Post-Thanksgiving shopping can throw a man into situations he might not otherwise ever experience. On one such occasion, I accompanied my wife on a trip to the local shopping mall. It was a zoo. People were everywhere. Holiday music, shopping bags and miles of teenagers in what looked like leftover Halloween costumes infested every corridor. I was in culture shock.
Amazingly, I was only five miles from my front door. At my age, I thought I had pretty much seen it all. But then again, I had never ventured into the cosmetic store of all makeup stores. This place was packed with war paint from wall-to-wall. There were funny looking paint brushes and men who looked like girls. I had never heard of guy liner, until now. Guy liner? Yeah, makeup for men!
All of the hired hands were dressed in black and eager to draw on your face. This place was a cross between a county fair and a hardware store. There were literally aisles and aisles of products that promised to remove dark spots, lift certain spots and minimize, hide, eliminate and practically heal wrinkles or any signs of aging.
Could this be Heaven? By the looks of the angelic poster displays, these people had near perfect bodies.
All who entered were greeted by a friendly host who soon promised everything would look better in no time. There was something for everyone. Dry skin, dark skin, oily skin, scaly skin, no problem, this place could cure it all.
I was doing fine until I rounded a corner and encountered a woman with her eyes closed, hair pulled back and her face foaming like a dog with rabies. “She’s having a facial,” the makeup artist explained. “Is it painful,” I asked? “It looks like she’s having a seizure to me.” Was the clerk lying to me? I couldn’t help but wonder if I should call 911.
I thought artists painted on canvas not on the faces of urban women frothing from chin to brow. I’ve seen women with curlers in their hair at the grocery store, but this experience took beauty to a whole new dimension.
Who, in their right mind, would sit in a public place, strip their face of all putty and then allow a total stranger to apply white foam to their face while passersby stopped to admire the show? Isn’t this what washrooms are for?
Beauty may be skin deep, but based on what I saw at the mall, a facial takes ugly all the way to the bone! The end product may produce a princess, but the process will make any man have second thoughts.
As far as I can tell, Solomon never stepped into a shopping mall, but he knew what he was talking about when he wrote Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” No I’m not against war paint. I’m simply grateful I am married to a woman who is worthy of praise. She’s beautiful with or without war paint or a facial. Let’s face it, in the end; it is who we are on the inside that counts.
