Second Opinion

The Mild Wife generally likes to do her research when she buys things that are going to last a while. I mean, it makes sense: you're going to have this thing around for months, if not years, so you might as well make sure you make a good investment. No one is going to raise an eyebrow if you do your homework before buying a car, for example. It's an investment, so you want to make sure you know as much as possible before you buy it.

As I've pointed out before, though, this habit also extends to makeup. Now, it's not as big an investment from a pure financial standpoint, but as I've discovered, many of these products are meant to last many, many months. What's more, you are literally putting this product on your face. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to slap on something that made me look terrible. So, she does her homework. Like I said, this makes sense to me.

However, skin tones are not an exact science. It's not like there's a hex code for your skin that precisely identifies you skin tone. What's more, even if that did exist, people's skin is not always uniform all the way across their entire bodies. So, it takes serious time and effort to try to find something that matches your skin tone, looks the way you want it, and comes at a price point that you're comfortable with.

What makes it even harder, at least for the Mild Wife, is that sometimes she isn't directly in front of a store sample when she's curious about a particular product. I mean, if she was there in store, she would probably swatch a little bit of it on her forearm to see how well it matches her skin. But that's not always the case. In fact, I'd argue that scenario actually makes up a small minority of the times when she's curious about a particular product. So, she ends up looking at websites and other social media to try to judge whether something looks like it'd match her skin tone.

Lately, though, she has taken to getting a second opinion on these things: me. I don't think I'm particularly good at this or anything, but I'm around, I understand what she's trying to do, and I happen to have the benefit of seeing her frequently. I'm not going to be biased by what she already has in stock, plus I probably see her face more often than any other human on the face of the planet. So, as it turns out, I qualify as a good impartial judge.

This has led to discussions about "rosy undertones" or whether something is "too matte." Let me tell you, I never imagined this would be a part of my life, yet here we are. I know the Mild Wife appreciates the input and I'm happy to do it, but the whole thing makes me chuckle. Every so often, I find myself trying to help match a random picture on a makeup website's to my wife's face, and the whole notion that I'm trying to judge makeup makes me chuckle.

Second opinion, indeed.