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I am at Walgreen's browsing in cosmetics. Flip flops smacking precede two tween girls who rush the aisle, sharing one shopping basket. Both wear shorts and tank tops, one has painted toe nails - bright blue. The other wears a thin pink headband in blond hair. They are animated and chatter busily while fingering different products:
Pink Band: Eeeee! I'm so excited! Make-up changes everything.
Blue Toes: I know! I know! What are you getting for sure?
Pink Band: I get to get one eyeshadow, one lip gloss and one blush.
Blue Toes: But you have to get mascara! That's the best thing. It makes your eyes sexy.
Pink Band: Nope. My mom said no mascara and no blue or purple eye shadow. Only pink or tan.
Blue Toes: Why? What's wrong with purple or blue?
Pink Band: Because only certain girls wear those.
Blue Toes: Huh? What girls?
Pink band: The teenager moms.
(Pause)
Blue Toes: That's not true. Britney Spears wears purple eyeshadow and she's 25.
Pink band: Um...
Both girls move down the aisle, from one brand to another. Pink Band drifts off to the hair accessories. Blue Toes stops at a mirror on the counter. She turns sideways before it and twists her head to look.
4 Whispers:
I'm not around cosmetics counters often enough to hear conversations like that, but I've encountered similar situations.
This family, for some reason, has fairly open communication with our three daughters and son.
I suppose that some colors of makeup may have specific meanings, but I suspect that the key is style and degree, rather than color.
I'm not too concerned about our girls. One will probably never wear makeup unless she engages in acting, another has standards of appearance that make her middle-aged dad seem lax, and the third seems to have pretty good sense in terms of her appearance, although she's closer to the teenage 'norm' than her siblings.
Thanks for sharing this.
Purple makeup --> Teenage pregnancy --> GED classes.
Ahahaha... I learned two important lessons from this conversation. 1) The best way to prove something's not trashy is to say that Britney Spears does it. 2) I am apparently a teenaged mom.
I fear that this will be a conversation that my daughter will be having very soon. You have captured these girls perfectly!
Thanks!
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