(no subject)

I am so sick and tired of make-up ladies making shopping such a goddamn harrowing experience for me.

So I bought Estee Lauder's Desert Beige, Double Wear because the tester is my perfect color. It's an amazing foundation, and I've tried a lot (Chanel, Clinique, Lancome are the ones I've bought). This was by far the best. But then the samples ran out and I got to the bottle and it was...

Orange.

I trekked back to the store and at first the ladies thought I was crazy, until the guy working there dabbed the tester and the bottle onto his hand and LO, one is orange. They cannot find my color because Desert Beige is my color, except for the part where it's fucking orange when it should be neutral, like the tester. No one knows if it's a rogue tester or a bad batch or what. This is all complicated by the fact that half the conversations are in Spanish and half are in English and no one is fucking listening to me even when and if they can understand me-- ex: "does it come with a pump?" "No, mami, this is the LIGHT, see it is better for your skin." "No, does the foundation bottle come with a pump I can buy separately?" "You have very sensitive skin!"

Yes. I'm 25. Trust me. I noticed.

It's time to try stuff on. First they have to get my make-up off, and they use, I don't know, five different things to do it, then they come at my face with the sensitive skin calming fluid that made my skin itch last time it got put on. "No, I don't want that, it was bad for me." "But you need it. It's medicated for your skin." "I don't LIKE it." "You'll see, you'll like it!" "No, it's greasy and drying, it's bad!" "You'll see, you'll see!"

Oh my God, it sucked last time and guess what, it sucks this time too. I feel like someone is vacuuming the moisture out of my face and it's cracking like the floor of Death Valley with each passing second and I have to mop the excess oil off because not only does it not moisturize it just sits on my face like a recreation of the Exxon Valdez.

Finally they press Double Wear Light on me. I'm told-- assured repeatedly!-- it has the same coverage "oh but get the powder. Not the powder you bought last time, a powder specially for Double Wear Light." I don't need any powder, I tell them, but the make-up lady smarmily pulls out both the Light and the powder. "NO POWDER!" I am assured I can return it if I don't like it, oh but I will, I will! By this point I've spent over an hour with these women, and all I want to do is go home and wash my face and put moisturizer on and cry for a while, because all I want is foundation that matches my skin color and doesn't melt off before three in the afternoon.

So I go home and cry a little and wash the crap off my face and try to apply the new foundation.

Guess what: Double Wear Light doesn't have the same coverage as Double Wear. I know, shocking, right? I was better off with the orange. Which means tomorrow I'm returning this snake oil. Then I'm going... somewhere to find a foundation that works for me. I don't even care if Double Wear is the right foundation for me, I never, ever want to deal with Estee Lauder salesladies again. They have all been pushy and never listen to me and leave me feeling like an ugly sack of crap.