I used to know a woman, a mother of one of my friends.  She was getting on a bit (well, to me she was, at that time – she was probably only about ten years or so older than I am now!) and she applied her eye make up dreadfully

She would use eye liner and a thick, black, uneven line wobbled it’s way across her eyelids.  It looked as if she had applied her make up in the dark

I wondered at the time if she knew, or cared, how she looked but I now understand why she did this

She was LONG-SIGHTED

Meaning, she couldn’t see anything up close

How do I know this?

Because I am now very badly afflicted with the same thing

I’ve had to wear glasses for reading for about ten years now and they have got stronger and stronger.  I can’t read without them, I can’t text or use my phone without them, I can’t do anything much that requires me to look closely at something without them

And this includes applying my make up

Each morning I put it on and think it looks fine

When I put my reading glasses on and look in the mirror, it’s actually quite SCARY, like a macabre clown’s make up

I have an uneven squiggle of eye liner and sploshes of mascara on my cheekbones…..

I spend the next few minutes trying to correct my mistakes through a fuzzy blur – not easy

I bought some glasses that were designed for people with this problem.  The lenses ‘flipped’ down individually so you could look through one whilst applying the make up to the other eye

Ingenious

But useless.  They never worked, they just got in the way

I suppose one solution would be to abandon the idea of wearing eye liner.  It would certainly solve the problem of badly applied make up

But that makes me feel as if I am giving in to being old

I’ll be letting my hair grow out to it’s natural colour next

And taking Sanatogen

I can’t be growing old just yet

Maybe I’ll just wear shades all the time