Did you see Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb appearing without makeup on the “Today” show this morning? If you ask me, those ladies deserve a round of applause for their bravery!
I don’t know what your regional background is, but my mother comes from Texas, where a lady doesn’t even walk to the mailbox without a little lipstick, and God forbid someone unexpectedly drops by and catches you without the stuff! To prevent this from ever happening, my mother used to hide tubes of lipstick all over the house: in the kitchen utensil drawer, behind the spare guest towels in the bathroom, in the magazine rack in our family room.
When I was in college my mother shipped me a box of piano music from when I’d taken lessons as a young child. She needed to clear out belongings in preparation for her move to a small townhouse. Guess what I found among the papers? Yep, a tube of Revlon’s “Fire and Ice” lipstick.
So it’s probably not surprising that I, too, grew up into a woman who’d rather undergo an anesthesia-free root canal than be seen without makeup. When I was dating in my 20s I seldom spent the night at a guy’s house because I didn’t want to be seen without makeup in the morning. On the rare occasions when I did stay over I’d hop out of bed in the middle of the night, reapply my makeup, brush my teeth, comb my hair and slide back into bed where I’d late wake up pretending that, yes, I always look that fresh, thank you.
I don’t think my husband saw me without makeup until we’d been married a full year. To his credit, he didn’t run screaming, though if I recall correctly he did ask if I was feeling sick. He didn’t see me without makeup again until I was in the 11th hour of labor as I struggled to give birth to a 9+ pound baby whose head was only slightly smaller then than it is now. At that point, I didn’t give a damn what I looked like.
In the years since, I’ve definitely grown used to going barefaced. Most days I don’t bother with it at all, as a matter of fact. Oh, I’ll still put a little on if I’m going to the grocery store — just enough to keep people from wondering if I’m sick. Nights out with friends entails quite a bit more. But otherwise? Well, that’s one of the great things about being married and mid-40s: I no longer have to care if anyone besides my husband finds me attractive.
Still… barefaced on national television? IN HDTV????
No wonder Kathy and Hoda were drinking Bloody Marys!
