Why am I alone?
I’ve been leisurely looking for months for a makeup foundation with some coverage for the rare occasion I’d like my age spots to not pop out so much. The only makeup base I have, which I’ve only used half of and purchased about four years ago (or longer) is by Almay – which is too wonderful to talk about – it lets your own skin show through and just evens out tone and is totally natural looking and feeling. BUT it doesn’t cover the spots. Problem is, here in Korea, everything is WHITE WHITE WHITE.
This time, I took my Almay with me hoping I could match something. WRONG. I went to every counter, and there was not one foundation that dark. I had several salespeople try to talk me into something lighter. They really wanted me to go lighter than my natural color! “down, down, down” they kept saying. “no! I LIKE DARK. I AM dark!” I would say back to them. The truth is, I’m only slightly darker than average. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at people’s faces or by looking at the makeup counters. If you did that, you’d think I belonged to some other race. To which one saleslady said, “uri nara lightening.” (Uri Nara means our country, btw) Finally out of frustration I purchased the darkest color available at all of the counters in Korea. She tried to push eight vials of face lightening serum on me as a trial gift, and then I told her I didn’t want it, but she gave me a vial of candy pink lipgloss that attaches to your cell-phone as a complimentary gift. Candy pink! I mean, that only goes with WHITE skin, not tan skin…I took my purchase home, put it on, and was a slightly lighter ashen color. Fortunately, I had some Neutrogena mineral face powder I had bought before leaving the states which was too dark. The combination of the too light liquid and the too dark powder kind of resembles my natural color. The spots are covered, but really I’ll only wear this stuff for photos and special occassions.
I find it really amazing that an Asian can’t find any makeup colors that are natural asian colors to match her skin tone! It is SOOOO creepy to see all the women here with tons of makeup on, and their faces are several shades lighter than their necks and arms! It’s not only lighter, but it has an unholy luminance to it. Like a shimmering dead person, devoid of all warmth.
This has been a weird week for me – from former Presidents committing suicide out of shame, to finding out women in Confuscian society used to abandon their babies to die of exposure, to realizing my Asian skin color is unacceptable here in Asia. None of it makes any sense to me.
Hello Korea ! 