KristyWes

Glossing Over

At the opera last Thursday, Lincoln Center

Hello friends, and welcome to the second half of November!

Some of you may know November as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) or NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I went a different direction, and decided to celebrate it as NaDoWriDaThiMo (National Don’t Write a Dang Thing Month).

Well, I think I need to change my course for the second half of November. Not writing isn’t working out very well for me. Writing is how I figure out what I think. Writing unclogs the drain that is my brain and exposes all the weird gunk that’s hanging out inside.

Writing is Liquid Plumber for my mind, if you will.

And if you won’t – because that was a rotten metaphor – then please blame NaDoWriDaThiMo. It messed me up good.

In any case, I’m back to the blog – spurred on by a topic that I felt deserved careful & immediate consideration:

Lip gloss.

Yesterday, I needed some new lip gloss. Yes, needed. Ladies, I’m sure you’re with me on this. Fellas, you’ll just have to take my word: Sometimes – sometimes! – new lip gloss is a veritable necessity and not a frivolous want. Trust me, because I’m speaking the truth here. Why would I lie about lip gloss??

So I dragged my color consultant, AK, with me to the nearest Sephora. I had a vision, and it was pale pink lips. Twiggy pale.

The first option we tried came close. Stila’s Plumping Lip Glaze in Vanilla Mint was definitely pale and pretty. But the plumping aspect made my lips burn. Burn bad. No good.

I tried to take off the gloss with a tissue, but that stuff was like glue. Make-up remover helped a little but my lips were still burning. Finally AK handed me a cotton swab with rubbing alcohol, which seemed to do the trick but tasted like licking a doctor’s office. (See? See what NaDoWriDaThiMo has done to my metaphors? Curses.)

The search continued. We cycled through Dior’s lip gloss options (peppermint-y! but did not make me look like Twiggy) followed by Clinique’s palest shade (not pale enough!) and then Smashbox's offerings (not even close).

Finally we arrived at Tarte, where AK selected a perfectly-pale pink lip gloss for me. We had a winner! And bonus: this product came with two different shades of gloss. Double the fun.

I asked AK what my selected shades were called, and she read off the packaging, "Ronald and Cindy."

Ronald? Ronald? My perfectly-pale pink lip gloss was named "Ronald"? That seemed a bizarre marketing choice.

Upon closer inspection, we noticed that all the lip gloss duos in this Tarte line were named after famous lovebirds: Anthony & Cleopatra, Fred & Ginger, Sandy & Danny. But...who were Ronald & Cindy?

The only famous Ronald I could think of (besides Ronald McDonald, and I don't remember him having a love interest) was Ronald Reagan. Did Ronnie have a wife before Nancy, and was her name Cindy? AK and I couldn't recall.

For a moment I was torn - I did not want to purchase Ronald Reagan lip gloss. That's the kind of thing that could get a girl nearly disowned, in my family.

But on the other hand - this was the *perfect* perfectly-pale pink shade of lip gloss. I just couldn't leave it behind. So I sighed, bought it, and brought it home with me.

(Being a girl is really, really hard. But I bet you already knew that.)

Later that evening, AK settled my moral/political/lip gloss quandry with the help of Google.

"Not Ronald Reagan!" she texted me. "Ronald & Cindy from "Can't Buy Me Love". Ronald = young Patrick Dempsey!"

A-ha! My lip gloss suddenly tasted a whole lot sweeter.