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Who or what made you fall in love with makeup?
MAC pigments! They were just so fun and inspiring to play around with for someone who had not used makeup before!
— Christine
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The who would be my best friend from grade schools mother. I have mentioned her on the blog before. She worked at what was a high end makeup counter in the late 60’s and into the late 70’s. She didn’t allow her daughter, my friend, to wear makeup but she didn’t mind giving it to me to wear. She also included great skin care items and I wish to this day I had kept it up. I had a taste for the expensive stuff even back then. The product that I got from her that I fell in love with was a Chanel lipstick called “Midnight Rose”. It hasn’t been made for probably 35 years but I can remember the way it looked, smelled and glided on and how it made me feel sophisticated and beautiful when I wore it. I miss it.
I went through a period where I didn’t really purchase or wear a lot of makeup. Two things happened. My daughter really got into makeup about the time she graduated from high school and her passion sort of ignited my dormant passion and the product that really ignited that passion for me was a Dior 5 pan shadow palette called “Trafalgar”. I don’t think it is still available although I could be mistaken. Thank you for this question because I need to dig it out and use it again. To me, the is little more satisfying than setting my 5 pan shadow palettes next to each other and basking in their glory, LOL.
Oddly enough, for me it was getting REALLY into color theory in high school. I was a painter way before I was a makeup enthusiast. The better I understood color the more I wanted to play with it on my eyelids as well as on canvas.
Ooh, I love the “what” option! Because while I was definitely bitten by the makeup bug as a tiny tot having watched my Mom apply her makeup, the real enthrallment came from Hollywood! There was just something so fascinating about how those actresses had such a flawlessness about how they looked. Ones that immediately come to mind are; Raquel Welch, Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, and Eartha Kitt.
As a teenager, you want to be like everyone else…In Catholic high school, these girls wore tons of makeup. I wanted to have cosmetics like them. I bought Maybelline and Cover Girl. No le gusto. Clinique was my introduction to department store cosmetics. Chanel was my gateway cosmetics.
At that time Chanel products were made in France….then stopped…became made in a USA for a long time…I did a switcheroo to other brands that were made in France…..no MAC at my time. There were no You Tube or blogs at that time. Magazines were the way to go. No Amazon. I would go to book stores and looked at the beauty section for books.
I love makeup, because it makes me feel like a girl.
I wasn’t really that into makeup until I started making money to where I could afford it! I discovered Jaclyn Hill’s first foundation video on Pinterest back in the day and I’ve been hooked ever since. She’s still one of my favorite YouTubers because I love her personality and she pretty much helped me build my makeup and brush collection through her videos.
My mum uses lipsticks. I spoilt hers at age 3 by trying to get it on my lips. It went all over the bed and the lipsticks broke… Also, when I see colors I go bonkers.
Lots of different things, I think – my mother, who didn’t wear a ton of makeup but would always treat herself to this one particular Estee Lauder either cake eyeliner or an eyeshadow – I can’t remember which – but it was a shade very much like MAC Sumptuous Olive or Nars Baalbek. Then too there was a “letter from London” by Pattie Boyd, erstwhile wife of the late George Harrison. I don’t know if she actually and really wrote these “letters” but in one or more of them, she detailed her makeup and beauty items and routines and to my 10 year old mind, they were like gospel! And finally, it was MAC – mostly MAC eyeshadows, which I still really love to this day, but also blushes and lipsticks, liners, etc., and it’s eyeshadows that are still my real weakness
False eyelashes.
I have always loved them. I remember as a little girl in the early 70’s flying on a plane marveling at the stewardesses’ glamourous strip lashes and makeup. They’re just so transformative! I wore them as a teen in the 80’s when they weren’t even in fashion. I’ve worn strips, demis, trios, extensions, individuals, – even 2-3 sets of strips at a time! After 15 yrs I became sensitized to the glue and gave them up. Now I Latisse it up & make due with 2 coats of mascara. An lots of liner. 😉
My mom and Audrey Hepburn.
I love this answer SO much!!!!!
For years and years, I wore very little, if any makeup. One day my mom told me I should think about wearing more. That was shocking coming from her, because she wasn’t that into makeup herself, but she did wear it. One Saturday soon thereafter, I went into Nordstrom’s (humongous cosmetics department) at South Coast Plaza and trolled all the counters for at least 3 hours. Everything was so beautiful. I walked out with my first haul: A Dior quint and blush, and a Chanel lipstick and lip liner. This rest is history. . .
The process I think. I was in art classes my entire life and so a few years out of colleges and a year or so into my Master I felt like I needed the creative outlet. I started looking around trying to figure out how to help my skin and then fell down the hole and fell in love with the process and the creativity that I could participate in everyday.
Mary Quant!
When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I fell in love with the cool packaging and fun colors of Mary Quant makeup. The ads featured fabulously edgy looks on the models. Though her makeup has long since become unavailable in the U.S., and I’ve moved on to MAC, KvD, UD, and other great brands, it was Mary Quant who started my long-standing love affair with makeup.
Urban decay mini pencil eyeliner set about ten years ago. I never used make up before.And these pencils were so easy To use. Colours like oil slick and rockstar completely thrilled me. It was the beginning of my love for makeup.
Oh man, I can’t even remember! I think it was just in my blood since birth to love it lol! I’ve been playing with makeup since I was maybe 7-8? I would be gifted super cheap makeup or given my moms old makeup and I used it to death! Not until I made my own money could I actually dive into the obsession.
I was looking for an after work job at the local Macy’s. I was hired on the spot at the Chanel counter. The rest is history.
pixiwoo:)
Urban Decay and Nars eyeshadow.
I remember the first time I went to a Sephora and saw Rated R. It was life changing! I never knew makeup could be so fun, colorful, or interesting. I bought the Ammo palette soon after and have been into makeup ever since.
Not being allowed to wear it when I was a teenager. I purchased my first foundation after I got married – I chose Estee Lauder and wore it for ages.
My mom was a model before getting together with my dad, and she always had makeup. One of my few fond childhood memories is looking at her makeup under her supervision, and watching her put it on. She had this amazing blindingly bright shade of fuchsia in a black floral cloisonne case that I was in love with. (The start of my obsession with fuchsia lipsticks.)
My “surrogate mom” was a makeup artist who was born, raised, and trained in Paris…I’d always been fascinated by makeup but she turned it into an art form for me and now it’s my link to her since she passed away several years ago.
I was 26 years old and pregnant. Nothing fit me, so I couldn’t really buy any new clothes or shoes. Hormones making me go crazy, so I started to watch YouTube videos on how to do makeup and started to like and have fun making myself look “prettier”. Until I was 26 I only wore mascara on special occasions. I never really cared. I’m a late bloomer! Haha
My grandfather!!
My native grandpa, before he passed away he left my brother and I some money to be given to us at certain ages. (12 when we “start puberty”, and 18 when we come of age) and when I was 12 I took the money I was given from Grandpa.
And I got my father to drive me an hour to the closest MAC store, and there I bought my very first makeup item. I bought the MAC potted cream concealer to use on my under eyes/acne.
And it makes me laugh looking back, because I was around a NC30 back then. And I was told to buy a NW20 concealer. So it looke AWFUL on me ahaha! Very ashy!
But I fell in LOVE with makeup. Next I bought a mascara. an so forth.
It makes me happy, whenever I do my makeup I think of my grandpa now!!
Kathleenlights on YouTube. I buy everything she recommends!
From about 12 years onwards, after a concert in primary school where we had to wear makeup, I just loved it. The colours (all frosty eyeshadows back then), the gloss, the glamour….nothing has changed for me, I still love it.
Lip Smackers! They were often included as a gift with magazine purchases and the assorted scents and ‘collectability’ of the products got me hooked. They were obviously the gateway towards lipsticks… and the rest! I still have an entire draw of them in my vanity as a result.
It was this blog that made me fall in love with makeup! I originally started to wear it to cover up a scar on my face, checked out this blog to find the best concealer, and then fell in love with makeup by reading these reviews.
One hundred percent my Gram. My love of makeup/fragrance most def come from her. I couldn’t wait to grow up so I could put on makeup and go out just like her. On the weekends she and my Papa would get all gussied up and go to diner with a group of friends. They basically had their own table at this wonderful Italian restauraunt that sadly is no more. It was almost like she had a ritual to get ready to go out. She’d let me help her pick out her outfit and her lipstick color of the night. We’d talk and I would watch her put on her makeup, do her hair and pick out a perfume. She had the most beautiful natural nails. I can remember watching her put on nailpolish. When I got a bit older, she’d let me paint her nails. By my late teens/early twenties I was sharing makeup with her. Later on when she started to have trouble, I was doing her makeup for her so she’d be on point when she went out. There certain smells of cosmetics or fragrances that automatically make me think of her and transport me back in time. Does this happen to anyone else? I lost my Mom at 4 and my Gram helped to raise me. She was hands down the most important person in my life. I miss her so much every day. Love you Gram and Papa xoxo
Gosh, YES – the scents of certain items does it for me too. My mom won a gorgeous dark green “reptile” (it was textured leather, I’m sure) cosmetics train case from Elizabeth Arden. Back then, Arden’s products were all packaged in a pale peachy pink and this train case was lined with pink satin and filled with Arden skin care items. I can still remember exactly the look of it and the smell. A few years ago, I was testing out some Atelier Cologne scents and I smelled Grand Neroli and it was EXACTLY the same smell as those Arden products and that train case (the scent had permeated the fabric). It took me back to my childhood and my mom in an instant. She also wore White Shoulders cologne and I can still remember in my head the scent of that fragrance. I think it’s been changed considerably over the years (as have many fragrances) but even smelling the “newer” version takes me back to my mom.
Magazines! By 14, I read Vogue, Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Glamour and Seventeen. Vogue was amazing in the ’70s. I’d note the products used for the fashion shots, borrow my mom’s cards for speciality stores and walk out charging $30 eyeshadows, etc. (That’s a 1971 price.) It still amazes me my mom paid the bills and never complained. As I was the “identified difficult child,” I guess she picked her battles. I so miss her.
It would have to be a book. A New You by Emily Wilkens. I studied that book as if I were studying for a very important test. It taught me all about how to become the me that I am today. That and channeling Audrey Hepburn.
I think seeking strong, powerful, confident women like Linda Carter, Paula Abdul piqued my interest. But in college getting my art and chemistry degrees I took a theatre elective and Dr. And Dr. Lyle quoted Ben Nye, “make up ain’t nothin’ but drawing on your face”. The intimidation was gone. Then working as a runway artist for a major French couture brand I really learned the joy of doing makeup well and how it can inspire and encourage self-confidence in others.
I used to watch my mom put her makeup on and that’s what peaked my interest about makeup. Later on after some bad things happened in my life and I became really insecure. I fell in love with makeup because it was the only way that I felt beautiful. But over the years my best friend, beauty influecers and makeup on Pinterest along with more confidence in myself made me fall in love with makeup because of all the things you can do with it and all the beautiful looks you can create.
I could say my mom and the rest of beautiful women in my family especially from mom’s side. My grandma’ from my dad’s side had beautiful skin until her 90’s but also Teen Magazine and above all the plain beautiful colors have always attracted me and the packaging. I also loooove gardening well, flowers more than the actual work of gardening but yeah all the colors of the rainbow.
I think my mom’s Butterfly Pink lipstick when I was little. Like most stuff, my mom rarely used her makeup, saving it for “special occasions.” But my little self looooved this bright pink. I think it was either Revlon or Max Factor. Then I got my own lipstick from Avon, called Plum Pink. So pretty. Teen Magazine sealed the deal, and I’ve been in love with makeup as long as I can remember.
The Body Shop Colorings collection, centuries ago!