up :). I’ve been in love with makeup ever since!!
I’m not entirely sure, probably by playing dress up. I’ve always been a girly girl with a love for all things beauty. Ever since I was a little girl, whenever I went to the store with my mom and she couldn’t find me, she knew right where to look..down the makeup aisle. If I ever go shopping with her, that’s where she still goes to find me!
I’ve just always loved it, from the time I was really young. Whenever we walked through a department store, I would always stop at the makeup counters, and marvel at all the colors! I was also really into mixing/creating paint colors, even as a toddler, and obsessed with my 64-color Crayola box, so moving on to makeup seemed to be the next logical progression. I can’t recall anyone around me really wearingmakeup, so I don’t think any one person influenced me…
When I was actually allowed to really experiment with makeup, besides the “kiddie” stuff my mom bought me to play with at home, it was the mid-80s, and the peak of the punk/goth era, and I already had an appreciation for the darker aesthetic & music, so having the makeup just tied everything together.
i wasn’t allowed to wear makeup too … my mother told me i can start wearing it at the last day of my high school finals , ever since i could never go out without it
The way it enhances and transforms ( to a degree) the way I look
It was a curious combination of an interest in some items of makeup from when I was a teenager (unobtrusive lipstick and gloss, mostly), and the internet! A couple of years ago I watched a video or two by NZ beauty vlogger Shaaanxo (and still do!); she mentioned Urban Decay eyeliners, which I then searched up, and came here to Temptalia, where I was promptly introduced to brands and colours I never realised existed! My fledgling interest in makeup (and in blogging/vlogging) kind of exploded from there, basically!
So: many thanks to Shannon and Christine! 😀
My granny. When i was 5 or six she did my make up like the one that Carole André wore as “The pearl of Labuan” in Sandokan, an italian fiction. She was so beautiful and brave, I loved her style, so I fell in love with makeup, because it made me feel beautiful an brave like her.
Lipsticks
Livejournal! Specifically, makeup artist Melanie Victoria and her friends back in the day. They were MAC addicts which is why I fell in love with the brand, and to this day the majority of my collection is MAC.
I got a tube of Russian Red from the Wonder Woman collection as a gift, and it changed the way I looked at makeup completely. it made me feel so beautiful, but in a way that was almost like… an inside joke with myself. it was beautiful for ME, not to look attractive for men. it was liberating, in a way. I felt like I could own my face. I only ever get compliments from women when wearing it, and I really like that.
also, this is gonna sound hella sappy but also, TEMPTALIAAAAAA~~~~ I found your blog SOMEHOW back last March and fell in love with the reviews and how in depth everything was. I’d always liked makeup overall just fine but I fell head over heels with it when I discovered your passion for and insight into it. now I love more than just lipstick, lol!
I’ve started really enjoying make-up while I was studying photography, as I couldn’t afford to hire a make-up artist for my assignments. However, it was the musco-skeletal problem on my hand that got me to fall in love with it hard. I was always creating something, but with my injury it made it nearly impossible to constantly draw or hold a heavy camera for long periods of time like I used to be. Make-up is the one creative outlet that I can do for long periods of time without risking weeks and weeks of debilitating pain. Depressing, I know, but for me, it’s better than nothing.
It’s my escape it’s my way of showing the world my creativity….
I used to just wear mascara and lipstick–until I got into my 40’s and had internet access. Since no one I worked with or my friends wore much makeup, I was unsure of what to use and how to apply it, etc. I would have to say that the thing I like best about wearing makeup is the transformation. I like that I can take control of my looks and go from average looking to beautiful with the help of makeup.
Ive loved makeup since I was very young, experimenting with my mothers makeup when she wasn’t looking. In High School, I would walk to the local drug store at lunch time and charge items (like bright blue shadow) to my parents account. (so naughty!). Nowadays, I have two daughters who are teenagers, one loves all makeup since playing with my Chanel Fairy pink gloss set when she was 4. My other daughter prefers the drugstore stuff, only a bit of liner and powder. They are both great at false eyelashes for dance performances. Me not so much!
I remember when I was younger I loved to walk past the MAC counters because I was so drawn in by all of the eye shadow colors. My mom was always into makeup, so I guess I just inherited that interest as well.
My mom’s vanity. I wasn’t supposed to wear makeup, but I just couldn’t resist it. Every time she would go out of the house, I would go to her vanity and start making my face up. I loved it! She used to have a box of Mary Quant crayons (early 70s) that were lots of fun!
Then, when I grew up, she took me one day to a department store and bought me my own, I was so happy! I have bought and collected ever since. I also love how makeup can reflect your mood, or the occasion depending on the colors and the intensity of application.
All the colors, the way you could mix and match them. I’m an 80’s kid, so bold, bright colors all over my face make me happy (still!). 😀
On my twelfth birthday, my mother gave me a train case full of makeup (as was her tradition for all of her daughters). I thought it was fabulous. The face products broke me out in a rash, though. I have celiac disease, and anything with particles of wheat gluten makes me sick (wheat gluten has over 100 names). Since makeup absorbs into the skin, that causes more than external rashes, but also lack of breathing and such. Anyway, although everything for the face was in the lightest range the companies carried, they were not nearly fair enough for my skin anyway. I began reading beauty magazines and searching on the internet, and found that higher-end brands very rarely used fillers like wheat gluten for makeup and skin products. At that point, Clinique did not have anything nearly light enough for my skin. I then saved my money and went to MAC. I started with the basics such as foundation, powder, and lip glass. Then I found their eyeshadows and pigments. Due to their recycling program, I even began a love affair with lipstick (at that point, only a department store was near me with MAC and could not get free eyeshadow or lip glass). I fell madly in love.
I fell in love when I was in high school (in the 90’s!) with the ability to transform myself and reinvent myself everyday with different looks and very bold colors. I wore lime greens, purples, burgundy…
My parents didn’t care because it wasn’t permanent! I mostly am into eye makeup.
I always liked makeup “things” since I was a kid. I used to stare at the pretty Maybelline eyeshadow colors and the lip glosses when I went to the drugstore or bargain stores with my mom, and wish I had money to buy them. When I got older (much), I started getting into watching daytime soaps when I was home. Even though those actresses are beautiful, I couldn’t help but admire their beautifully made-up faces when the camera was on them. Then I began to notice the make-up on female news anchors, and I decided I wanted to have eyes, lips, cheeks, and skin like theirs! My first stop was the MAC counter, because I thought it was the brand that all the TV people used (ha, ha!), and then I became a MAC addict! I was hooked only on MAC for many, many years… until the quality of their eyeshadows started to change. (I don’t care for pressed, mineralized products.) Also, I completely lost interest in their Limited Edition collections, because I got sick of trying to buy things that were unavailable soon after the new collection was released! I still like some of their classic stuff (liquid foundation, brushes, Lipglass, powder blush, some lipsticks, etc.)… but I am mostly a Sephora shopper now. Also, I think bareMinerals & other high-end brands’ eyeshadows are far superior to MACs.
Three Things –
1 . The first few LOREAL Lipsticks which my jiju (sister in law’s hubby ) bought me from USA 🙂 aahhhhhhh i still rem …. and then
2 . how my hubby use to praise me when I look all dolled up hahaha
he loves me in Russian Red and Chilli and latest is luxembourg 😀 he cant stand nude/pale lips on me
his eyes are always filled with affection when I have red / pink on my lips and this is what keeps me going 😀
Last but not the least
3 . TEMPTALIA 🙂 need i say more ?
your reviews , pictures , interaction , suggestions and recommendations 🙂 my goddddd
my first few lipsticks and eyeshadows were totallyyyy based on your final words and all of them are foolproof 😀 and that is basically how I feel for “GOOD MAKEUP ” picky you know
as i say always ..
this place is too short to express my feelings
I love that your husband can appreciate you in such a bold red, Rashmi! 🙂
Thank you as always! You are so kind to me!
I’ve always loved it growing up, it has to do with watching my mom because she also loves it. It really ballooned into an obsession around Spring 2008, when I found your blog Christine. I started purchasing more quality products from brands besides MAC. Then in 2012 I took a break, and in 2013 the way I did my makeup completely changed. I spent more time really rediscovering what I have in my collection, and how I can mix things up.
Awwww <3 <3
When I discovered more higher end makeup than just drugstore. The pigments are just so much better. Also, the first time I went in a Sephora. I was a kid in a candy store.
I’ve always loved makeup. I try to think back to a time when I didn’t but I can’t. I remember being in early elementary school and using my 2$ allowance to buy eyeshadow palettes at the dollar store. (The thought of that now kinda grosses me out but I’m still alive. I remember I had a friend who’s mom was a Marie Kay rep and I had tons of samples. By the 7th grade I had amassed a larger collection of makeup then my mom and I wasn’t even allowed to leave the house with it on. In my teens I had a friend who worked at Eatons and got a coworker who worked at MUFE to give me a makeover. I was already super into make up but mostly drug store and kinda on the goth side. She gave me this firery bold red orange and yellow eye look and that sucked me in for life! For a while I did mostly mac till they pissed me off over and over and their quality declined. In Canada our shoppers drugmart (like cvs I guess) has a really good makeup boutique with guerlain, dior, clarins, etc. and a crazy point system! They have also a sister chain called murale and I can get chanel, stila, ysl, Bobbie brown, NARS, etc there too and use the points. Basicly every 500$ I spend at the drug store on everyday stuff I get 170-250$ of high end makeup (depending on the promos). Suffice it to say my collection is now ridiculous.
i hated makeup when i was in high school. my mom took me to the department store and bought me a full face of makeup three times and i refused to wear it! i just didn’t want to be one of “those girls” who was constantly checking her makeup while walking around with a mask of mis-matched foundation. when i went to college and started dying my hair every color of the rainbow and i guess makeup just sort of seemed like the next step. i had a roommate who was into it and introduced me to kevyn aucoin’s books. i was intrigued by his punk look with eyeliner painted across the eye in kind of a sideways s shape. i realized makeup could be fun and didn’t have to be about trying to look pretty for other people. it didn’t have to be conventional! i love that about makeup.
Packaging….If you take away the packaging and only have the pan or the lipstick without the design, you wouldnt know whether it is a Chanel or Maybelline until you swatched them.
I started using makeup in Catholic high school when certain girls prettied themselves up everywhere …in class or in the bathrooms. So I went to the makeup counters at Macys and at I-Magnin. This was way before Sephora and internet purchases. MAC wasnt even around. All the packaging I own is uniqued plus the regular ones. If I have the time, I just sit there and look at the packaging and the design…I wear makeup for makeup but what drawn me to this addiction is the packaging….and now I drool over the Japanese cosmetics….and again it is the packaging.
One year later, I found Guerlain Wu-Long at a lower price at Harrods & bought it….cannot believe I missed that ….again packaging, smell, design…etc.
Sitting on my mums bed at age 5 watching her put on makeup in total fascination and itching to get my little paws on it when she went out. I always got caught tho’ but never seemed to learn cos I kept on doing it didn’t I?!
Finally at aged 14 my mum called me over and asked if I’d like her to put some blush and lipstick on me before we went to church (this was late ’70s). She didn’t need to ask twice let me tell you – I was upstairs and in her room faster than a rat up a drainpipe. I felt so chuffed and grown up I must say.
Since then my love affair with makeup has gone from strength to strength. Now my 16 year old daughter has developed the same love for it. Dangflabbit. Talk about champagne tastes on a beer budget, thats my girl…
I’m a newbie with makeup at 44. Bored with how I look. Just wanted a change. Does it sound like mid-life crisis?:) That and seeing how bloggers and vloggers totally transform how they look with makeup got me looking at the vast amount of makeup the world has to offer and thought, this can be a new hobby of mine. Prior to this, I couldn’t even name the makeup brands our local department store carries.
My aunt sent me to a promotional event with Barnum & Bailey clowns which was a class teaching clown makeup. They included a kit and I used it all up. I even got to collecting clowns so I loved learning the makeup. She and my other aunt owned a salon so it’s something I’ve always been around. My first real job was at a drugstore makeup counter and it was the first “girly” thing I loved.
Lol Christine. I was raised SDA and was not allowed to wear makeup growing up at all! When I funished high school at a boarding school and got out into the real world I went crazy with makeup and am still obsessed.
Growing up my mom didn’t wear much makeup and neither need my older sister, but I was always enthralled by the artistic aspect of it. By the time I was in middle school I had already been gifted several makeup art books. A few from Kevin Aucoin and one from Bobbi Brown. I practiced all the time and my friends and I did fun photo shoots (I’m so thankful social media wasn’t around yet, we dodged one there!) I thought about pursuing a career in makeup but decided to paint canvases instead. But it’s such a fantastic hobby for me and it brings me happiness daily!
I think like a lot of people, YouTube videos. I always had a slight interest in makeup but it definitely skyrocketed once I got into YouTube. I remember watching Michelle Phan and MakeUpbyTiffanyD as well as a few others but those videos made me love it!
My love affair with makeup began when my mom bought me my first tube of lipgloss as a pre-teen. It’s been down hill from there! 😉
A major bout of acne at age 20 (though I began to wear makeup only a year later). I was shocked by how the foundation covered it all up!
Tinkerbell manicure kits I used to get for Christmas, and Avon lipstick samples were my intro into makeup . My mother was never into cosmetics much only really for going out, and she never wore much. All my life she has only ever had one lipstick… She’s obviously crazy. I don’t have any idea where it’s come from, except that I have always been infatuated with colors and was always very creative & artistic. Cosmetics were beautiful, everything about them, the packaging, textures, scents and in the 60’s everything shimmered and was so vibrant. I think my love for makeup was inate. It’s similar to the love I have for papers and inks and nature, a part of who I am.
i think what really got me was that my mom would give me her old mary kay to play with. my cousin actually gave me a BRIGHT pink lipstick when i was little as well… so i can give credit to my mom for letting me play with makeup and even wear [horrid blue] eyeshadow once i got to middle school
It just makes me look better .. what’s not to love about that .. lol.
Monica
I got into makeup at the end of the ninth grade, I think. At the time, it had a lot to do with how it could be both very quantifiable (colour, texture, formulas) and very artistic — and the fact that I was good at it. Growing up as a second daughter behind a startlingly intelligent first, I didn’t have a lot of things that I could call “mine,” but makeup was the one thing that I both excelled at and was able to keep to myself.
Ironically, when I fell out of love with makeup a few years ago, it was her burgeoning makeup addiction that brought me back into it. Now, we have Saturday mornings reading our favourite blogs together, and the occasional makeup night 😉 She’s still learning about things like undertones and shapes (I’ve re-taught her contouring three times — it’s beginning to be one of our long-running jokes), but now I get to fall back on HER expertise when it comes to things like allergies and ingredients!
I’ve always loved makeup. I’ve only seen my mum without makeup 3 times in my life, and my grandma always wears makeup as well. My great-grandmother never went anywhere without her lipstick, well into her eighties. I went in phases, though. I’d wear it every day from age 12-13, stopped at age 14, and then went right into full face makeup, smoky eyes and all at age 15. Still wearing full face makeup, and I just turned 18 last month.
it literally boils down to “I LIKE PRETTY COLORS” like. That’s it. That’s all it is at the core haha.
I grew up with 3 other sisters who were all girly and pretty and i was a big tomboy…i first applied makeup at my sister’s wedding..i must have been 18..and there has been no looking back.I soon learned that makeup only highlights whats in there already.Its only recent that i am also dabbling a lot with colors on my eyes and a lot of bronzers to sculpt my face.Thanks to you blog, I can make smart purchases and confidently apply makeup…
So glad we can help you, Rohini! <3
My grandma. She wore bright red lipstick til the day she died, and I always admired it. Then it was eyeshadow. I love you, eyeshadow.
I always love and admire BEAUTY….from a very young age I always watched my mom apply make-up to be mouth dropped with results….what I love the most is the confidence it gives you, the creativity…make up can help cover any imperfection but it can also be art and fashion….I feel my passion grew more ever since my make up was done by at a pro at one of the mac stores I felt in love.
Since I was a very young girl, I remember I analyzed closely beauty ads in magazines trying to figure out how this or that look had been done, observing how certain lipsticks looked with an eyeshadow combination and how I would like to try all than on myself. Once I was allowed to wear makeup and buy some, it´s been non-stop for me. I simply love the endless possibilities that makeup gives,to express myself and how with just a little change of color, you can wear a totally different look from one day to the next. I still feel the same excitement today to try a new product as I did as a teen and one of my favorite parts of the day is to put on makeup. My love for makeup has grown even further thanks to the blogosphere and YouTube – who would have thought there were so many of us in love with makeup?!
I wore makeup off and on occasionally throughout high school and college. I didn’t start wearing it consistently until I started dating a guy. I wanted to look nice so I started wearing it every time I was going to see him…which turned into every day. I have oily skin and especially struggled with eyeshadow; one day I googled how to make eyeshadow stay on and discovered eyeshadow primers. That opened the world of you tube videos to me. My mom always wore make up but it was more of a chore and the videos I watched made it fun and taught me skills no one I knew had. Also I used to be really into painting/water color and it became a creative outlet. I’ve been obsessed ever since. And that guy…we’ve been married over 6 years now. 🙂