Welcome readers, old and new!
This week you’re reading a VSP (Very Special Post) about updating your makeup routine. I rarely write about makeup—one of the cleverest and oldest ways we’ve used to trick others into thinking we’re finer mating material than perhaps we really are—because I’ve always been a makeup minimalist; it hasn’t seemed worth the attention.
But a reader ready for a fresh look to suit her freshly aging face inspired me to put together what I hope is a helpful guide to adornment. And in case you need encouragement to keep reading, there’s a perk at the end for persevering HNTFUYF-ers.
The little ❤️ button above? Please tap it to remind yourself that your most fruitful adornment is… if you thought I was going to say “a smile,” who do you think I am?
While it’s true some research has shown that a smile increases attractiveness, smiling is one of the ways we (women) have often been encouraged to convey our complacency—to rearrange our features to be more pleasing to “the other.” So I encourage you to think of your most fruitful adornment as something heartier: your presence, which means showing up for yourself so we can all see and appreciate (right through the manipulation and the adornment) the gorgeous creature you are.
A few linky-dinks before the beauty Q&A. You might remember my recent love affair with Tokyo public restrooms; I was delighted to discover that a new Wim Wenders film, Perfect Days, takes place at a public restroom in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. I don’t know what goes on in there, but whatever it is, I’m sure it’s very clean.
And in her Substack, Culture Study, the astonishingly prolific and wise Anne Helen Petersen recently touched on two things that resonated deeply with our values here at HNTFUYF. Her post, “Beauty Culture is Hustle Culture,” featured an interview with Elise Hu about her new book Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital. It was full of gems but there’s one exchange I especially want to share:
Throughout the book, a sentence from the intro stayed with me: “for those with the money to self-optimize, what kind of relationship with ourselves—and one another— are we ultimately pursuing?” This is the real “so what” of the book, I think, and I would love to hear you talk a bit more about where your writing and reporting led you.
The short answer is, we need a kinder relationship with ourselves, and by extension, a kinder relationship with each other. Your work on hustle culture and burnout informed my thinking in that I see beauty culture as hustle culture that’s reached into our bodies. Hustle culture as applied to disciplining or modifying our bodies isolates us from one another because we end up in competition, looking over our shoulders, and scared to ask for help when we need it. It’s a recipe for inequality and marginalization on one end, and anxiety and exhaustion across the system.
🤯
You can buy Hu’s book here.
Not to get all AHP fangirl about things, but her more recent post again resonates with the most damaging issues of beauty culture. AHP analyzes our constant yearning for something new in our frustrating search for “the best.” She starts off writing about a temperamental coffee maker, but she just as easily could’ve been writing about skin care. Read “The Optimization Sinkhole” here.
Ready for a beauty question?
The beauty Q&A in this post is free to everyone but if you want full access to all posts, please become a paid subscriber at the currently discounted rate of $40/year. Thank you!
Q: I recently realized that the makeup I’ve been doing for the past 40 years isn’t quite suited to my now 57-year-old face. Um, help!
A: Your question provoked some anxiety in me because my personal proficiency (as previously mentioned) in makeup and its application is especially deficient. So I turned to Laura Geller, the makeup artist and entrepreneur whose products I’ve tried and liked and who, being a mature squab herself, has figured out one of the most successful ways to adorn the aging face. I asked Laura for an easy update to your routine, which she offered—with a nice little fillip at the end to get you started.
“Makeup formulations have changed and the way to apply makeup has changed a lot in the last 40 years,” Geller said. “Less is more as we get older, but that doesn’t mean just a little mascara and out the door.” [Val here: Okay, but that would be me with the mascara.] Geller loves that makeup now includes good-for-the-skin ingredients like moisturizing hyaluronic acid and aloe, especially because skin may become drier as we age.
She offers more steps than I’d take myself, but skip whatever you like and you’ll still finish with a more polished look.
Except!
“Don’t skip primer!” Geller admonishes. “I’ve shifted to a hydrating formula since my skin is so much drier than it used to be and I need the extra moisture. Primer also helps your makeup look better, because it diminishes any creasing or caking into fine lines and wrinkles. In other words, it creates a better canvas for your makeup,” she said. When you want to skip foundation [Val here: Again, me], the Spackle Skin Perfecting Primers—which come in bronze, champagne glow, and ethereal rose glow—deliver a hint of tint.
Next up, if you’re going for a very polished look, is foundation. “I tend to go lighter with the coverage than I did when I was younger, but I need something to even-out my skin tone,” Geller said. Naturally, she recommends her Baked Balance-n-Brighten foundation and points out that her powders start out as creams before they’re baked, so they’re velvety and non-drying and, Geller believes, a better alternative to pressed powders on mature skin. A few swipes over your face with a brush for light coverage is enough, she said. You can read more about primers and foundations in general here.
“Now that I’m in my 60s, I don’t want to be without blush; it brightens my face and gives me a little lift when I apply it on the tops of my cheekbones and into my temples,” said Geller. She also likes to use blush on her eyelids as shadow, because it creates a kind of unified look and is faster than applying a different shade of eyeshadow.
“I know highlighter can be scary,” said Geller [Val here: I can think of far scarier things, but never mind], though she likes one with what she calls “low glow”—no glitter or shimmer. She uses French Vanilla highlighter under her brow bones and on the top of her cheekbones for luminescence.
Lastly, when choosing lipstick, Geller likes a neutral with a touch of pink (like her Modern Classic lipstick). And I can’t help but recommend my go-to here: The Clinique Chubby stick in Richer Raisin, which I’ve been using for 20 years and still love, because it magically continues to make me look like the human equivalent of a fawn eating fresh raspberries out of a pail.
Geller’s advice includes a fair number of products, so I asked how she might make it a bit easier for you HNTFUYF-ers to play around with makeup without emptying your wallet. She offered a 45% discount on her Cult Classics Full Face Kit (which contains all her products mentioned above) with code VAL45 starting today till June 20th.
The invaluable person who often acts as the superego here at HNTFUYF suggests I remind you that the point of makeup is to have fun, that you might think of it as play, something you can do for yourself that will give you pleasure. If it doesn’t? The hell with it. But if a new lipstick or a blush lifts your spirits? Zhuzh away!
💄💄💄
A Moment of Personal Horn-Blowing
HNTFUYF was included in a roundup of the “23 Best Health and Wellness Newsletters of 2023” by the (what else?) health and wellness website Ness. Thanks, Ness, and thanks to all you HNTFUYF-ers for inspiring me with your thoughtful questions and comments. xo
HNTFUYF, a Payola-Free Zone
Readers, a few of you have asked if I get a cut from sales when I mention a product. I do not. I only mention products I’d like to buy myself, and therefore think you might like, too. I share this so you know my recommendations are offered without obligation.
Val Asks You
Don’t be shy! What’s your most vexing or intractable appearance issue? Send your beauty-related questions to valeriemonroe@substack.com. If I don’t have a good answer, I’ll find someone who does.
Val! I SO appreciate the AHP fangirl-ing. When I read her essay on optimization I felt a flood of relief. I need to be reminded, daily it seems, that I can opt-out of dissatisfaction. Especially important because we spent a fortune on wallpaper two years ago and I already hate it. Her piece—and your reminders about self-kindness—help me accept my misguided orange walls; my spotty face. It’s all okay. It always was. Maybe dwelling in the sub-optimal is the WAY to peace.
I thought seriously about getting the kit from geller then realized I’d get more value from upgrading to paid with you.