oh no she didn't: wearing the wrong foundation shade

Oh yes. She did.

Editor's note: It's a new column/theme for blushpretty.com and thank goodness my intern, Siobhan, was totally game. Ever wonder what people think when they see a lovely lady wearing the completely wrong shade of foundation? I'm sure you already can tell by Siobhan's photo what her task was... yes, yes she did step out with her face like that ... read on!

“Did you go tanning?”

This is one of the many responses people gave in regards to my makeup this past long weekend.

Most of us are guilty of doing this at least once: wearing foundation that does not match the rest of our body; foundation that is clearly not the right colour for us. So, this weekend I took it to a whole new level (as a joke, of course) and applied my foundation about ten shades darker than it would normally be. I have very fair, white skin so the difference between my face and neck was, let’s just say, more than a little bit noticeable.

So, to test out my new look, my boyfriend and I went to the mall on Saturday to see what people’s reactions would be. I went to some of my favourite stores and got the funniest looks I’ve had in a while. To be fair though, I did look like an oompa – loompa shopping for cute tights in the middle of H&M.

A group of high school girls giggled as I was strutting my stuff in the food court. To take this joke even further, I went to several different cosmetic counters to look for some advice. Most of the women tried to tell me nicely that I was wearing the wrong colour foundation. Many of them suggested trying out a new colour, but the majority just gave me the whole ‘you’re hopeless’ look. I feel sort of sorry for them now but it was absolutely hilarious.

People who didn’t know me just gave me weird looks, and whispered to their friends as I walked away. But I wanted to see what people who knew me would say. My boyfriend’s older brother is one of the most oblivious people I know, but right when I walked in the room he looked at me for about 15 seconds before asking “Siobhan, what did you do to your face?”.

My cousin asked me if I’d been tanning a lot lately and my mother almost fell over when I told her I had gone out in public with my orange face.

Many women gave me the once over and that was it. I assume it’s because they feel sorry for me because they know exactly what went wrong. But the men just stood there in line at Timmies with their eyes glued either to my dark face, or white neck trying to figure out what’s going on.

I guess it’s better than where they usually stare, but I could hardly stand somewhere for longer than two minutes without breaking into a giggle, or full on laugh.

So, my advice here it to be aware of what your foundation looks like not only in your bathroom mirror, but in the sunlight as well. And don’t count on others to let you know because most of them time (unless it’s an extreme difference) they won’t say anything.

This was a really fun experience but I don’t think I’ll be trying it out twice! The foundation I was wearing was NARS Medium5 powder in “Stromboli.” Other than the fact that it wasn’t the right colour for my skin, it went on very smooth and lasted pretty much all day. The coverage was full, and I like the texture very much.

-bp-