Tags: interview, Moldova, fieldwork, radio, makeup
Date: 07 September 2007 09:37:50
Thanks for kind comments - this morning I'd say the eye is 90% better (still a teeny bit of swelling, but you can only see it if you look closely, unlike yesterday when it was considerably more obvious) so I'm no longer scaring the horses.
Yesterday's highlight was sitting in on a radio phone-in programme (I didn't participate this time, though may do in subsequent programmes if the subject's relevant and I have something to say) and the presenter was introducing the studio guest participants and referred to me as "a young person from England". Thankfully she'd told me beforehand that she was going to do that, so I didn't burst out laughing live on air. It did make my day though (at my advanced age we takes what we can get).
Partly due to looking like Quasimodo yesterday and partly inspired by one of the studio guests, I got thinking randomly about make-up. I virtually never wear the stuff, and am glad that a friend has offered to do my slap for the wedding because I'd be clueless and probably end up making myself look like Barbara Cartland. I'm so used to the "natural" look that even with a tiny amount of slap (especially lipstick) I feel really uncomfortable and like I look a bit tarty - not that I think people who wear makeup look tarty (usually they don't), but it just looks and feels strange on me because I never bother with it usually. Anyway, one of the girls who was in the studio with me was a really pretty young girl - mid-20s I'd say - who completely spoiled herself (in my opinion) with false eyelashes, exaggerated eyeliner (not quite Amy Winehouse-esque but heading that way) and - the biggest crime of all, I think - outlining her lips with a darker lip pen than the lippy she had used. Question to the slap-wearers here: why on God's earth do women think that that is attractive? I can sort of understand the logic that it makes the outline of the lip more defined, but it is so obvious it just looks ugly and the poor girl ended up looking like she'd had bodged collagen injections. It would have looked so much nicer to have just had one colour (even if it had been really bright and not to my taste), but the two-tone lippy just looked hideous. It wouldn't surprise me if it makes the Baby Jesus cry as well, frankly. It was such a shame because you could see she was actually very pretty, but she looked like she'd let a 6 year old draw over her face with felt tips.