When I was a child, my mother’s bedroom bureau featured a mirrored tray containing perfume bottles of all shapes and sizes.  My father never had to worry about a Valentine’s Day gift—perfume was the default. I loved pulling out the stoppers on the bottles of Chanel #5, Shalimar, Joy, White Shoulders and more, imagining myself as a perfumed beauty with dark flowing hair, clad in a low-cut gown.

Alas, I married a man who hates perfume.  And he’s pretty anti-makeup too.  He tells me that when he sees heavily eye-shadowed eyes, he is tempted to place a thumb on each eyelid and rub it out. 

All this was fine with me when my skin was young and smooth and the only dark spots on my face were a side effect of my birth-control pills.  But there came a time when, after my summer tan faded, my winter pallor required a little help—shall we say a tinted moisturizer and some blush?

Eventually the tinted moisturizer became as much a year-round necessity as the bright red lipstick that is my trademark.  But I use eye shadow sparingly.

For obvious reasons.