The Nacirema women are weird creatures. They sacrifice their sleep to gain time in the morning for one ritual that, if you're not used to doing, takes a lot of time and practice. They've learned this procedure since they were young, it starts as a game.
Every girl, once or twice a day, does one particular thing to get ready. They think that this ritual makes them look better, more sophisticated and attractive, but most of the times it doesn't really work that well.
After getting up the procedure begins:
First of all, they take a small dry sponge and they dip it in a brown paste. The paste could be different tones : dark brown or light brown and every shade in between. They attempt to spread it evenly on their face but sometimes, when they're in a hurry to complete this boring first step, it just looks blotchy. To me, that stuff looks just like mud. Why would they put mud on their face to appear more attractive?
After this, most of the women like to put a red or pink powdery thing that can make your cheeks really rosy. Using a handle with hundreds of hog hairs attached, women swipe the powdery color across the apples of their cheeks.
But the longest process, is when they frame their eyes with a long black pencil. Using a slow motion they carefully draw a line of color next to their lashes. The first few times the lines can be wavy, but once they get used to it, the lines become much straighter. The black lines are meant to make the colored orbs on your face stand out.
They also use a wet black moisture, which is contained in a long tube, and is applied with a brush to their lashes. As soon as this moisture touches their lashes, it dries out and its meant to thicken them. When women are wearing this moisture, they have to make sure that no water comes from their colored orbs otherwise the black liquid on their lashes will leave rivers of black down their cheeks.
The last thing they do, that can occur many times a day, is using a sponge tipped small stick and dipping it into a tube of thick liquid and painting their lips with it. Standing in front of the looking glass they pucker or they smack their mouth so that is perfectly applied. This liquid can be clear, shiny, different colors and also different flavors. As soon as every woman realizes that their lips are dry , not shiny or colored anymore, they don't hesitate to put in on and on again.
4 comments:
I love how you described putting on make-up. It does make us seem really weird for putting stuff on our faces. :)
that does sound interesting, why do we do that? or who started it?
You did a good job showing how weird it would look to put make up on from an outside view. Maybe you could have put more about how people respond to the people who do put it on. :)
Interesting way to express some girls fascination with makeup but it would be interesting if you included how it affects guys too.
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