Why (and How) I Finally Learned How Put on Makeup in My 30s

Recently I put a photograph from my fifth birthday on Instagram as a throwback Thursday post. The first thing I notice is that I’m mugging for the camera. The second thing I notice is how unfortunate my hair looks. My bangs are crooked, I have two wayward barrettes in what appears to be a failed attempt at a braid, and there are flyaways surrounding my face.

“They didn’t teach me how to do hair at Harvard,” my doctor mom would sniff. She had a stylish pixie (Madonna, circa the “Rain” video) that she methodically maintained with visits to the hairdresser once every four weeks. She cared about her clothes, but she always used a minimal amount of makeup and had no skill with a curling iron. And while she would take me shopping when I was a kid, she never taught me how to do anything beauty-wise. When I asked her recently why she never imparted any of these skills, first she said, “It never occurred to me,” and then she added, “At least I taught you to shave your legs.”
My mother also always said that you don’t need makeup when you’re young: In your 20s, you have the best skin and hair you’ll ever have, so why gussy that up? In my experience, that was true. I never had acne until my late 20s, which is also when I started getting wrinkles (this seems like a cosmic joke). My hair got weird and stringy when I was pregnant with my daughter at 30. I came to a point where if I didn’t start learning how to do basic hair and makeup, like my friends had learned when we were teenagers, I was at risk of going out in public looking like a bridge troll.

Enter Michelle Phan, the YouTube beauty tutorial star who has racked up over 1 billion views. She is also the founder of a beauty ecommerce start up that is worth $84 million. I watched her videos, among others, when I was trying to learn how to do some rudimentary makeup techniques. It never occurred to me to do anything to my eyebrows except pluck the stray hairs that grew out of my eyelids until I watched her basic brow video. Now she’s got a new book called, what else? Make Up, which also covers some fundamentals of makeup and hair.
I should say up front that I am not the target audience for Phan’s book. Actual teenagers are. There are sections on how to get an internship and how to dress for a funeral that are not exactly necessary in my life. But, even after a few years of watching video’s like Phan’s (and also, Jane Marie’s excellent How to Be a Girl series on the Hairpin, which is geared more towards adult beauty newbies like myself), I’m still not great with makeup or hair. I work from home, so my lack of beauty know-how is not an everyday drama, but now I have a daughter, and I would some day like to be able to do her hair without it looking like a hot mess.

Phan’s book did help me with a few things that her videos haven’t. The book is very, very elementary, which is what I still need. I learned that I should apply thin layers of concealer to my zits—if I “slop on” too much concealer at once, Phan warns, “The pimple will look cakey and/or bumpy.” I also learned how to do a smoky eye without any tools, just using my fingers, which is helpful because I’m sort of a spazz with makeup brushes and still can’t do anything remotely complicated. I’ve tried using liquid liner so many times because it seems like a good idea, and I always just end up looking like my toddler did my eye makeup.
As for hair, Phan’s book was less helpful. I already know how to do a passable blow out (she gives instructions) and no matter how many tutorials I read or look at on the Internet, I will never, ever be able to do a fishtail braid. I still don’t understand why beauty bloggers have chosen this particular style as an “easy” alternative to a regular braid. It’s not easy unless you’re already good at styling.
The fact that I’m still not a whiz at most of this stuff makes me feel a lot more sympathetic to my mom. I will never be able to do a French braid on my daughter that starts at her scalp. I can teach her how to cover up a zit, but I won’t be any help with a cool winged eyeliner look, or whatever is fashionable for teenagers in 2028. But my kid will have Internet beauty tutorials to help her out where I fall short. And you know what they say, curl a woman’s hair, and she’ll have beachy waves for one day. Teach her to curl her own hair via YouTube tutorial, and she’ll have beachy waves forever.