A Christmas Day Makeover

Christmas brought Sister Goodlaff to us all the way from L.A., and with her an opportunity to try and answer an as-yet unresolved wedding day question: what to do with my face?

I decided to trust Sister Goodlaff, who is about two and a half years my junior, to not exact her revenge for all the torture I put her through in her younger years, and I graciously let her come near me with eyeliner, mascara, and an eyelash curler (i.e: devices of torture). I had clipped a few inspiration pictures from magazines and gave her general guidelines:

1. No spackled foundation
2. Make it look natural, not runway
3. Don't hurt me

I would like to say she followed all three rules, but I would be lying.


Though I hesitate to put a completely bare-faced picture of myself on the Internet, in the spirit of honesty and as a testament to the power of makeup, here it is.  Miss Goodlaff  before:

Oh dear. That would be my patchy, freckled skin. As you can see, the flash really didn't do me any favors. Note to self: will definitely not be going sans-makeup on wedding day..or any day, for that matter.

Keeping in mind that I was looking for a natural look, Sister Goodlaff got to work slathering me with foundation, powder, more foundation, more powder, then blush.  When she was done, I had a fairly even skin tone.  Then she started in on my eyes.

And that's where the trouble began.  See, I'm low maintenance.  I don't own an eyelash curler, and I'm ashamed to say, I don't keep up my eyebrows nearly as much as I should.  Sleep is more valuable to me than almost anything; I would rather snooze a few more minutes than put on more makeup in the morning. Sister Goodlaff, on the other hand, looks at makeup as a necessary art form.  The stuff she does with crazy shades of eyeshadow from MAC is just sublime.  In her world, there's more to doing eye makeup than just slapping on mascara and a little shimmer.  

On Christmas Day, I was introduced to my "waterline," which is that piece of lid that sits right against your eyeball.  This is the piece of lid that Sister GL seemed hell bent on torturing lining with black eyeliner.  It was not pretty. Then she came at me with the curler, and I kind of freaked out a little bit--I had to press my head into the chair and hold onto the sides to stop myself from moving.  She said I should put on eyelashes for the day of the wedding and I wanted to curl up in a corner and cry.  But I didn't  (because that would have ruined the makeup, and she would have had to do it all over again).

See, I don't like things near my eyeballs, including the optometrist and his professional gadgets. Sister Goodlaff in the Kitchen with the Eyeliner seemed more criminal, especially since (given the aforementioned childhood torture) she probably had good reason to poke me in the eye or pull out all my lashes with the curler.  It was difficult, and I whined a lot, but she won in the end.

So, what did all this torture get me? Behold!

First, a few looks that didn't make the cut:

Bad flash again, sorry! Light pink eyeshadow was pretty, but there was no drama there.  Daddy Goodlaff seems to like it, though!

We tried a dark smoky eye, but it seemed a bit heavy for an afternoon wedding. What would brown or bronze look like, I wondered?

Yes! That's about 3,000 times better, isn't it?  This is the look we decided on for the Goodlaff wedding.  Natural, not heavy, but with a little bit of drama.  Sister GL did a  brown and copper smoky eye with a lovely "bridal glow." I didn't look like my everyday self, but I wasn't unrecognizable either, which was exactly what we were going for. 

Thank goodness there's someone talented with makeup in the family, because I don't know if anyone but Sister Goodlaff would have put up with all the whining I did during my makeup application. I'm pretty sure she was ready to chuck the curler at my head a few times, but calmer heads (Mama Goodlaff) prevailed.   Major bonus: she's free and I trust her (mostly).  I got to check one more thing off the ever-growing wedding to-do list!

Were or are you brave (or thrifty) enough to allow a family member to do your makeup for your wedding?