The Finishing Touch

If you’ve read my recent posts, you’ll realise that life in Amandaland is challenging at the moment.  Opportunities to unleash the inner woman are limited and for a while, the inner woman had largely gone AWOL and even though she has returned for now, the constant threat of my daughter returning home early unnanouced combined with the faff of the cleanup where every square nanometre of makeup needs to be removed to avoid giving the game away means that I don’t tend to take advantage of an empty house when it arises.

But whilst she may not often be around in a physical sense, she’s never far from my thoughts and I try to look at a selection of photos each day to remind me of her presence.  And as I was going through my photos last night, I came to this one and it reminded me of the profound feelings I experience when applying lipstick.

I can trace my CDing roots back to the fateful day in the 1970s when, home alone, I found a pair of my mother’s tights, discarded in a heap on the floor and felt an uncontrollable urge to try them on.  The rest, as they say, is history.  But why did they hold such fascination and what is the link to the photo where my legs are hidden?

Whilst I can trace my roots back to that mid-1970s day, the writing had been on the wall for a long time and ‘nylons’, as they were referred to in the 1960s, had been a fascination for many years prior to that.  Oh, how I was fascinated with the girls in my class in junior school who were grown up enough to wear nylons instead of the normal white socks that were standard uniform for girls in those days!  Added to that were stiletto shoes and I can still remember lying in my bed in the 1960s and hearing the characteristic click-clack of a pair of stilettos on the pavement outside.  And then there was lipstick!

In the same way that I still have vivid memories of the girls who wore nylons and the click-clack of stilettos dating back to the mid 1960s, another memory is as still as clear as the day it happened – having lipstick applied when I was around four years old.  My parents were regular churchgoers and used to send me to Sunday school.  As Christmas approached, plans were made for the annual nativity play and I was to play a shepherd (I use the word ‘play’ loosely here – as far as I recall, all I had to do was sit on the floor near the crib for the duration of the performance).  I’m not sure whether, at that tender age, I was aware that stage makeup was quite acceptable in the thespian world but as one of the ladies helping us produced a powder compact which she proceeded to dab the applicator into and then cover my face in it, I was fairly sure that stage makeup was supposed to be different to the stuff women carried in their handbags.   I was also not entirely certain why it was needed in a dimly lit church but knew without any element of doubt that it was women, and only women, that wore this sort of makeup (at least it was in the 1960s, nowadays though…!).

And once she’d finished powdering me, out came the lipstick.  With a twist of the case, out popped the deep red tip and, as quickly as the powder that preceded it, soon my lips had taken on a somewhat redder hue, not that I was in any mood to check myself in the mirror at that age.  And so, whilst I was blissfully ignorant about what was to come at that age, the die was cast and now, around 60 years later, I’m more fascinated with the whole thing with lipstick than ever.

Let’s face it, makeup is a wonderful invention.  It turns average looking women into beauties, it hides imperfections in their complexion and it is highly effective at projecting their personality.  But while much makeup application consists of brushing, wiping, drawing and blending, there’s something fundamentally different about lipstick which has a strong sensual element, lacking in pretty well everything else in the makeup box.  I love seeing a woman with beautifully made up eyes but watching her draw on the eyeliner or enhance her lashes with a flick of the mascara brush holds little interest, probably because it’s difficult to see the impact from anything other than close range.  But when the lipstick is produced…..

I suspect that many guys have, like me, sneaked a furtive glance when spotting a woman applying lipstick, perhaps on a train as it nears its destination or during a quiet moment at work.  I’ve already mentioned the sensuality of lipstick and will push the obvious connotations quickly to one side.  But the sensuality encompasses both the act of application and the end result.  It’s the finishing touch, the last thing to go on and its application marks the point at which its wearer surveys her handiwork in her mand mirror and silently declares that she’s ready for whatever it is that prompted the application of her makeup in the first place.

And so it is with me.  Of course, natural born women use makeup to enhance what they have; CDers use it to cover up the ravages of testosterone and whilst women can leave the house without it if they please, that’s generally not an option for the majority of CDers for whom nothing short of complete transformation will suffice.  My makeup routine is not particularly complex – glue stick to deal with the brows, then foundation and an attempt at contouring, then the eyes & brows (including the depressingly predictable battle with the false lashes) before finally applying lipstick.  As I give the case its characteristic twist and see the deep red thingy (I have no idea what it’s called other than the lipstick!) emerge, anticipation reaches a crescendo with the knowledge that, in less than a minute, Amanda’ physical form will be back once more.  And, as I’ve already said, whilst there are fundamental differences between the motivation of women to use makeup and that of CDers, for both groups it’s very much the finishing touch, the cherry on top of the cake, the moment of satisfaction (hopefully!).

If that was the end of the story, it’d be a pretty good story but the truth is that it’s only really the beginning, at least for me anyway.  At the start of this piece, I talked about my fascination with not only lipstick but also stiletto shoes and hosiery.  But, let’s face it, once the tights/pantyhose are on, the sensations become more passive.  And, as many of have found out to our cost, there’s a reason most women don’t wear stilettos on a daily basis.  But lipstick is the gift that keeps on giving.

Of course, wearing lipstick presents challenges, not least as it tends to come off as easily as it goes on.  That generally means that clothing is in the firing line as we’re just not used to having to take care donning or doffing garments over our head.  Granted, there are long-lasting, colour-fast, waterproof cosmetics that make expansive claims about their ability to withstand pretty well anything but those aren’t really compatible with the world of a closet CDer who has to remove all traces at the end of their dressing session (this was a lesson I learned as a teenager the hard way).  Even having a well-earned drink is not without incident – take a sip and a perfect image of your lips will shine bright on the cup as you put it down.  But isn’t there something quite wonderful about seeing the lipstick mark on a cup, particularly when stopping at a coffee shop while out shopping?  And it doesn’t take a genius to realise that if there’s a lipstick mark on the cup, your lips have suffered a corresponding depletion.

And so out comes the lipstick and hand mirror.  At that moment, the rest of the world is shut out as we focus totally on the job in hand.  Who knows how many are sneaking furtive glances as we occupy our own little world and who knows what they are thinking as they do? Are those thoughts positive – admiration that, in these increasingly casual times, some are still proud to display their femininity – or negative ‘who’s she trying to fool?’ or, even worse, ‘who’s he trying to fool?’!  But who cares?  When we’re in that little bubble, all that matters is how our lippy looks, not what the world and her husband thinks about it!

Given the profound effect that lipstick has, both on the wearers and those they encounter, it is perhaps unsurprising that many iconic characters have had something to say about it over the years:

If you’re sad, add more lipstick and attack – Coco Chanel

Lipstick is the most valuable weapon in a woman’s make-up kit. It has the power to transform the appearance and mood of the person wearing it, and, at the same time, arouses the admiration of everybody else – Monica Belluci

Well, my smile’s pretty hard to miss, considering I’m a gal who likes her lipstick—the redder the better – Dolly Parton

Heels and red lipstick put the fear of God into people – Dita von Teese

Red lipstick is instant glamour – Charlotte Tilbury

Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick – Gwyneth Paltrow

I could go on (and on, and on … a Google search yielded over 250 ideas!) but I suspect that I’m preaching to the converted here.    Lipstick is quite possibly the most powerful weapon in our armoury, the effect it has on both ourselves and others who see us way in excess of the simplicity of applying it.  Makeup is very much a dark art requiring a lot of practice to get to an acceptable level but we generally get lipstick nailed down the first time we apply it as even with just a minimal amount of care, it’s almost impossible to screw up.  And it’s something we learn from a very young age – almost all of us have watched as our mothers or sisters have applied lipstick during our formative years and perhaps, buried deep in our psyche, is the realisation that it’s one of the defining traits of womanhood, if not THE defining trait of womanhood and our transformations are incomplete without it.

Before I bring this post to a close, I should confess that the photo which accompanies this was, of course, staged.  The flawless lipstick was applied not by a 60-something guy with appalling eyesight but by a professional who, it has to be said, achieved the impossible in her transformation of me.  The lipstick I’m holding was just a prop and yet the resulting photograph conveys so much more.  Most of the photos I have of myself are just images of me looking female to some extent but this one is a portrayal of life as a woman, or at least a small element of it.  But it’s an element that I have taken from the realms of fantasy and brought to life in my own world, both as I have made the finishing touches to my transformation and as I have tried to live the dream in a small way during my outings.

This has perhaps been a far deeper dive than is deserved by what is essentially just another item in the makeup box or step in the transformation.  And yet it became obvious both from my own experiences and from what many others have said over the years that the humble lipstick is far more than that.  Even the handful of quotes I set out underline its power in transforming appearance & mood, in arousing attention, in being a recognisable part of the wearer’s appearance, in defining glamour and in projecting femininity.  The fact of the matter is that it’s the preserve of women and guys don’t go near it, as far as their own grooming regime is concerned, unless…..!

And with that in mind, it seems only fair to give the final words to Monica Belluci who summed up the whole thing beautifully in just 29 words:

I have always loved lipstick. For women, that love comes from our mother and grandmothers. It’s so natural for a woman to open up her mirror and apply lipstick.

Whether my love of lipstick came from my mother & grandmother or whether I just see it as a potent symbol of womanhood is not important.  But as I’ve become more comfortable in my feminine persona and stepped out of the closet into the outside world, I always make sure that my handbag contains my lipstick and a small hand mirror because nothing feels more natural than being able to open up that mirror and top up my lippy!