Pretty Powerful

On my 17th birthday I braved a local Macy's department store, with a particular mission in mind, and a Macys gift card clutched in my hand.

Three weeks earlier, on Christmas, I had been given that gift card and a book, Bobbi Brown, Teenage Beauty, and this appointment to meet with the makeup people at the Bobbi Brown counter.

I didnt really know what to expect. I had been an actor for years, so I knew how to do stage makeup, but stage makeup is not something you wear out onto the street, and I had pegged myself as a non makeup wearer.

Plus I was convinced that I wasnt a pretty girl to begin with, so makeup would just not do much. I was very pale, not at all like my classmates, who tanned religiously, I had short hair, and I was not the picture of feminine perfections that was constantly being shot at me from the media. What would they have to work with? What would they think of me?

I shouldent have been nervous about what the expertly made up, knowlegable women behind the counter would think about me. They were positively wonderful. Instead of sighing and shaking their heads at me when I explained I hardly ever wore makeup, and I didnt know anything, they nodded and smiled and started opening mysterious pots of color and lotions and showed me the brushes and how to use them. They asked me questions, exclaimed over the color of my eyes and my hair, did not slap me with bronzer, but showed me how to enjoy being pale.

And when I was done I looked like me. And I looked lovely. I was given a glimpse of how I could be. I was quietly pretty, and even if no one else really noticed, I was aware of how much better I felt, how much less shy.

Its still true that I'm not an every day makeup wearer. But I really do love putting it on, now that I know how to do and make it look like me, just a touch more polished.

In the years sense seventeen I have expanded my makeup, expirimenting with bolder looks, but I usually default to my beloved Bobbi Brown, who seemed to perfectly understand that most of the time I just wanted to look like me. Like a real person, with real skin, and real hair, and a real smile.

And its because of my unending love of Bobbi Brown and her natural aproach to beauty, that I compleatly love this campain of hers, Pretty Powerful.

How awesome that she's using her friends for models! There are women with freckles! And full lips! And curly hair! And they all look like themselves, which is totally gorgeous.

If I was in posession of a video camera and the ability to edit film I'd totally enter the Pretty Powerful Competition, but as it is I hope someone else can show how being yourself in all ways is Pretty Powerful stuff.