I recently had a bridal client who expected makeup miracles. To make her nose straighter, her skin perfect, her bags vanish. This woman was kind, funny, successful, and someone obviously found her attractive enough to want to marry her. But, she was seriously freaked out about her image for this wedding to the point of a near nervous breakdown before my eyes. Her body was twitching, squeaky noises came out of her mouth like Tweety Tourette’s , and when not sqeeking she went on all kinds of weird oral tangents. And this was only the trial run a couple months before the date!

I was thinking to myself, ‘What is this all about?’. Then she mentioned she had seen pictures of J.Lo. in a rag mag without makeup. Apparently she saw herself in this photo, bags and all, and truly thought that she too could look as seamless as J.Lo. with the proper makeup. Whether this happened seemed about to make or break her entire existence. Except for her skewed perception and J.Lo.’s obviously more intense and expensive upkeep, what exactly made this qualify as expecting a miracle to me?

As I attempted to show her practical application and color theory, and all she could do was continue to pick apart her face with self-depreciation, I realized the answer was that this was one wound up bitch. The difference between Bride X and J.Lo. is that I’m sure Jenny from the block doesn’t get up every morning and cry over her cellulite, obsess over a new pimple crop, and wring her hands at whether to get cheese on her sandwich at lunch. She would never have become the success she is wasting all her energy like that.

How did Bride X get to that point and how could she get over it and move on to being happy and excited about her wedding? Makeup is fun and very helpful to appearance, but it can’t do jack all if you’re all worked up about how much you suck.

So that is my inspiration/introduction to the category. Here I will post suggestions to help you get over yourself already and start living a more gorgeous life. Stop thinking you suck already, it’s making you kind of ugly.

 (PS-If all this J.Lo. talk has made you want to try her style, a good tutorial on J.Lo. eyes is here MakeupMondo )