Wearing Lipstick

How does one even wear makeup in -15 degree weather? Like, water freezes at 0 degrees, so my makeup literally freezes off my face and when I get home after a day of wandering around or even just running to and from the bus to uni. My face is legitimately clean and crusty thanks to the freezing snow falling and settling on my mascara and foundation.

You might be wondering why 'wearing lipstick' is the title of this philosophically thought-out post.

To that, I answer that I don’t inherently possess the confidence to wear red lipstick, or any coloured lipstick, outside my bathroom walls.

Evidently, I've been overthinking this topic as always, but wearing a colour on your lips that isn’t entirely a natural colour, requires a certain type and amount of confidence. The fact that I can’t wear lipstick and the fact that I realise this, is exactly why I don’t possess that confidence. I'm too sensitive to what I assume are other people's judgements.

At the start of the semester when a new friend really wanted to do my makeup for a night out, she went for a smokey eye and red lips to match my top. Needless to say, I absolutely loved the way she did it: like an actual makeup artist and the red lip tied the whole look together.

But I was still nervous going out with a such bold colour

If it was me, I would have never put on a red lip (since I didn’t even bring such a colour with me in my makeup bag ha).

At the start of the night, I was imagining everyone's eyes on me, following me around, and piercing gazes scorching me for putting on such a colour that accentuates my outfit.

But on this note, two things. First - it SHOULDN'T MATTER what others think of you. Second - no one really cares, since nothing out of the ordinary night out happened.

Wow. Such revelations.

This exchange has taught me many things, and perhaps a nice long post about that will be written in conclusion of this massive experience, but in summary, the essence of exchange is your very own self-discovery, whether it be little daily revelations of 'wow I actually did that, I figured out how to buy train tickets in another country' or 'huh, wearing lipstick isn’t too hard', and even 'I can actually travel places, book airbnbs, grocery shop and take care of myself'.

Since that night out, I haven't attempted a red-lipped look yet, but I'm hoping for a little less internal drama and philosophical breakdowns next time. Wish me luck!