Stupid Guilty Pleasure

Dang, I did it again. (Did what?) Binge-spent on -- drumrolls -- makeup. Yeah, makeup. Of all things in the world that are probably worthier spending my little money on, today I spent almost $100 on a luminous powder and a custom-blend lip gloss.

Now I'm looking at the pile of almost-untouched makeup pieces I've bought over the past couple of years. I look at the ones that I ended up not using for various reasons:

• Too goopy, too tacky, too obvious, too..."made up" look. I swear, when I had makeup on people thought I just stumbled into a tub of flour or paint--head first.
  
• The colours were too outrageous. They'd be perfect come Halloween season, though.
  
• Weren't makeups supposed to "enhance" a woman's natural beauty? How come mine did just the opposite?
  

...and, mentally calculating how much money I just wasted on these totally useless, unnecessary products, I realize I could have had an extra $1200 in my bank account had I not binge-spent on makeup. Fucking eyeshadows. Why, oh why did they have to be so pretty?!!

But, on the brighter side, I've learned to become more, uhm, tasteful over the years, at least in my choice of cosmetic products. In the process of committing these expensive futile blunders, I actually learned the big DON'Ts of makeup. Never again will I walk out the door looking like the love child of Michael Jackson and Mimi Bobeck. And believe it or not, I've learned to appreciate my bare skin even more. In fact, I now go for a very sheer and subtle look--very little makeup, just enough to look a tad prettier and more polished, and thus feel more confident (yes, makeup does that --remember "dress for success"? Well, makeup is part of a woman's dress. It helps create a mood and bring out an aspect of her personality).

Also, my hunch is that it is not the makeup itself that makes a girl look prettier: It's rather the illusion, the feeling, that one does look better with it on that causes her eyes to sparkle, her personality to pop a bit more; hence making her do look nicer.

I bet advertisers and marketers would have an orgasm if they read that. ;)