Mavenette: Meet Briget

My first Junior High dance was coming up, and I desperately wanted to wear mascara. My mother refused to even think about it, saying, “No, you’re too young for make-up.” I begged, I cried, I pouted. Finally my mom tried to compromise, “You can wear my lipstick.” LIPSTICK? “NOBODY my age wears LIPSTICK”, I wailed. Aside from the fact that lipstick was not cool, I innately knew, even at the tender age of 12, that my lips were too thin to wear something as dark as Red Lolipop.
 
 I wanted Maybelline eyes. I had read in Seventeen magazine that wearing vaseline on one’s eyelashes would make them look as if wearing “natural mascara”. “Your lashes will look darker, have a lush appearance, and due to the reflective quality of vaseline, make your eyes sparkle!” As soon as I got to the dance, I ran to the restroom, wiped the lipstick off, and dipped my finger in a little jar of vaseline. Clumsily, I applied it to my eyelashes with my finger. It smeared, as vaseline tends to do. The more I tried to fix it, the worse it got. Finally, I tried to wipe it all off with paper towels. The combination of vaseline in my eyeballs and rubbing with paper towels gave me bloodshot eyes and red eyelids. The rest of the night was a blur — literally. I couldn’t see a thing.
 
Since then, my make-up technique has improved quite dramatically. My passion for clothes grew, as well. I learned to sew about the same time I tried the vaseline experiment, and began sewing much of my own clothing. Now my closet as a mixture of classic store-bought pieces, home-sewn clothes and thrift store buys. Clothing to me is a lot of fun. If I go away for a weekend, I pack an entire suitcase full of clothes because after all, I won’t know which clothing will match my mood hour by hour. Mom, who wore only lipstick and sometimes some foundation and dressed conservatively and consistantly, didn’t agree with my make-up or clothing choices, but she learned to just shrug, laugh and shake her head, “Oh, Briget…”