Bathnight..

mentioned at the end of the post Windows: If the dress fits.. that I had discovered makeup, well this window post centres around this experience. I probably had other contacts “of the second kind” with makeup at home but this one stands out and is just as fresh in my mind as with nearly getting caught by my father in one of my mother’s dresses in the same said bathroom in which this story unfolds.
Again, I was in my early teens and it was a Friday night. It being so long ago, how do I know it was a Friday? Well, because it was bath night and that was synonym with Fridays, a weekly ritual that never changed unless we were away on holiday. I must say, I was always rather reluctant to take a bath. I ummed and ahhed a bit until my mother gave me that “look”, and then it was an about turn and quick bee line for the bathroom before her wrath would have led to a contact of another kind!
After the introduction of a makeup session into my bathing activities, I even looked forward to bath night. My mother was presently surprise and pleased that I had finally “come around” of course she had no idea of my real reason for the seclusion. Funny enough once I had overcome the initial “shock” of getting into hot water, I would usually stay in it for as long as I could. This was now to my advantage, as my mother knew I would be occupied for the next hour. What she did not know was that most of the time I was not soaking in the tub!
 
The evening would go something like this: 
I would lock the door to the bathroom and run the bath. Then quickly bathe, dried off and don my bathrobe. Instead of pulling the bath plug, I would leave the water in the bath. The water going down the plughole and the gurgling noise issuing from it could wake the dead. This would have indicated to my mother that I was finished ahead of time, but of course, I wanted to use the rest of my allotted time for some girl related fun.
My parents as usual where in the living room at the front of the house watching the box (TV). The distance from the bathroom to living room was only about 5 meters along a corridor. I had to make sure they would not hear me on my excursion. I opened the bathroom door entered the corridor and close it behind me. I turned 90 degrees on my axis and open the door to the morning room (our bungalow was very small), passed through and closed it. I had only gone a distance of about 3 meters but it was through two “semi’ creaky doors and over a set of ‘normal’ creaky floorboards! In all this time, I had to listen for any signs of suspicious noises and possible movements above the bubbling background noise of the TV, talk about nerve wracking!
Once in the morning room, I opened the draw to the sideboard, which was adjacent to the door I had just come through. Again, I listened like mad while groping around for my mother’s makeup bag. On extracting it from the draw, I removed her compact and one of the older lipsticks. I was super cautious, anything brand new or little used was taboo. I closed the bag and replaced it in the draw, turned on my heels and retraced my creaky way back to the bathroom. On locking the door, I sat on the side of the bath, swish around a little in the water and calm myself down as best I could. I have no idea how long the round trip took but at the time, it seemed like ages.
 

It was now time to look at the booty. On removing the two objects from my bathrobe, I would open and close them as quietly as possible so that their characteristic sounds would not leave the room. It is funny but I can still hear the sound of the compact being closed and the dull metallic “pop” sound when removing the lipstick top. It reminds me of how loud and demonstratively my mother would close her compact after refreshing her lips, as if to say, with a glance towards my father, “well I’m ready now, we can go!”.
The two objects in my hands represented to me the ability to make a face feminine, a way of heightening the girly-ness in me and turn my own face, even for a short time, into a female one. I had thought about mascara, but it would have meant more application time in total and the use of removal pads afterwards. No, timing was critical here and also I just could not take the chance of close scrutiny from my mother, powder and lippy was washable, mascara then not. I had tried it once, the chemicals in the pads stung my eyes and it was oily. Just too much work and detectable.

First I would apply the face powder. Ritualistically I would open and close (with that click) the compact; just handling it was part of the pleasure. I would then remove the pad and smell it, a smell I will never forget. I would gather the powder on the pad and apply in the way I had seen my mother do a dozen times. I had to be careful not to apply too much otherwise; it would start a bout of sneezing. I had one once, trying to suppress a sneeze can be painful. I would checking in the compacts mirror that I have covered all of my face with the powder. I had now a light beige complexion in total contrast to my normal ruddy cheeks that I had inherited from my father, very similar to Prince Harry (no relation).
 
Next came the lipstick. I would remove the lid, and extend it slowly to its full length. The colour was usually a classic red; I cannot remember my mother wearing anything apart from shades of red. She was not that experimental when it came to makeup. I would have liked that she tried pinks, as they were becoming more popular in the early sixties. All I could do was use what was available. I think from this time my preference in the type of lipstick I would like to use was made. I do not mean the colour, but the shape/form and handling. All the lipsticks I have ever bought have the classical form, not these thin stick like contraptions that look more like a paintbrush, or are applied like nail vanish, thin pencils or a board marker. I am quite conservative in this and in the art of applying, one could say old school. (I must also admit I have a tick for Yves Saint Laurent lipsticks, the casing is a work of art, you realise you have something in your hand when brandishing it).

Using my reflection in the compacts mirror, I slowly and carefully painted my lips with broad strokes. I would look on fascinated in how the colour had transformed my face. After one coat, I would critically check for mistakes, correct the best I could and then go over once again with a second coat just for the heck of it. When I was satisfied, I would mimic my mother by blotting with a Kleenex and gaze at the red stained tissue and my reflection in the mirror now off in a girly daydream.
One of the things I would dream about was having the lipstick and compact in each of my jeans back pockets and after playing about (of course only with girls) we would sit down on the grass and take them out and refresh our lips and check our appearance.
 
This whole experience was always short lived.
The bath water was in the meantime quite cold. I was also getting cold and as I had lost all sense of time, the panic phase started to kick in. I always had the recurring fear that the lipstick would not come off! I had heard that there were stay-on lipsticks out there and hoped my mother hadn't added one to her arsenal. Also, I was afraid that I would not get the makeup back in its rightful place before being detected.
I franticly washed my face until I couldn't tell if my lips were reddened due to the exhaustive scrubbing or from lipstick stain. After examining my face for tell-tale traces of my handy work, it was time for the final phase of the evening.
Now everything had to go quickly before someone heard the disappearing water, which normally triggered activity from my mother in the living room. I removed the plug, flushed reluctantly the red stained Kleenex down the toilet, pocketed the lipstick/compact in my bathrobe, and quickly left the bathroom for the morning room. Once there opened the draw and makeup bag, replaced items from pocket, closed bag/draw and then hurried off to the kitchen to put the kettle on for my coco. I could then stand around as if nothing was amiss apart with my heart thumping away like mad!
It was usually a close call at this point, as my Mother would come out to check the bathroom to see what chaos I had left behind and in most cases order me back to mop up the floor or something. As I was cleaning up, I could start to relax and swear to myself that that was the last time I would do such a crazy thing.
Of course wanting to do “girl stuff” doesn’t go away just like that and so you can imagine what happened the following Friday..
 

P.S: As I was writing up this episode, I remembered a lipstick that my mother once had where the lipstick and mirror were combined. It was her favourite and therefore I had to admire it from afar and never “play” with it. After she died, I found it in her vanity case the content long gone. It must have had memories for her to have kept the casing all that time. Of course, I pocketed it before everything landed in a black bag for the rubbish tip. I have it at home somewhere but I am not too sure where, but I know it will turn up sometime.

When it does, It will be placed to my own stash of lipsticks and bridge a gap of more than 50 years.
I was interested if I could find out something about it, so I checked the net and found in an antiques market pictures of the same model. It was a Stratton Combination Lipstick Holder and Vanity Mirror. (See pictures). I find it interesting that something like this is now an antique and then it hits you when one realises that one is also one..
 

Dream Dressing

hat I mean here is dreaming of getting dressed, not the classical dreaming in sleep with REM etc. but either “day dreaming” or what I call “dusk dreaming”, those last thoughts of the day on hitting the hay and getting ready to enter the Land of Nod. 

First a mini ObserVation: Earlier when I could not get to sleep, either through stress or excess coffee/tea at a much to late an hour or both, the method that usually worked to relax and drop off was to imagine in slow motion and in as much detail as possible, dressing myself as a woman. I would start with putting on shape ware, followed by stockings, makeup, a dress, jewellery and heels. Well I usually never got (I think, difficult to remember the next morning) beyond makeup or maybe a dress, as I was soon gone to the world. Some may say the opposite should have happened, but no, I just nodded off. 
Now since having my own wardrobe and the rare chance to enjoy it (see last post: Getting ready to go out) this method does not work anymore. I think it could be that I really know now how it feels to dress, instead of just imagining it, and because I can’t dress as often as I want, this introduces another stress (frustration) that blocks the sandman in some way. 
Any ideas? 
Please note: If any of you are going to ask what I do now to drop off, forget it, I will adamantly decline to say anything as this may be used etc. etc.. 

Ok and so to a day dream sequence from the past. 
I must have suppressed this next memory, or filed it away under “of no present interest”, but it surfaced again recently triggered by finding some old photos of my grandma and Abigale looking over my shoulder. There was a time my parents and I (a reluctant tagger on in this case) went regularly, almost every weekend to East London to visit my Nana to see how she was doing. We would fill the fridge, stock up larder and then take her out for a drink(s) until the pubs closed. We did this for as long as I can remember. Of course as a kid I wasn’t allowed in pubs, either the pub had a “family room”, or if not Dad would go and collect the drinks and we would stay put in the car. Invariably with the last round of the evening, he would “forget” to return the glasses and only “remember” them again when we were well and truly home. It’s interesting what embarrassing things stick in one’s mind! 

Anyway, I have a scene before me. I must have been somewhere between 12 and 14. My recollection was sitting in the back of the car homeward bound (glasses under the seat), bored as usual, and trying to keep my mind off being on the edge of being permanently car sick. This was due to the combination of the smell of plastic seats and two chain smokers puffing away up front. It was around midnight and we had to drive east back along the Commercial Road to the outskirts of the city. As my parents in silence, concerned themselves with driving through the Kray Brothers’ territory (Ronnie and Reggie were at the height of their notoriety at the time) and trying to keep on the move by hitting a green light sequence (stopping was not a good idea), I stared out at the endless chain of shop fronts sailing passed bathed in a dim sodium yellow light.

Most of the shops were dark, but every now and then one would be lighted up and I could get an idea of what they were selling. I of course was only interested in shops selling girly things. When I spotted one I would imagine myself going in (the door was always open) trying on whatever they were selling dresses, shoes, lingerie whatever. I would then leave, keeping my choice on and walk hurriedly on in the direction of home, of course magically keeping pace with the car. With the next lighted shop I would repeat the “experience”, this time either picking up another garment, jewellery or some makeup. I had “won” when I was fully transformed before we got home.
A variation on this, when the weather was not wet and windy, was starting out naked and before getting caught (which never happened), seeing how long it took to get “respectable” in some way.

I think I must have reached the Land of Nod a few times over the years, as I remember being awakened from my slumber on arriving home.