The Many Shades of Fascination.

"From adoring the color of the ‘pink sorbet’ to abhorring the hue of the ‘okra brown’, my juvenility has witnessed the many shades of beauty!”

Once, when I was little, I sneaked it from her dressing table and hid it in the Tiffin pocket of my purple school bag. When mommy and daddy went for a walk and brother went to play bat and ball, I was sure that no one would interrupt me. It was then; I’d take it out and smell it. The fragrance whispered to me in strangely sexual tones! It did not belong to me. The fact only fuelled the mystery. Perplexed, I carried it to school the next day to show it to my friend, Amanda. During Tiffin time, I held it out to her to sniff it. Twice as baffled as I was, Amanda looked at it and questioned me:

“Your mommy let’s you apply this?”

“I lifted it up from her dressing table last evening.” I replied.

“Oh! My mommy says, when I am 21 I can put it.” She said.

“What is it?” I asked.

That was first tube of lipstick!! Moreover, it was my first step into the artificial world of cosmetics!

I picked it up discreetly from my mommy’s dressing table. Amanda told me that all the women who feature in the magazines, TV’s, newspapers, advertisements and fashion shows every one of them applied it. Like every little girl, I struggled to find my role model. Wearing lipsticks seemed to be a universal tool to success. Powerful women, famous women, beautiful women, competent women, all seemed to know the secret of lipsticks. Applying it became the symbol of a ‘real woman’. What swords were to knights, lipsticks were to desirable women!

That day, we had English period after the Tiffin break. I noticed my teacher’s shiny pink lips as she moved them while teaching us vowels. It was perhaps of her pink lips and my realisation of the mystery behind them being so, that I grasped every pronunciation of a vowel she taught us that day!

Next morning, as mommy was getting ready for work, I stood beside her, looking at her looking into the mirror. She wore her burgundy hair open and styled. Her bangs were straight and looked very soft. On this particular day, she wore a long navy blue suit with high heels studded with embellishments, as I recall, dyed to match. Casually draped over her shoulder was a Persian lamb stole. She sprayed a French Jo Malano that smelled of lavender. As she bent down to pick up the once-upon-a-time-mystery tube: a lipstick (Yes, now it wasn’t) from the dressing table tray, my eyes fixed in a steadfast gaze. I noticed the expedite pace with which she applied it. It was impeccable and finicky. Within a minute her light pink lips were converted into a shade of shining coffee brown. “Is there lipstick on teeth?” she asked me. There was none, I noticed. As she tenderly placed a peck on my forehead with the lipstick clad lips and left for work, I found her the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I still remember the way she’d got into the front seat of the car, turned back and smiled at me. I could only stand mute as I was exalted by way those lips broke from a seal into a smile! That day, I knew, I wanted to be just like her- Apply shiny lipsticks and smell of lavender. 

So sometimes at home, after I finished my homework, it was time I fidgeted with her stock of lip tubes. It felt enthralling when once a while I applied them on my lips with extreme prudence, careful about not smudging it. I used to check, if I’d put any on the teeth and wipe it off if any. I felt like one of those cursed little girls they show in movies suddenly taken to a world of magic and beauty. However, it was only enchanting to apply them. Removing them off was a wicked job. I remember when I’d done my part of rubbing and scratching my lips enough to get rid of the smudgy wax, mommy used to wipe them off softly with cotton dabbed in petroleum jelly! Lo! Back I was to my old, comparatively non shiny, non appealing lips. Like in all fairy tales, where magic and beauty never stayed too long because of the wicked queen, my tale was no different! I felt cursed again. 

 Mommy would say to me, “When you are grown up, you can apply then. Your lips are so naturally beautiful now.” I used to think, ‘grown up’? The license to apply lipstick never came with an age limit. And even if mommy put one, wasn’t I grown up already? When I can choose my favourite colour of lipstick, apply it myself, and most, feel good about it, what else would I need to prove that I am ‘grown enough’ for applying a lipstick? As far as ‘naturally beautiful lips’ were concerned, there was no line between ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’ when it came to looking pretty and appealing. That’s what beauty was all about. Moreover, nothing ‘natural’ could match the sheen and color of a maroon Elle 18 or a Revlon! So the explanation of ‘naturally beautiful lips’ could’ve worked with someone else, I thought. Not with someone as smart as me, who I thought then, was chiseled out for looking beautiful.

Eventually, when I grew a little older, I’d look forward to visiting cosmetic stores with mommy. I’d be fancied by the numerous ranges of color a lipstick had to offer- espresso brown, poppy red, rum and raisin, lively lilac, raspberry crush, pink sorbet etc! Mommy mostly wore coffee brown or mocha maroon- the likes of brown and maroon tones. So whenever we entered a cosmetic store, while I fidgeted with every tube available, she would make her needed buy within five minutes. With the vivacity and ebullience with which I scrutinized lipsticks, sometimes, I felt as if I was the buyer and mommy only tagged along! 

Those were the days when ‘pink’ used to be the prompt answer to my favorite color. From tops, to tee shirts, to earrings, to bed sheets, to bedroom walls, to washroom tiles, to stuff toys, to milk mugs, I’d only want pink. I remember, I pushed mommy once into buy a pair of stark pink cargos for me. I’d seen Britney Spears somersault wearing one in her music video of ‘you drive me crazy’. I thought it was the colour of her lowers which was the secret of her looking beautiful in that particular sequence. I didn’t want to be far behind. The fact seems outrageous to me today, but those were the pink days! A choice for a lip color was no different.

The gene pool we swam gave all of us the same coding: to not wear something ‘too striking’ as they said it. Mommy went for shades resembling a brown or a maroon, though this had always caused a sense of fathomless disappointment to me. I’d once picked up a loathsome feud with her in a store when I’d wanted her to buy a ‘jewel pink’ and she’d buy a ‘caramel brown’! Mommy tried explaining to me that pink would shine too much on a dusky complexion like ours. I’d failed to understand then; cause for me pink was a colour that never wronged a woman. It was meant for every human born as a female and beyond it, no explanation would convince me. 

Once, I lined up all the lipsticks she purchased over the last couple of years and they would all be the same shades of crayola brown. They had different names, cocoa raisin, honey soaked okra and one of her favourites: restless russet. In all my dreams of beauty and glamour, a pink or a red never figured into the picture. I wish she could wear those shades of Easter Bunny pinks. When I shopped for cosmetics with her, I always held out hope that at least once, one of these skilled, overly made up women will magically produce a tube of pink lipstick with mommy’s name on it. Most of the time, the associate only held out a brown. I took it as a piece of consummate misfortune.

They say, whatever you want from the heart, God always grants it to you. My position was no different. But in my context it was the want of applying a pink lipstick in public! Not once, but twice had it come true. First was when I participated in a fancy dress competition in school. I duplicated an angel. Dressing for it was a dream-come-true. Mommy had chosen a pink frock full of frills and ruffles adorned with pearls and shimmers. With it were white ballerinas decorated with a pink bow, fit to match. However, the best part of getting ready was the application of lipstick! I couldn’t believe that mommy herself had applied a pink lipstick on my lips. Not only that, my cheeks, nose, chin and eyelids, all had a dash of pink on them. Joy knew no bounds. Second was when I participated in a group dance. We wore little black shorts, shimmering red tops and wore high pony tails. A flashy red lipstick to match was an inevitability. However, just before our dance was to start, my teacher realized, I’d licked all of the lipstick, leaving nothing so she’d quickly put it once again. I felt happy, yet another time.

To this day, the fragrance of certain tubes of lipstick take me back to those sweet, neoteric and fresh years of my life: my years of discovery, moments of change and of awakenings. I have walked into fully furnished bedrooms at Estate Sales and the smell of old lipstick tubes and pressed powder overwhelms me. I feel a kinship to the woman who wore those colours. I sense the sweet, familiar aroma of a mother.

Apart from those fancy days when I was little, I’ve grown up to be more of a lip balm to lip gloss girl. Lip gloss might have been pronounced be not very cool. But given its history as the only cosmetic I could wear as a girl- from school, to play, to birthday parties, to functions my liking for it might be a little less inexplicable. Besides, I’d once been a sucker for owning it in every conceivable flavor possible. Lipsticks felt far too grown up to be ever truly comfortable to be put on. I found them too shiny and loud, even if it meant a nude colour for any occasion whatsoever. 

I really did believe that there wasn’t a single shade of lipstick that could suit my skin type. I once tried a brown: which is what conventional wisdom tells me, suits me, but it had an unfortunate effect of highlighting every skin flaw I ever had, and quite a few I did not. I tried a pink but the colour washed out my skin and made my teeth appear yellow, as if I’d just had a raw corn meal. It looked like neon lights on my face shouting to the world: ‘look at me! Look at me!’

 It did leave me feeling exceeding grumpy and crotchety about the entire ‘make up world’ at large to have tremendously failed to synthesize adequate shades of lipsticks to suit every skin type. So that day cut the my various option of cosmetics and limited it to a slick of clear/ lightly tinted lip gloss and a kohl pencil, which may be the de rigeur for a lot of Indian girls, but tends to leave me looking sleep-deprived and a little scary. Smoky eyes are one thing, panda eyes: they are a completely different kettle of fish!

 I realised that the whole ‘lipstick stuff’ was pretty messy. It rubbed on everything possible-from the popcorn I was eating to the edges of the glass of soda I drank. I don’t want to imagine how kissing someone with that gum on would be like! Unless I want to pretend I'm a smudgy-mouthed-on-purpose Sabyasachi model and it's possible that the non-transfer/long-stay/whatever Elizabeth Arden calls it version of the same wouldn't be as satisfyingly creamy. 

Now as I climb into the 20^th year of my life, the numerous versions I’ve spent in the pursuit of lip perfection are gracefully diminishing. I am discovering lasting beauty from other internal sources. I’ve realised, being natural is one of the best things a woman can do to enhance her beauty. I feel good without the waxy potion of beauty. I still apply a tinge of lip balm but my femininity has little to do with the contraband tube of bright, poppy kissed, honest to goodness, pink lipstick in my school bag. It’s just my escape hatch!