It`s not easy being green

posted Sun, 20 Mar 2005

I was in TJMaxx the other day looking for a spring coat. I have a perfectly fine spring-weight coat already that I got for only eight dollars at the Junior League Thrift Shop, but it is black, and I have decided that it is time to surrender to my coloring (I am a Spring) and abandon all hope of ever looking good in black. All black clothes – and there are many – have been consigned to the Goodwill pile.

Instead, I am wearing pink – yes, pink – and baby blue these days. These are not cool (as in fashionable) hues, but they do not drain all color from my face and make me look like a corpse. Actually, I have seen corpses and corpses look better than I do, at least the ones who have been dressed up for the casket.

The all-black looks work for some, of course. Just not for me.
Source: http://dkpresents.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/americaninh0.jpg

So as part of my mission, I was seeking a spring coat in a color that would look good on me. I found a cute one in a coral shade. I didn’t know if it might be too orange. The slightest hint of orange or yellow and I head for the hills. I look absolutely putrid in those colors. Unfortunately, my mother is a Fall and looks great in orange and yellow. She loves them. She sewed and knitted all sorts of orange and yellow things for me when I was a kid. Even then, I knew something was wrong, but resistance was futile.

I tried on the coat and asked a lady browsing through the racks if the color was OK on me.

“Well,” she said doubtfully, “it will probably be all right once you have your makeup on.”

I was wearing my makeup.

Granted, it’s not a lot, but it’s as much as this face is ever going to see. I have never mastered the art of makeup and by now, really don’t care. I put on some eyeshadow – peachy pink, mascara, and face powder. That’s it.

There’s only so much you can do when you are 41 if you are not willing to have surgery, which I am not. If I were going to have plastic surgery, although I would like a complete body and face makeover, I would start with enlarging my bladder because that is what would really enhance the quality of my everyday life.

But I wonder just what sort of makeup I should wear for the coat to be acceptable. I did buy it because it was on sale and is such a happy, springy coat – pink/coral with white polka dots. Am I supposed to balance the coat with polka dots on my face? A slash of coral lipstick? Blush? I don’t know. My sister got the makeup and accessory gene, I did not. Will I be a Glamour don’t if I wear the coat without the right makeup? I guess I’ll take my chances.