Extreme Makeover: Twilight edition

This cold of mine has been lasting forever. And I realized a couple days ago, when I finally felt good enough to try to look cute, that being sick causes a change in one's appearance that calls for a temporary makeover.

I normally have pale skin. Indeed, the English and Irish roots are pretty obvious with my fairness and red hair. I always have to select the skin-tone products...powder and whatnot...in the 01 slots at Sephora. The M.A.C. color of concealer I use begins with "NC" which I'm pretty sure stands for "No Color". If not, it stands for "Not Cool" since the people at M.A.C. probably know I could never tan in high school (try as I might back then) and not-tan teenagers in California are not cool.

But sick-me is another level. Sick-me looks like a character in Twilight. You know I've never seen any of those movies (you secretly love them, don't you?) but I HAVE seen a lot of pictures of this guy.

That looks just LIKE sick-me!

And when I tried to get dressed and apply my usual makeup routine the other night, I looked in the mirror only to discover that I still had some major Twilight Pale going on. So un-pretty.

I know you can tan, you cool California girl. But you must get the Twilight Pale when you're sick, right? Doesn't everyone? 

So here are my 5 makeover tips for getting back to looking like a human. I've been applying such rules for the past few days and have totally tricked society into thinking I'm alive and well. 

1.  Double the blush. Absolutely necessary. I even threw in extra bronzer on my cheeks and forehead and that helped make me look like actual health was making my skin pink.

2. Steer clear of all blueish and grayish eyeshadows and liners. I tried a cutie turquoise shadow I have, and when I stepped back to survey the scene which is my face, I discovered that it did a beautiful job of matching and emphasizing all the blue veins and dark circles under my eyes.

3. Because all sneezing and coughing makes your eyes water, use mascara only in case of emergency. Emergency means a date-night, or any time you can't wear sunglasses. The exception is church; don't wear it to church if you expect to have a touching moment during worship and are prone to tear-shedding like I am.  

4. No white or grey or flesh-toned shirts. Thankfully, I don't think you have many of these. Grey is all that vampire dude wears, and it's not by accident. They know it makes him look pale and vampirish, and that's not exactly the look we're going for.

5. Put color on your lips, but not too much. A light stain is best, like our Stila favorite in pomegranate crush. (Thank you, Stila, for this happiness.)

But neutral lips AND dark-colored lips are just too overwhelmingly Twilight. Again, not the best look for us.

So those are my tricks of the trade this week. If you get sick (and I hope you don't), you should try them. OR, you can just scrap the 5 steps, and stay home watching reruns of Grey's Anatomy Season 1 (trust me, it's really good), while chain-drinking jasmine tea.

Yeah, that sounds way better.