I walked past Emily’s bedroom the other day and overheard her doing something in her bathroom. I peeked through her door and saw her applying sequin stickers to her face, thoroughly enjoying the results of her creativity!
I snapped this picture and was reminded how often my kids, including my boys, see me sitting in front of my makeup vanity or standing in front of my full-length mirror. I tell my kids that part of my job is teaching other people how to do certain things with their hair and makeup and showing outfits to give shopping or styling recommendations. And I think, at the very least, the boys get it. I honestly don’t think Emily gives much thought to my job at all!
So in light of the focus of my work being on demonstrating these things on myself, I recognize that it involves a great deal of mirror time. And mirror time where I’m the sole focus. It’s unlike working in the salon behind the chair because the focus is on the client! In this job, the focus, I hope, is on the final result that I’m trying to teach.
When Emily comes into my room as I’m doing my makeup, she sometimes asks for a little bit of blush or pink added to her lips. And I’m always happy to indulge her in this small request, but I make sure to use certain wording around it.
“Oh, you want to look a little fancier today?!”
“Do you want your cheeks to have some sparkle because you want to look fancy?”
I use the word fancy to emphasize that it’s something special, something a little decorative, and it is perfectly okay to want to do that from time to time! But I try not to use the word pretty in these instances because I don’t want her to tie the desire for makeup with the end result as being “pretty”.
She’s pretty without makeup. She’s beautiful without makeup! She’s fancy when she wears a little bit of blush or lipgloss though!
There are so many additional layers to displaying the messaging behind this to a daughter, and while I’m sure this will get more complicated as she gets older, I hope I’ve done a good enough job of putting makeup and beauty in the right category for her at this age.
