More than 40 years of looking at myself in the mirror has left me, like so many women I know, almost totally ignorant of what I look like. The mirror image is not a real reflection, but a composite of memories, wishes and half- truths. Photographs always surprise me. I never thought my nose was so long. I hadn`t realized my lips were that full.
Not knowing what I really look like, I am easy prey for cosmetics saleswomen in department stores who make pronouncements about the color of my skin or the shape of my face. Over time, these women have contradicted each other so often that I am left with boxes-literally a small fortune`s worth-of products that I do not use but have not thrown away. In my closet are clothes I never wear-clothes that might look great on someone taller or more long-waisted or with a pinker complexion.
By now I have learned to live with my shadowy self-image. I know there is a real me lurking somewhere. And this is why I am so intrigued by the concept of the personal makeover-the thought of turning myself over to an expert who could look at me objectively and help me make the best of whatever it is I`ve got.
I am also repulsed by the idea. What self-respecting adult would trust someone else to discover, in a trice, what had eluded her own years of self-scrutiny? Who would agree to pay a premium price to a stranger for the secret of her own self-identity?
I would. In fact, I recently scheduled an appointment for a makeover with a well-known image consultant in Manhattan.
The scene: I enter his salon with acute self-consciousness and receive a name tag with just my first name. I am a blank slate, as are three other women, whom I have never seen before, who will be going through the makeover process with me. One looks in her late 30s; the other two are 50-plus.
Our mentor arrives an hour late, ebullient and flamboyant. You have to wonder what sort of man would want to spend his days telling women how to look, but you have to admit that he warms to the task.
Each of us spends an eternal few minutes under his analytical gaze: first the bare faces, with the hair swept off them in a bandage, then the bodies, backed against a wall as in a lineup. It would feel degrading, except that Pygmalion showers us with compliments.
”What symmetry, what elegance you have,” he explains to the one who knows she needs to lose 30 or 40 pounds.
As for me, my long gray hair is an anathema. I am too small for so much hair, he says, and the color is warring with my green eyes and yellowish skin. ”Gray hair looks wonderful on some people, but you are not one of them. Remember that your hair is only the halo of your face. It does not exist by itself. Yours are the colors of the fiery autumn, and you are meant to be a redhead.”
I am dumbstruck by this prospect.
”Why did you come to me if you weren`t ready for a new look?” he says. This is a challenge. I respond to it like a child to a double dare. All right, I`ll do it. I`m no chicken.
It is at this point that the makeover begins to feel like a takeover. The coercion is real, and others are faring even less well than I. As my hair is painted with dye, I watch one compatriot spiral into real panic under pressure to change her bleached blond hair to red.
The master grows petulant and impatient with her reluctance, while the staff colorists keep to their work on the rest of us. They exchange knowing glances above their dye pots, as if to say, ”There`s one in every crowd.”
Eventually she goes for the red.
Meanwhile, cassette tapes are distributed that dictate to each of us our personal elements of style. Our leader, by this point, has pigeonholed us into one or another of his dozen-plus image categories, but with clothing and jewelry styles instead of personality traits. We are to take the tapes home and commit them to memory.
Needless to say, no one asks me how I think my hair should be cut. And makeup lessons come with a hard sales pitch to buy this set of products, now, at a special rate, raising the makeover`s total cost to $760. The day wears on for 11 hours. We are all exhausted. If we were unsure of how we looked before, now we know we look bizarre and don`t particularly like the change. Interestingly, though, each of us thinks the others look great.
At home, I am regarded as foreign, even frightening. My 7-year-old daughter screams at the sight of me. My husband is non-committal. My son says I look nice, although he`s only 4 and blindly in love.
My friends all like the new look. They congratulate me for being so brave. But the truth is that I was only following orders. If I continue the program set out for me-if I keep my hair this color and this short, if I wear the makeup and dress according to the plan-am I expressing the real me? Or merely my obedience to authority?
This question still dogs me, although I no longer jump in surprise at the sight of myself. I even like the way I look. I recognize, in this new projected image, parts of me that have always been here, but expressed and emphasized in ways I wouldn`t have thought of. It`s as though my house has been redone by a clever decorator who managed to pick the very colors and furnishings that would make me feel at home. I`m comfortable, but the rest of my family is afraid to put their feet up on the couch.
