Women Only!
My first exposure to French women was this woman who runs the hotel where I stayed in Paris several years ago. Every morning, she would washed her hair, takes hours to blow dry and style it, put on make-up while yapping away in French, receiving hotel guests, answering phone calls and etc etc. I know I can never find the vanity to want to look good like those French women. Too much trouble, and for what/whom?
CHIC French women don’t wear makeup. At least they pretend not to.
Their goal is to glow, with invisible pores and highly polished skin. Too much makeup, French women say, makes a woman seem older, or even worse, as if she makes a living walking the streets.
So, reading this on NYTimes is rather eye-opening for me. They actually do a lot in trying to appear ‘make-up less’.
By contrast, Ms. Mercier said: “French women are not flashy. They must be subtle. The message must not be, ‘I’m spending hours on my face to look beautiful.’ “
And guess what the French women call American women whom they feel have painted faces?
Michèle Fitoussi, one of France’s leading social commentators and a columnist at French Elle magazine, described the painted-doll look preferred by many American women with one word: “vulgaire.”
Vulgaire, I bet is vulgar? Ouch!
Thank goodness I am not born in France!
She is rather old, I think maybe in her late 50s, very prune-y and therefore, I admired her tasks in primping herself with such time consuming rituals every single, morning. By the time she finished, she resembles those old movie stars, like Zsa Zsa Gabor or something.
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