on lipstick

Before my mother would ever leave the house, she had to put on her lipstick or she felt naked.  It was a deep red when I was very young, but as the 1970s and 80s progressed, she tended toward earth tones.  And she still prefers an earth toned lipstick to this day.  She still won't leave the house without it.

I rarely in my forty-four years of existence wear lipstick.  More often in the last couple of years than ever before, as my lips are drained of their former natural pinkish hue, most likely due to sheer exhaustion, and sleep and vitamin deficiency. I was always more of a lip balm kind of a girl, if anything. There was a huuuuge Carmex phase, but I'm over that now, by about a decade and a half.  I loved Burt's Bees lip balms, but developed allergies in my late thirties, and can no longer wear Burt's Bees and expect to breathe because of the coconut and almond oils in them.

These days, I have a couple of berryish, slightly more than skintone shades with names like 'shy' and 'tenderheart' tubes in my purse for the color/dryness emergency.  Still, rarely do I actually use the stuff.

Enter my daughter.  She started raiding my purse for the sheer fun of dumping contents quite some time ago, but now she goes in for specifics:

I've said it before, and I'm sure I will say it again.

I'm in trouble when she's a teen, aren't I?

photo note:  the orange hue around her mouth is not because she is diseased or due to my terrible photog abilities.  she recently had been gnawing on a carrot.