So, yesterday, my friends and I went to CVS. Had to go buy some odds and ends and see if they had anything to spark my interest. Sadly, I didn’t need anything,however, it was fun playing with my friend with a hand fill of lubricant. Just running around the store, just made me feel like a child with NO parental watchful eyes. Being at CVS made my creative juices start to flow…I wasn’t like Harriet the Spy, having a nifty pen and pad handy just to jot down some of my thoughts. I just stood in an aisle(just so happen to the cosmetic aisle) and bam, words came across my mind and story started to form(I’m sure my creative writing teacher would have been so proud). In short, here’s what my creators in my head came up with(he he)…

Starring at these familiar face of people can only sink me into a deeper hole. I’m sure none of them ever have to worry about real life things such as fitting into a size 12 jeans or a shirt that won’t perseved me as a some type of street-walker. I scanned the isle at familiar blushes, eye-liners,foundations,concelers that were created to hide a woman facial flaws. If your eyes are circular, add a detailed line using our eyeliner. It’ll give your eyes a dramatic look while giving you eyes that define look that men simply drool over. PSH! Revlon, L’Oreal, Cover Girl,lined the moniker in the isle, and there I stood, staring at Beyoncé flawless face. Oh, How I hated her! Her smile, perfectly straight-lined whites, smiled back at my sadden face. I could hear her air laughter as her smile formed and the photographer captured that moment. What I wouldn’t kill for a photographer to create those moments, making me laugh and taking that laugher and put in Ad for Maybelline.

I started to look for the foundation that would go against my skin. I’m a ray of different shades of brown, some from years of battling ache, scars from childhood chickenpots and then the underline brown which is the complection that my egg-donor had given. I wonder if she ever had this problem, trying to find shades that would look like she didn’t any beauty issues. There I came across a chart, three questions to determine what color would best suit me. Is your wrist either one of these three choices? Are you warm or cool? What color best describe you? Didn’t think I needed to be asked survey questions just to get a color. Figuring that I wasn’t warm, cool. Yeah, cool was the only options. Why would the lighter complection be consider “warm” while the darker complection be consider “cool”?

“You ready to go yet?”

“Uh, No, I gotta get one thing’

“Ok, I’ll be waiting in the car”

Smile. Just go, let me have a hidden battle with regards to beauty. She’s an army of thousands and i’m only an army of one. Who was I kidding? I don’t think a brand would be able to cover my scars. Beauty, that aspect of my life was never born? More like miscarried. Tried every aspect from going to Kim Lee Nail Salon on 3rd and South or to Mrs. LaVene house of hair to endure 2 hours of chemicals, braids, sewn-in weaves to say that “I got good hair”. Yet, nothing availed. My head got to ichy, hair would grow faster like wild weeds, nails would break after handling house chores. It’s exausting. High maintance was, still, not in my vocab. What’s the point?  You would rather talk to, get to know someone who’s “real” when everything is “fake”.

Beyonce, how did you do it? Does Jay-Z see you without your makeup? Your weaves? Does he turn over in the morning, while you still look like to you just got done a photoshoot, though it was 3 days ago?

I picked up liquid foundation, #21, cocoa. Hum. Placed against my skin, am I too light or too dark? Fustrated sigh, I mean, what extra day of having my flaws on my face shouldn’t kill me. I’ve done it for 23 years, minus the years when puberty didn’t hit me like a sack of pennies.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh, does this color look like me?”

Your face isn’t very reassuring while to place #21 down and pick up a shade lighter. You aren’t a cosmetic expect, are you? You are going to have me walk out with a light brown foundation and to add more salt to injury, pastel pink shadow? I thank you and as you walk away, I place these unreasonable back to where they are. You might have won this battle, blasted cometic aisle but I have something better. I get your attention once more, but instead of being decreet, I bring attention to not only Almay, Clinique, Max Factor but to any other brands i’d be in war with everytime I got to a CVS, Rite Aid, or Walgreen…

“Where would I find Trojans?”