My name is Wendy, and I’m a recovering product junkie.

If the DSM III had recognized a disorder characterized by an unhealthy obsession with makeovers and shiny purple eye shadow they’d have locked me up and thrown away the key.

I’m not sure when it started.  My earliest memory is seeing the little plastic Avon case of power blue eye shadow in my mother’s makeup bag and thinking it was achingly glamorous.  At the peak of my neurosis, around 15 years of age, I was taking a solid hour to apply my makeup. One. Solid. Hour.  The shiny purple color went on the lid, then blue in the eyelid crease, then a shimmery pink on the brow bone.  If it wasn’t perfect I’d start over, much to the dismay of my mother and my homeroom teacher (I was perpetually late for school because of this).  It was flawlessly applied and my girlfriends were jealous.  (No, really, they were! It was the 80s, you had to be there.) Continue reading →