In this current social climate everybody is so concerned about being politically correct that it has reached the point of absurdity. We gingerly navigate through conversations, careful not to offend anyone or anything! Talking heads on News programs jump at every opportunity to highlight incidents of even the slightest innuendo at violating the “rule” of politically correctness! Non-Whites – referred to in PC vernacular as “Non-Caucasians” – are now referred to as “people of color.” Janitors are called “industrial engineers.” Stewards and stewardesses are known as “flight attendants.” And the list goes on. But, I ask, WHO makes those rules? Who coined the term “politically correct?” Being PC is exhausting! Someone, somewhere, somehow decided that identifying a person according to his race, religion, gender, physical appearance, or profession is wrong. And it doesn’t end there! It has reached the point where EVERYTHING has been stifled and neutralized. The same holds true for choosing cosmetics! WHO decided what is beautiful and what is not? Have we reached a breaking point, both politically AND cosmetically?

Believe it or not, we are in the midst of a Cosmetic Rebellion! Long-accepted beauty rules are being broken everywhere! Just look around! You see more and more people on the streets with blue, green, yellow, red, orange and even purple hair! Sometimes one head of hair boasts two colors, maybe even three or four, like a rainbow! If I didn’t know better, I’d think I’d been propelled back to the 1960s when Thomas Dam’s Troll Dolls swept the nation! What was once a full-blown craze for toys is now being adopted by living, breathing human beings! Is it beautiful? Who’s making the rule? I loved my Trolls, but do I love that look on people? Hmmmmm . . .

Hair color is not the only battleground in the Cosmetic Rebellion. Oh no! Estee Lauder, Lancome, Christian Dior, Max, Clinique, Cover Girl, Maybelline and myriad other cosmetic manufacturers bank billions of dollars from marketing “beauty!” But again, I ask, WHO decides what is beautiful and what is not? Of course there are guidelines, dictating shadow colors for blue, brown, green or hazel eyes. Blushes and foundations, too, conform to the rules of “skin tone compatibility.” There is more flexibility afforded to lipstick selections. While skin tone, hair and eye color are definitely factored into the choice, mood is also considered. Do you feel classic, contemporary, retro, rebellious, punk, Gothic? Whichever it is, there is a lip color and texture (matte, gloss, stick or liquid) available for purchase. In fact, very effective marketers have convinced us that every makeup kit must have a variety of cosmetics to suit all of our moods! Clever. Very clever indeed. And expensive.

The definition of beauty is fluid. All one needs to do is to look back to your high school yearbooks! Oh. My. Gosh!!! What were we thinking? WHO TOLD US THAT THOSE STYLES WERE ATTRACTIVE? I recently found a picture of myself from high school and tried my best to deny that the image in the photo was really I. My mother had sent me to a series of etiquette classes at Bullock’s (now Macy’s). I learned how to walk balancing books on my head, to speak politely at social functions, to sit while balancing those same books on my head, and to navigate through formal place settings of china, crystal and sterling silver. The last two sessions focused on personal grooming and makeup. Apparently “beauty” in the 1970s meant thinly plucked eyebrows, so closely tweezed that they looked like pencil lines above my eyes, plastered down with clear mascara. Beauty in the 1970s also must have meant sky blue eye shadow regardless of hair or eye color or skin tone. Lips were polished with pink pearl opalescent gloss and cheeks were bronzed with tanning powder. Another beauty enhancement was false eyelashes! My natural eyelashes are plenty long; I certainly had no business gluing more hair to my face! And speaking of hair . . . oh, the HAIR!!! Stepford clones of Farrah Fawcett strutted around everywhere, never realizing that only the REAL Farrah Fawcett could look that good! Case in point, Yours Truly!!

My hair is so thick that I could singularly provide Locks of Love with inventory from now until the day I die! Back in the 70s, I fell in step with the current fashion trend and blew my waist-length hair back from my face, using the biggest round styling brush available! If I could have found one, a personal wind tunnel would have been perfect! I also gathered the bulk of my hair up on top of my head into a ponytail and wound it around family-sized Minute Maid orange juice cans to give it more bounce and body! The effect? I looked like Cousin Itt from The Addams Family in drag! All that hair totally enveloping my body, lots of baby blue eyeshadow, false eyelashes, over-tanned cheeks and glisteningly shiny, pearl lips! Plop me down at a formal dinner and we would have had the dining room scene straight out of Beetlejuice!

“Come mister, tally man, tally me banana!  Daylight come and me wan’ go home!”

But enough about my look in the 70s! The 80s (with the bi-level hairstyles and parachute pants), the 90s (with The Rachel hairstyle, popularized by Jennifer Aniston on “Friends), and the early 2000s (with lower back tattoos, fake tans and frosted lipsticks) all cast their ideas of beauty over us and we all fell victim. What about now in 2016?

Am I still conforming to someone else’s idea of beauty or have I come into my own? Do I finally have my own look? Yes and no. I no longer tediously sit for hours at the beauty salon tinting my hair with highlights and lowlights in an effort to preserve my natural brunette color. There is just too much hair on my head and too few hours in the day to make that an option. I’m allowing Nature to accommodate the gradual changes in my skin and hair colors. I always salt my food, so why not allow “salt” to stealthily infiltrate my hair? I really don’t mind. Celebrities can wear their hair in any style and color they want. Good for them. I’m going to wear MY hair the way I want. No more Minute Maid orange juice can curlers for me! No more waist-length hair! I have opted for shorter styles that are low maintenance! Suburban gardeners have a philosophy on efficiency that I have adopted for my hair: Mow, Blow and Go!

I’m a little pickier about face makeup. Hazel eyes lend themselves to the warm, neutral shades. Therefore, my makeup kit is chock full of mauves, beiges, pinks, grays, forest greens and browns. But, I admit, I get BORED! Just the other day, in a full state of conscious disregard for The Rules, I joined the Cosmetic Rebellion and refused to line my eyes with the same old colors! After several minutes rooting around in my makeup drawer, not finding any eyeliner pencil to accommodate my anarchy, I selected a red lip liner!

“Whoa!” I gasped, fully intrigued, “Look at THIS! I wonder what it would look like?!”

My conservative voice of Inner Reason chimed in, “Hold on a second! That’s RED! You have GREEN HAZEL EYES! Don’t do it, do you hear me? Do NOT do it!”

“Ugh! Who said I can’t wear red eyeliner anyways?” I countered, “I’m gonna try it!”

And with that, I pulled my eyelid tight and drew a long red line just above my upper lashes and beneath my lower ones.

“Hmm . . . different,” I critiqued, looking at my reflection in the mirror.  I continued to draw lines along my other eye.

And off I went to play golf. Several holes into the round, someone in my foursome asked me if I felt o.k.

“Sure!” I answered, never realizing that the red lipliner/eyeliner had altered my usual appearance, “Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “You just look a little different today. Are you SURE you’re feeling o.k.?”

“Yep!” I said, “Right as rain! Let’s go. Hit your ball!”

A little further into the round came a second question from another woman in my foursome.

“Were you crying this morning before you came here?”

“NO! What makes you ask that?” I asked, rather surprised.

“I dunno. You just look like maybe you’d been crying, that’s all,” she answered with concern.

“Boy! What’s the matter with these people?” I wondered.

 But I didn’t have to wonder too much longer. After completing the 9^th hole, I ran into the Ladies’ Locker Room and looked at myself in the mirror!

<GASP!!!> “Oh my gosh!! It’s my red lipliner/eyeliner!! I guess it makes me look like I’ve either been crying or like I’m suffering from a full-blown attack of hayfever!”

As soon as I returned to the foursome, I pulled out my sunglasses and wore them for the rest of the round!

“Hey!” I began, “I’ve got to tell you guys something! You all thought I was sick or sad because . . . well, I’m wearing red lip liner as eye liner today, and I guess it makes me look a little different!”

The three of them stopped dead in their tracks on the tenth fairway.

“You’ve GOT to be kidding!” they said, “And you did that on PURpose? WHY?”

“Why not?” I asked, “I’m SO bored with the colors I’m supposed to wear, I just thought I’d try something a little different!”

A lot of laughter and head-shaking lead to their collective advice, “Well . . . Don’t do it again! It’s not a good look!”

I’m not sure I like being pressured into cosmetic compliance. My usual morning routine includes a flurry of text messages back and forth to a group of friends. We never discuss anything important, but rather greet each other a good morning, then launch into a series of teasing and joking comments. Shortly after my red lipliner/eyeliner experience, I threatened to wear it again as a means of enduring an unpleasant event.

Me: “I’m thinking of red lipliner/eyeliner this morning!! That way, if I start crying, I can just tell everyone I’ve got hay fever!”

Friend 1: “RED lipliner as eyeliner??? Eeeeeewwwww! That’s just creepy!”

Friend 2: “Stop it! No negativity! Anything can happen, so just buck up!”

Friend 3: “I agree!”

Friend 1: “Tell us you’re NOT gonna do it!”

Me: “O.K., my rant is over. Thanks for being just a keyboard and bitmoji away! I’m better now! PURPLE eyeliner it is!! LET’S GO!”

These notes from friends are well taken. I promise not to use red lipliner as eyeliner as a general rule. I DO, however, reserve the option to wear it in “as needed situations!”

Once again, WHO decided what is beautiful? I don’t know who’s leading the pack, but for me, right now, as a fully committed soldier in the Cosmetic Rebellion, I’M deciding what’s “cosmetically correct!