Early in my daily face-spackling career, it took me an exasperating45 minutes to get my make up just right. There were so many choices to make it boggled my small mind. What color lipstick should I wear? Should it be shiny or matte? How much eyeshadow should I use? Should I line the top lid, the bottom or both? Or neither?

I found myself altering everything else in my morning routine. I started waking up earlier. I moved my yoga practice to the afternoon. I started taking sprint showers so that I could have extra time for the process of styling my hair. Because you can't spend three quarters of an hour painting your face and then show up to work sporting a messy ponytail now can you?

Well, over time I found myself answering yes to that question. Yes, you can slick your hair back and ignore it. Yes, you can brush your teeth while putting on mascara. And yes, you can oversleep and end up slapping on whatever glittery goo you have on hand in five minutes before running out the door because you're late and you really don't care what you look like at the moment.

In other words, it is entirely possible for make up to lose all its luster and become routine, with all the boredom and drudgery that term implies. We start out using cosmetics because we want to look better. Whether we're trying to enhance a favorite feature or erase a minor flaw, improvement is the ideal behind using make up. But after a while we fall into the habit of doing whatever it is we've been doing day after day. We stop thinking about what make up can do for our appearance and we start to view it as another task to be completed, another obstacle in an always time-crunched life. And by “we,” I mean myself.

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