Mascara and the married woman

by Susan Anderson
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 1:22 PM MST

“I just can’t understand why women who are married spend so much time putting on makeup,” said my pre-teen daughter to me impatiently one morning while trying to get us out the door to meet her friends.

Think of the assumptions in that statement.

First, she clearly thinks that once you’ve got the guy, it doesn’t matter how you look. And, in fact, why try if you’re that old anyway?

Secondly, she thinks we’re putting makeup on for men. No, actually it’s our friends we want to impress.

And there is the little irony that 99 percent of the time I am the one trying to get us out the door, and all I was doing was applying a little lipstick, for heaven’s sake.

The first idea that makeup and the married woman are a strange combination comes directly from the belief that parents couldn’t possibly be interested in looking good anymore, in going on dates and certainly not in doing anything remotely romantic in front of the kids. You can just hear them saying, “Eww.”

This belief belongs squarely in the mind of a sixth-grader.

Younger, and they still think mom and dad look good. A few years later, and they might have gained a little perspective. But in sixth grade, they actually do know everything. Just ask them.

“You look nice, dear”

The second misconception is about why women use makeup and hair products at all. I truly believe that men are pretty much oblivious to all the things we do with our powders and potions. And that’s not a criticism.

It seems likely that the fine art of matching eye shadow to eye color is completely invisible to men, even if they aren’t color-blind.

Try telling your husband that you’re “getting your colors done” without becoming the butt of jokes for months to come.

And those hair highlights that we all love so much?

I’m guessing that the rare man who notices them thinks something went wrong at the beauty salon. He never would mention it, of course. All men are taught that the only right comment to a woman who just left the hairdresser is, “You look nice, dear.”

Once when the color of my hair turned strangely close to purple, my husband had only positive things to say. I must have left the salon in a state, because the hairdresser called to check if I had completely flipped out.

My son told her I couldn’t come to the phone because I was in the shower crying and trying to get the color out. That must have been reassuring. But I still looked nice, according to my very wise husband.

Kabul Beauty School

Not all women like to talk about hair and makeup, but those who do have an entire conversational pool to swim in.

It’s like being a sports fan and discussing your favorite team. Analyzing eyebrows and lip gloss easily can take as long as handicapping a team’s chances to win the Super Bowl.

In other countries, the refuge of a salon means everything.

A new book, “The Kabul Beauty School,” describes the place a beauty salon has in a society like Afghanistan. There, a beauty parlor is entirely a female domain, and just about the only one where a woman can be in charge.

It’s unacceptable for men to be in the beauty shop with women, so this is one area where how much money is changing hands and what is being talked about is known only by the women.

The hairspray, gels and lipstick banned for years by the Taliban came back with music, color and kites -- all outlawed symbols of fun and joy.

This is a long way of saying that yes, even we old, married women like our lipstick, and a skeptical 12-year-old can’t make a dent in traditions, which are that ingrained.

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