A Little January Flash

I’d just finished returning the last of the unwanted Christmas gifts when I passed the Lancome counter. I looked at the pretty faces of the models in the ads and just felt dumpier. Why don’t they ever have middle-aged ladies with crinkly eyes and disappearing lips in those ads? Easy. No one wants to be that.

I walked to the counter and looked in the mirror. Sure enough, the bags under my eyes were packed and the laugh lines were giggling at me. My gray roots were sprouting and the holiday pounds made my cheeks look like both Chip and Dale could fit in. Good thing it wasn’t a full-length mirror.

“Is there something I could show you?” the elegant clerk asked.

“Oh, I’m just looking. Maybe a lipstick? Something that will stay on. Maybe a new color?”

“Oh yes, we’re just starting to get the spring ones in!” Her nametag read Ladonna, and she had the perfect, thickly made-up skin of a cosmetic counter sales clerk, or a very high class prostitute. Her hair and eyes were dark, emphasized by the smoky gray shadow. I wondered how eyes got that smooth. There were no wrinkles, and no bags. She must live alone.

“These are billed as six hour, but they are mostly just sheer color. I think it would be better to get the creamy ones, with the moisturizer, and then add a gloss over that.”

I looked at her powdery lips: not a glint of gloss in sight. I’d been there before. The upsell because, let’s face it, women at the cosmetic counter are vulnerable. I vowed to be strong. “Oh, no, I have creamy and gloss.” I did. I had literally been there before. “Let’s look at the six hour ones.”

She studied my face, careful to politely glance away from my exposed roots. “Maybe a nice coral?” She started pulling tubes from the display.

“No, I really don’t like anything with oranges or browns. Pinks, plums, lavender even, but no coral.”

“Oh. Well then," she said in a voice that conveyed my delusions. Older women wear coral! But though my hair is dark blonde, my eyes are green hazel and my skin is pale. Corals just make me, and everyone in my opinion, look older. Or clownish. Neither something I strive for.

“How about this one? Nice and bright. Will add cheer to your look.” She swiped a color called Bold Pink across the back of my hand.

The tones was garish, like something you’d wear on stage. “Too bright I think.” I pulled a tissue from the box and tried to wipe it off. Maybe in six hours it would fade.

Ladonna jumped down the palette several shades and pulled another.  She drew another stripe on my hand. “Better?”

This one looked just like Carnation Pink from the Crayola pack. “A bit too much like preschool.”

She pulled a few more samples, and my hand began to look like a rose toned rainbow. I reached for a tube in the middle, number 583 and it looked about right. “Can I try this one?”

“Of course,” she said. “That’s Roses in Love, a very nice shade, though not one of the spring collection.”

I was ready to pay and pocket, but she insisted I try it on. She peeled the outside of the lipstick with a knife and swabbed the waxy stick with alcohol. “I’ll do that again after you use it,” she explained.

I’d never been actually handed the tube of lipstick before, always getting the q-tip dab routine. But I’d purposely only used lip balm before I left home. Figured when all else failed, (it was the mall after all) new lipstick would give me a lift.

I ran the clean tip over my lower lip, then dabbed it on the upper. I had to admit that it brightened me up. What is it about lips that makes them fade away? And hair? It's like there is a drain somewhere and color just seeps away. Then it lands on your arms and chest in the form of age spots.

I glanced at the rainbow on the back of my hand and noticed the freckles there as well. Okay, arms and chest and hands. “I’ll take this one.” I handed Ladonna the tube and she, true to her word, did the disinfecting act again.

I was surprised when the color wasn’t sold out and left the mall pleased that I’d not been talked into anything else. When I got home, I unpackaged the shiny silver tube and put on another coat. Only…
I opened my makeup bag and pulled out the two other silver tubes that I’d bought earlier that year. 583, Roses in Love, all of them. Maybe I’ll go for a bouquet.