Non-beauty inevitabilities that I officially welcome back into my life:

Yellow teeth — those Crest 3D WhiteStrips HURT! And my teeth look just fine all normal-colored, thank you very much.
Dry cuticles and unkempt nails — Sometimes you gotta be lazy!
Acne AND bacne — thanks for holding out for so long, epidermis! You can even throw some KP my way if you must.
Tan lines — gone are the days of swaddling myself in a goddamn cashmere wool wrap in 96 degree weather just to keep my back and shoulders line-free! OK, I still wear it sometimes as it’s great sunscreen and looks lovely — but I no longer feel OBLIGATED to wear it rain or shine.
Mosquito bites — I’m amazed you guys didn’t cover me in pink welts before the big day. Thanks, buddies! Have at it. I will tackle you with prescription-strength steroid cream and continue to catch you easily mid-flight.

Things I now bid adieu to for the foreseeable future:

Bustiers/corsets with boning — GOD PLEASE THE HORROR. I still have a scar from where it poked at me all night, from BEFORE the wedding! Boning is bullshit.
Spanx — I can finally both digest and breathe, to say nothing of going to the bathroom in a reasonable time frame.
Heels — OW.  At 5’11″ I’m done with that discomfort for a WHILE. (Though I’ll probably dye and keep my 2.5″ Jimmy Choo and/or Angela Nuran wedding heels, and re-wear them eventually!) But as of right now, I can’t feel the outer edge of my damn big toes because of my wedding-day footwear worn for a mere 2 hours. *&^@$@#! heels!
Manis/pedis — I gotta start saving my money again, and plus, I kind of miss my OWN neglected polish shades! And no more dremel for a while. Nails on a chalkboard. And no more soaking my fingers in acetone for ages to get the tough gel polish off.
Makeup artists — I love being pampered and all, and Carina and Swink both did an amazing job — I just kind of miss looking like ME. I normally never do foundation or blush, my eye makeup never looks as perfect as theirs, and I’m just *used to* my own shades and formulations. Plus it took like a year to get my false lashes off, and a few real ones came with each cluster. QQ Owie!

So I recently hit 29, which has coincided with my skin starting to show its first signs of aging. I’ve also been shifting towards a more grown-up lifestyle and image over the past few years, yet I’ve started working in increasingly low-key settings with a more casual dress code and funkier limits for hair and makeup. While I don’t much miss the slutty zany clubbing clothes of my skinnier and drunker youth, I do kind of miss some of the crazy makeup, and I admit to taking advantage of the casual setting by rocking bright turquoise shadow/liner from time to time!

I keep hearing (mainly from the Lauren Hutton brand) that women “of a certain age” should avoid shimmer-based makeup. I’m starting to notice that some shimmery makeups do indeed settle in my few fine lines and make me look older, but others still seem to flatter. I definitely decided a few years ago that glittery makeup was a no-go for me anymore, except for really extreme occasions, like New Year’s Eve or maybe my upcoming bachelorette party.

I now work in a very young-looking industry (video games) with loads of women who wear pigtails and black lipstick well into their 50s and are covered with visible tattoos and dye their hair crazy colors. And I feel like this skews my perceptions of age- and work-appropriate makeup and hair stylings in a “normal” setting, partly because I’m in a techie bubble (heavily influenced by Japanese trends too) and partly because those definitions themselves are shifting.

All this has got me wondering what everyone else thinks! (This was modified from an EDS post, but I wanted to blog it too to see if there’s any different feedback from that community.)

When are you too old to wear makeup with glitter in it? Is there a difference between glittery eye makeup, glittery lip stuff, glittery nail polish?

When are you too old to wear zany colored makeup, likecolored eyeliner? How about very bright lip color? Bold blusher?

What about false lashes? Crazy colors of nail polish (like very dark/black, bright blues, etc.)? Do any of those have age restrictions?

At what age do you stop wearing shimmery stuff? (We can talk skin age rather than actual years — like how lined does your face have to be before it’s time to lay off the shimmer? Is there a good litmus test for this?)

What about twee-seeming hair trends, like headbands orbraided styles or what have you? Any restrictions on type, color, material of fascinator, hats, etc. that have just gone over my head? What about hairstyles that are throwbacks to prior decades, like perfectly teased 60s flips, long straight middle-parted 70s Cher hair, or 80s side ponytails à la Flashdance? What’s your limit?

Anyway, I was just curious to solicit the opinions of other beauty nerds out there. Any input from posters of any style, skin type, age range, etc. is most welcome!

While I did have more success with gel liners, I’ve recently been more willing to give the liquid stuff a try — thanks entirely to a newer genre of liquid liner applicators. Back in middle school I first discovered some cheap but great stylo-type liquid liners from L’Oréal and Cover Girl, but they got discontinued — so I had to just wait it out until makeup companies put these awesome flexy soft-tip markers for the eye back on the market. But my cat-eye prayers have been heard, and answered!

Smashbox, MAC, NARS and Hourglass all have pen-like liquid liners out now. The only one I’ve tried so far is Smashbox, because it seemed like the most water-resistant formulation when I tried them all out (sans MAC) at a Sephora.

…Shit.

So after applying pancake “Fair” colored orange over my primer on Saturday, I decided to swing by Sephora for an upgrade. Guess what? Too effing busy to help me. Awesome. (Normally I can help myself in a store like that, but this is the ONE area of makeup where I really need someone else’s expertise!) So the gal told me to schedule an official consultation so they would have time set aside for me. But since they were too busy to even do THAT, and since there are other store locations that would be more convenient anyway, I figured I’d hit the Downtown shop for said assistance.

Side note: did you know they’ve now made it completely impossible to actually call any retail Sephora location? Yeah, you can leave a voicemail for the store manager and pray s/he’ll get back to you, but that’s it. Nice CS, guys!

Anywho — I *think* I’ll wind up going with Make Up For Ever’s Invisible Coverage HD foundation. There appear to be a zillion shades, reviews plus product description suggest it looks good in pics, and it seems widely available. But DAMN if it isn’t expensive! I hope it’s worth the dough. And I hope the negative reviews are wrong, yikes!

I’m off to Sephora on my lunch break today to hopefully get some hands-on help, or at the very least schedule a consultation time. Since my trial run with Carina is this Saturday, I really wanted to have the shade picked out so I could bring it along, since I’d rather use stuff I’ve tried out. Guess I’ll a) return to the office with a rainbow of beige streaks along my jawline, heh, and b) wear foundation every day this week to work so I can try the stuff out. This will be interesting, to say the least!

* All foundation shades look orange and dark on me, except the ones that err in a vastly different overkill direction. My very first ever foundation that my mom got me was a MAC heavy coverage one in a color called Alabaster, which was FREAKY pale and made me look scary dead which is hard to do. And my first concealer, from this crappy shop no longer in existence at Southcenter Mall, was pink-toned like my skin but way too dark for me, so it just made me look hung over when I wore it under my eyes. At twelve years old. Why is it SO HARD to find a good shade for pale pink-toned skin? Ack!

Stay tuned. Surely they’ll come out with a seventh innovative bottle of cetearyl alcohol soon!

The system worked like most gel nails, I guess, except that after the base coat, two gel polish coats were applied and UV-hardened. Problem is, the color (I went with “Aphrodite’s Pink Night”) is quite sheer and went on paler than I’d pictured, so it’s much subtler than I’d hoped and doesn’t conceal if I have gunk in my nails. (Gross, I know, but part of the beauty of a manicure is making your hands look great even when they’re not, right?) OPI’s description seems to indicate this is by design.

I’m also told I can’t put polish on top of the gel lacquer like I could with acrylics or regular gel nails (as I understand them). But then this Elle link seems to indicate you CAN put polish on! And when I asked about fills/maintenance, they said it was pretty much the full $60 no matter what, but maybe they could do a same-color fill for $45. Hrm.

All in all, I think this service convinced me to give regular gel nails a try for the wedding. I’ve only had acrylics once before and hated them, but so far I’m loving my gel hybrid thingies. My nails are still short enough to be able to type and do everything else I do (I hate the look and feel of long nails). We’ll see how they hold up after a week or so, but if I still like them come July then I’m getting gels for the big day!