I’m a woman.

Or so I thought.

At least, until yesterday.

In a high-street department store, I some how found myself getting a make over at one of the branded make-up stalls, as I figured it was about time  experimented with the habits of the fairer sex of which I am supposed to belong to.

An innocent adventure for most.

But for someone who’s owned nothing more than a stick of eye-liner in her life, and has probably used it less times than Paris Hilton’s read a novel, the myriad of sticky substances being plastered on my unsuspecting skin was quite alarming.

In total I counted fifteen products which were layered one after the other onto my face.  I couldn’t keep track of it all, I wasn’t even certain what each one was achieving.

But by the time she was done, and she held a mirror up before me I didn’t recognise myself.  Aside from the fleece beneath all that face-paint, there was a distinct lack of me in that mirror.

But, secretly, I liked it.  I felt ‘feminine’, and in some perverse way, empowered.

Is it wrong to feel empowered by transforming yourself into something other than what you are?  To feel feminine behind a facade?

When I wiped my face clean that evening (no mean feat), I felt almost deflated to see my freckled skin beneath.

Make up is like a drug. I had a hit. I felt like a new person.

I almost got a glimpse into the lives of those women who won’t let their partners see them without make up. Who get up early to “put on” their face, because they just don’t feel worth it without it.

It is a dangerous thing to be addicted to perfection.

The prize we can never attain.