Painting the Barn

The problem with mascara is that it can clump or run. Fear not, though! Scientists have been working, day and night, on these problems, and they've made headway. Meanwhile, there's the matter of which color best suits blondes, brunettes, and redheads. The answer: black (for brunettes) or brown (for everyone else). There are other choices, but they're not recommended.

For thicker-looking lashes, curl the lashes and apply a second coat. Be advised that it's likely a woman will be applying some mixture of these ingredients along with the basic black or brown color: lanolin, linseed oil, mineral oil, castor oil, eucalyptus oil, sesame oil, oil of turpentine, alcohol, water, ceresin, gum tragacanth, methyl cellulose, rayon fibers, carbon or iron oxides, beeswax, paraffin, carnauba wax, and water.

Okay, that about does it for the eyes. Next, let's consider the lips. There are a lot of colors from which to choose for lipstick ("a small stick of waxy lip coloring enclosed in a cylindrical case," our friends at American Heritage Dictionary tell us) or lip gloss ("a substance for making the lips appear glossy," according to wicked Wikipedia). In fact, there's a rainbow of colors, a garden of them, a your-choice-of-metaphor of them. Basically, though, traditional hues range from cream and frost to red, but everything to purple and black are also available, and not just for clowns and vampires on Halloween anymore. There are also various types, including sheer, shimmer, cream, matte, long-lasting. Ingredients? Wax (beeswax, candelilla wax, or camauba); oil (mineral, caster, lanolin, or vegetable); alcohol; pigments; preservatives; and antioxidants.

There remains, of women's facial features only the cheeks to consider. A woman who is hot (and especially one who is hot to trot) must be depicted as being always blushing. To make this miraculous feat happen--or seem to happen--she needs to apply rouge (or blush, as this cosmetic is now more generally called). Naturally, color is a big deal here, too, and cosmetics companies allow their customers an array of hues in which to simulate blushing, but most are some version of pink and are supposed to match the skin tone (of Caucasian women, at least).