Let’s Face It, Makeup Is Now an Art Form

I enjoy being a girl as much as the next guy. But panty hose? The work of the devil! High-heeled shoes? Satan’s footsteps! Cross-my-heart bras? Hope to die!

Then there is makeup. I recently made the decision that I was going to look into two things in the ‘90s: lying and makeup. As my friend Judy likes to say, “Vanity, thy name is 40.”

When I was 13, makeup was my life. I would pose before the mirror at Woolworth’s in Maybelline’s Midnight Black and Revlon’s Hot Coral. The only problem was, I bit my nails and would find frosted Hot Coral rings on all my fingertips.

Then with the ‘60s and ‘70s came something incredibly convenient called The Natural Look. Now, some women look good in makeup, but I was a natural for The Natural Look. Simply part the hair down the center. Comb. And say: “Oh, wow.”

But time and the river move on, and one day you stare into the water and say, “Well, maybe a little blusher.”

And that is how I found myself in a suburban full-service salon, awaiting the bell for my first makeup lesson. Makeup in the ‘90s is a complex art form.

Although I had vowed, after my fourth diploma, never to go back to school again, I was moved to reenter when I had to make a TV appearance. The station lady told me to arrive in “full” makeup. Somehow this sounded like more than a little lipstick and mascara.

My teacher, MaryBeth Porfido, “licensed aesthetician,” managed to squeeze me in between a mustache waxing and a full arm waxing. Licensed aesthetician? Is that some kind of artist? Imagine if Leonardo had flunked the state test. Would he have had to go to Oklahoma to look for Mona Lisa?

Ms. Porfido was no Leonardo, but she worked the palette of my face with as much dedication. If I was not quite “The Virgin of the Rocks,” after two hours of face painting, I could certainly pass for The Virgin on the Rocks.

As the lovely MaryBeth, who appeared to be wearing very little makeup herself, toiled over my face, I imagined little microscopic cement-mixer trucks pulling up to each of my pores. During the lesson, a Porfido graduate--her teal eye liner perfectly executed--came by to congratulate my teacher on the recent birth of her baby. As she slathered darkener on my nose--”a cosmetic nose job”--Porfido said that her hubby would be bringing baby by soon so she could nurse her.

And then I thought of a woman’s lot in life. What do men know about standing over someone for two hours trying to make her a work of art while your prolactin is kicking in and your letdown reflex is raging?

I defy even Leonardo to try this when baby is ready for The Next Supper.

When the lesson was over, I understood why La Gioconda could barely smile. She’d crack her foundation.

MaryBeth wrote out a 10-step recipe that would take me from “concealer” to “powder all over.” She wrote out a list of Do’s and Don’ts: “Liner is most important! . . . Do use gloss on lips. . . . Don’t go to dark.”

Yes, Lord, please don’t let me go to dark, whatever that means.

The next day, I tried to apply my new-found knowledge. First thing, I spilled out half the 20-buck vat of “ultra-sheer, ultra-silky loose face powder with a patented moisturizing complex.” I obviously have some kind of ultra complex.

I caked on as much of the stuff as I could and went to meet my friend Jon for lunch. As I approached him, I worried: Would he laugh? Would he hold his nose in the universal P-U gesture? Would he still respect my mind?

I hadn’t seen Jon in several months. He looked terrific . . . and he wasn’t even using concealer.