Róisín Ingle on . . . the right foundations

Look away now anybody who thinks make-up is not the least bit important and does not want to read about it here. Seriously, hop it. Where should you go? Well, down the back of the main part of this newspaper there is a whole section jam packed with people doing a variety of things with a variety of balls. Perhaps you think that is more important than, say, the inner confidence that can be achieved with a well appointed slash of exactly the right red lipstick on Valentine’s Day. Fair enough. Off you go. I won’t judge.

Now, have you found those pages? There are rather a lot of them for something that, with the greatest respect to practitioners and enthusiasts, is mostly a load of balls. Look, I’m not against certain people’s obsession with sport. Each to their own. Hobbies are great but it’s interesting that women’s interest in beauty and make-up – whether you are a full face of slap kind of woman or a just a touch of gloss and concealer lady – can be belittled, trivialised, put down. As though caring about products that give you a lift and make you feel more beautiful means you have no brain.

As British beauty writer Sali Hughes puts it in her excellent book Pretty Honest: "While a man with an interest in football, wine, Formula 1 or even paintballing would never see his intelligence called into question, a woman with an interest in surface is perceived to have no depth."

Irish Times beauty writer Aisling McDermott recently wrote an article about foundations on the features pages of this newspaper. As founder of Ireland's most successful beauty blog, beaut.ie which she grew into a solid business, selling it on last year, Aisling, like our other beauty writers Laura Kennedy and Kathleen Harris, knows what to look for in a foundation. She wore five foundations over five days so she could report her findings to our readers. At one point that week, Aisling's article was the most read story on irishtimes.com. A man was not happy about this. A man lacking the balls to use his real name was not happy at all.

Here's what the poor man who called himself after a 16th-century bardic poet 'Tadhg Dall' said in a comment underneath Aisling's article. "According to this website this – this – is the most read article in The Irish Times. The Irish Times, not Hello! and not the Sunday Independent. So much for the noble idea of a serious, thoughtful, cultured and stimulating 'quality' newspaper. If this is quality, then, as Edward O'Meagher-Condon shouted from the dock back in 1867 when he was sentenced to death by another English judge: God Save Ireland!"

Imagine one of the Manchester Martyrs being invoked despairingly under, say, a review of a rugby match, another kind of article which often reaches the dizzy heights of the most read on irishtimes.com. Do you think anybody – man or woman – would compose a message lamenting a review of a ball game, a happening with as much real importance, let's be honest, as a cliff-hanging episode of a television soap? Imagine someone taking to their keyboard to give out about it not being "noble" enough. But write about make-up in The Irish Times? The End of Days.

I didn’t mean to go on about this for so long. I really just wanted to tell you a story about my foundation. I lost it you see. And it was a good one. It covered things on my face that needed covering; it evened out my complexion; it gave me a confidence boost. (I know, I know, ‘God Save Ireland!’ etc). So I took to using another foundation, one that afforded less coverage but that would have to do until pay day came around. I wore it to a big presentation I was giving but as I put it on, the lid broke. It was an expensive foundation, and I didn’t want to bin it, so I put it carefully into a paper bag.

Later, my boss came to talk to me about something. I have a lime green poof beside my desk which I use for exactly such power-chats. I moved a paper bag off the poof to give him room. The broken foundation came flying out of the bag and spilled all over his trousers. Take it from me, you haven’t lived until you are helping your boss wipe the foundation you’ve spilled all over him from his trousers with a baby wipe.

But honestly, apart from clumsy incidents, an interest in make-up does not make you a numbskull, Tadhg Dall. It really doesn’t. And anyway, what are you still doing here?

roisin@irishtimes.com