Junkie

"My case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement of the Volition, and not of the intellectual faculties." ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

***

When I sold my kit several years ago, I thought I had closed a chapter in my life. Well, I did. I walked away cold turkey and was glad about it. I was so burned out. I tried to stay away from the stores, the magazines, anywhere I might be tempted to relapse.

Until today, when apparently I'm off the wagon again.

***

This morning on the train into work (at 8:07 am, to be precise), I got a brilliant idea for a writing project, a book. At least, it's a brilliant idea to me. I had the kind of feeling that you get when you have a dream that's so clear and true that it keeps you going all day, like a muse has been whispering in your ear all night and you wake up with all kinds of aha's! and connections in your mind.

I'm not going to say too much yet, because you know how some of these brilliant ideas can be. You pursue them passionately to an unforseen dead end and then when you run out of steam, you realize that your idea wasn't really all that brilliant and you got all excited about nothing special.

So I'll tell you about the details if it looks like there's something to share details about.

***

When you're a makeup artist, you're a technique snob and product junkie, a review hound and an ingredients smartypants. You watch other artists work and appropriate their style, when you see them do something new you haven't tried yourself. You can't really go to school to learn how to be a makeup artist. In theory you can, but in reality, to succeed you need hundreds of hours of practice, on real human faces of every make and model. You pore over printed materials and you can pick up a Glamour magazine or Allure and, without reading the photo credits, you know which makeup artist did the cover model. You don't even care who's on the cover. You go gaga for the technique: if it's good, you go gaga. If there's a perceived flaw or mistake, you rip it up and you and your friends talk about how you could have done it better.

When you're a makeup artist, your kit is your most prized possession and it encompasses your ongoing quest for the Holy Grail. My kit was a classic silver metal train case, five compartments high and lined with black velvet, which doubled as a side table and I used to perch a small lamp on it when I wasn't using it. I needed to wear a wrist brace when transporting it to jobs because it was so heavy. I remember a lovely Nigerian taxi driver helping me at JFK Airport, who asked me if I was carrying bars of gold in the case because it was so heavy. A totally understandable question. When I told him the case was full of lipstick, he started laughing. I don't think he believed me.

When you're working, you try to make connections with account managers so you can get free product and then you never have to buy as much.

But you always end up buying stuff. Every artist says the same thing: Oh, but it's for my kit. If you say it's for your kit, then spending hundreds of dollars on shiny new packaging that's smooth and perfect under your fingertips, and subtle, finely milled powders that feel like silk, and soft sable brush hairs of every shape, and perfect bullets of lipstick full of pigment and sensual emollients, spending that money doesn't hurt so much. Because you're a pro, and you need whatever it is... for your kit. It's for my kit justifies a lot.

The truth is that it's never for the kit. It's for you and you just pretend like it's all business.

***

Pictured above, today's naughty haul at Sephora. Several months ago, I had heard a chorus of angels singing (in my head) when I first realized that now I can get YSL cosmetics there, and now I don't have to deal with the snobby clerks at Bloomingdales. Today's pile of beauty started because I got a gift card from my sister and because people keep asking me why I retired from being a makeup artist and all of a sudden I have a basket of items in my hand and in my head, it's all flowing back in a rush of creativity and memories.

It's for my kit.

***

And then, just to prove that fate or fortune or whatever is truly shining on me and my brilliant idea today, my dearest dutchbaby (who knows exactly what I like) scored a bacon scented, bacon flavored lip balm from... you guessed it, the guys at Baconnaise!


Dutchbaby went to the wonderful Fancy Food Show here in town last week and met the proprietors of Baconnaise and now not only do I have the option of glossing my pout with YSL Rouge Pur no. 134, but I can also make my lips smell like bacon! (This is sounding a wee bit pornographic, I realize that now.)

Dogs and men are going to find me irresistable. And No, this one is not going in my kit.