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  • Applying and maintaining makeup is simply too much bother, says...

    Applying and maintaining makeup is simply too much bother, says columnist Marla Jo Fisher. (File photo by Ana Venegas, Orange County Register/SCNG)

  • Shoppers get a free make-over from make-up artists at South...

    Shoppers get a free make-over from make-up artists at South Coast Plaza. (File photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Marla Jo Fisher

Whenever I walk into my office wearing lipstick, people come up to me and ask waggishly if I’m going to a job interview.

Now, this is ridiculous for many reasons, one of which is that there are no jobs left for journalists, except maybe waiting tables at Denny’s.

Then, there’s the implication that I never wear makeup, which is completely true, but not something I choose to contemplate.

“I just thought I’d give you a cheap thrill today,” is my usual retort, while I wonder why a dab of color on my lips is so shocking.

Truthfully, I quit using makeup years ago, mostly because I’m too lazy to perform the many small maintenance tasks required to keep it looking good.

Relations are so bad between me and the world of cosmetics that my friend who sells Mary Kay gave me a gift card years ago, and I never even used it.

It’s still sitting in my “gift card” file, along with an Ulta card, and random gift certificates for massages and spa treatments that kind people thought I’d like, but I never quite got around to using.

I’m not sure when I stopped painting my face, but it’s not any kind of political statement.

I just got tired of looking like a rabid raccoon after rubbing my eyes, and then having to go into the bathroom and remove the black rings around them, lest people think I was mugged and beaten up at lunch.

This only became more pronounced after I adopted two little kids at age 46, and barely had enough time to take a weekly shower.

The time I would have spent applying mascara went instead to looking for a tiny stray shoe that went missing four minutes after I was already late for work.

And then I noticed that makeup foundation was clogging up my skin, even the stuff that was labelled “sheer coverage.”

Sorry, all you lab-coated ladies who stand around in the department store, waiting to “analyze my skin type.”

Despite your white coat, I probably won’t be buying the $87 jar of skin cream you’ll recommend, nor the “doctor’s choice” foundation guaranteed to make me look like a queen. I’d probably end up looking like a queen all right – the corpse of the first Queen Elizabeth anyway.

Then, there’s the cost savings. I can’t even calculate how much money I’ve saved by power walking past the cosmetics counters, instead of stopping to browse.

I still remember walking into the bathroom at the campground at Leo Carrillo State Beach in Malibu first thing in the morning, and seeing it full of teenage girls, putting on makeup and using curling irons.

For what? The squirrels? The dolphins?

Now, I do have a teenage daughter who always veers automatically toward the makeup displays, though I’m happy to say her application is taking a lighter touch these days than when she first started, and was going for the Vegas showgirl look.

Personally, I wish she wouldn’t wear any at all, but I know that’s a losing battle.

Do you ever watch “Survivor” on CBS? One thing I’ve noticed after becoming a fan is that the women survivors generally look great by the end of the 39 days, even allowing for the fact that they’re in tattered, filthy clothing and haven’t washed their hair even once with real shampoo.

They’re fit, they’re tanned, and they aren’t wearing a drop of makeup.

By the time they come back to the “reunion” show where the winner is announced, these same women are usually wearing gobs of foundation, eyeliner, mascara, blush, highlighter, lip gloss, their hair is curled and they look …. much less attractive.

Right?

There are plenty of people who need makeup to improve their appearance, and I’m not trying to shame them. In fact, I’m sure I’m one of them. Maybe someday I’ll go back to it, but not likely.

I no longer feel like I need to “put on my war paint” every day, because I live it instead. In fact, makeup now feels like a mask to hide my true self.

In May, singer Alicia Keys wrote an essay about how she’d walked into a photo shoot straight from the gym, and was reluctantly convinced to let the photographer shoot her on the spot, without changing clothes or being made up.

It was a life-altering moment, she wrote, because she learned she liked “this real and raw me.”

She ultimately used one of the photos as the cover for her single “In Common.”

“’Cause I don’t want to cover up anymore,” she wrote. “Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing.”

You go, girl. Though I still keep one lipstick in my car, just for emergencies. I try to wear it once a year whether I need to or not.

Contact the writer: mfisher@ocregister.com or 714-796-7994