to bed. If we want another shower, it’s going to have to wait.
As I turn the water off, I start laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“The water is fucking icy. Guess we’re waiting or shivering as we clean off.”
She giggles and tosses towels my way. “Oops. I’d say I’m sorry for distracting you but…”
“You’re not.” I toss the terry cloth on the tile, then wipe up the floor enough to motion her in.
She comes to me without hesitation. That hasn’t always been the case. I take a mental victory lap at the progress.
“The good news is, I think we’ll live without showering again. After all, why bother when we’re just going to get dirty once more?”
I cock my head at her. “I like the way you think.”
She glances at the clock on my nightstand. “But now it’s getting really late, and since you got my shirt dirty and all the foundation I had on dripped off in the shower, I have to start over.”
I didn’t exactly start the fight…but I ended it with a bang—literally. “I’ll help. Just tell me what to do.”
Watching Masey work is fascinating. As soon as we cleaned up the bathroom, she dried and fluffed her hair. I’ve never paid attention to a woman’s beauty routine, but hers is precise and specific. Now all the jars and bottles on my bathroom counter make sense. But in front of the camera is where she amazes me.
In no time at all, we adjust the light to accommodate the encroaching darkness, then she gets serious. After giving her traditional greeting and introducing herself with a reminder to like and subscribe, she begins with the products. “Today, I’ll be starting with the Luminous Blurring Glow Primer from…”
I watch her describe the product. Hell, I really don’t even know what it’s for unless it’s like a primer before painting kind of thing. But I swear from her description I know exactly what this product would do to my skin.
Then she moves on to an eye primer—what’s with all the priming?—followed by foundation, blush, bronzer, and contour. She’ll skip the highlight and come back to it since it’s the star of this video. She unwraps a new palette that’s launching in a few weeks, but she’ll give everyone a sneak preview with a “simple” eye look. Four colors and a lot of blending later, she seems evening ready. She finishes with liner and mascara. No lashes today because this is an “easy spring look.” I’d hate to see what she considers complicated.
Finally, she opens the highlighting quad with the fancy-schmancy packaging. Because she’s fair-skinned, only two of the shades will really work on her, so she chooses the lightest with a pink-champagne shift, whatever that means. One of the deeper tones she says she’ll use as a blush topper. Blush needs to be topped?
I’m confused by the time she brushes the highlight across her face. It doesn’t blend well, because even I can see two metallic stripes on the tops of her cheekbones. She tries to buff it out and soften the edges. She even tries to sponge and powder over it. Nothing.
She gives a strained smile. “Beauty influencers, like all of you, have different preferences. The Madeline Mill Strobing Accent Palette would be up your alley if you have a richer skin tone or self-tan regularly and enjoy that strobe-you-can-see-from-outer-space effect. If you’re like me, and you prefer something more subtle, this may be something you pass on. As for everything else…”
Masey gives a rundown of the other products she used and her initial thoughts, followed by a promise to use the foundation and the eye-shadow palette more in future videos, especially when she has time to wear the face longer, so she can give her complete feelings about the products.
Then she signs off with a smile, hits the button to stop recording, and sighs. “One down. I need to edit that and get it uploaded. I’d like to finish editing the video I started chopping down earlier, too. But I’m starved!”
I am, too. “Want me to call for a pizza?”
“You’d be my hero…”
“I’m not already?”
“Well, you don’t have a white horse or a suit of armor.”
“I don’t,” I say glumly. “There hasn’t been a big call for either in the last five hundred years.”
She waves me away with a laugh. “Details.”
“What do you like on your pie? Hopefully, having food delivered will get me closer to hero status.”
After we agree on sausage and mushroom—and that pineapple, no matter how yummy on its own,