It Started with a Purple Lipstick

About 2 hours ago I'm sitting at a restaurant with my friend and I can't stop staring at her lips. She's wearing this vampy purple-reddish lipstick (from YSL but I don't know the name) and it looks amazing on her! "Why can't I wear lipstick like that?" a voice in my brain asks, but then another one chimes in saying, "Can't? Why won't you wear lipstick like that?" So when we get back into my friend's car, and she goes to reapply her lipstick, I ask her if I can put it on... My first initial thought is "yup, knew I couldn't pull off a color like this," so I rub my ring finger over my lips and apply some lip balm to fade the color out and sit back in my seat, disappointed. However, once I'm home, I walk into my room, dump my purse on the bed, and glance into the mirror hanging on my wall--wow! My lips look pretty good. I really like the way my face looks with a dark lip. All it took was "fixing" the color a bit.

Well this purple lip encouraged me to have some fun. So I ran over to my makeup drawer and started getting busy. I had eyeliner on, but added more to wing it out (something I never do because I always thought I couldn't pull it off), made my brows darker and bolder than I normally dare to wear, and took the plunge and put on more than just a "dusting" of that purple-pink blush in the back of my drawer. Now, I admit, my first reaction when I looked at myself in the mirror was "Who is this?" but I actually like the way my makeup came out I probably wouldn't go to the grocery store looking like this, but I'd wear this out to dinner with friends. Most importantly though, that purple lipstick reminded me that sometimes makeup is just about having fun. I think I spend so much time trying to perfect that daytime look and the no makeup, makeup look, that I forget how much fun colors and experimenting are. And because I did step out of my comfort zone, I've realized that I look a lot better in dark colors than bright colors (something I've been having trouble with all summer because I'm just not a fan of the way brights look on me) which is great news since fall and winter are right around the corner :)

So I am challenging everyone this weekend to grab colors you normally avoid, try a different way of applying _____ (blank), or just grab five random (colored) products and put them on, don't' think about it, and see what happens. Good luck experimenting. Let me know how it turns out for you!

Cheers!