AUI: Applying Under the Influence

Let's be honest, getting ready is often the best part of a night out. The metamorphosis process is fun: I love breaking out of my nondescript daytime chrysalis and emerging- after prepping, painting, teasing, straightening, curling- as a peacock. (Please suspend all knowledge of biology when reading this. I recognise that saying a butterfly would have been more inkeeping with the whole 'metamorphosis' and 'chrysalis' analogy thing that I had going on, but a peacock seemed less trite and cheesy).

My mate's birthday night out was no exception. Earlier, I had taken myself off to Boots in search of a nude lipstick and came back with YSL Rouge Volupte in shade 2. Granted- this shade is verging on being too light for me (it's much lighter than it appears in the pic below), but with the right application, it was going to be the perfect fodder to the dark smokey eye that I had planned. So I started getting ready, carefully dabbing on the lipstick, glossing it up with a Juicy Tube and deftly managed to avoid the corpse look...


However, fast forward three hours, numerous glasses of champagne, vodka and sambuca shots, and the same could not be said: in my drunken state, my careful application method had gone out the window and was replaced with a more heavy handed approach. I had taken to doing Jenson Button-style circular laps of my lips with the Rouge Volupte, sans mirror.

At the time I was blissfully unaware, but post-event examination of the photographic evidence proved that I looked ridiculous, atrocious. Ridiculocious, if you will. Yes people- this faux pas warrants the invention of a new word, it was that bad. Not only did the thick layer make me look deceased but the combination of nightclub lighting and camera flash meant that the my lips had taken on a luminous quality. I had glow-in-the dark corpse lips. It was as though I had been snogging Slimer from Ghostbusters:


Thankfully, the photos also showed that I was not alone - my friends had obviously wanted to share in the delight of a new YSL lipstick and it got passed around. There we were, grinning like inebriated buffoons with matching ectoplasm lips! I would so love to upload a pic of us to show you just what I mean, but shall refrain as I don't quite fancy being ostracised by my friends. Someone's attempt to upload said photo to Facebook was met with picture comments such as "GET THIS OFF NOW" and frantic texts like "Please remove picture 57 from album 2 asap". And thus, it was banished to The Recycle Bin. At least I hope so - don't want that one coming back to bite me in the ass in years to come...

This is in no way a slight on the YSL product, rather I just felt it was my duty to warn others of the perils of "Applying Under the Influence". Relying on friends to tell you what you look like is of no use if they are as drunk as you are.

If there was a way of rigging a breathalyser to some of my make-up items, scenes like this could be avoided.