As is my habit, I found myself transfixed by a woman on the subway this morning as she went through the motions of applying full makeup on a speeding train. When she first stepped on board, she was free of any make-up at all. She was in her 50s, possibly Dominican, with fresh bronzed skin, strong features and nary a line or defect to muddy her flawless visage. However, once the train took off, she extracted from her purse various items of make-up and proceeded to broadly paint her face. Initially I was intrigued by her steady command of a sky blue liquid eyeliner or mascara brush or burgundy lip liner with the train jarring forward or screeching to a stop. However, when she finished the job, I was struck by how different she'd suddenly become once this riot of colors had been applied. She looked older, harder. I wanted to hand her a tissue and urge her to wipe it off.

Why do we wear make-up? Does it really enhance what nature gave us?

Look, I'm no purist. I sometimes feel naked without it. My mom always insisted that a woman should never go out in public unless she had at least one makeup element on. Indeed, I never saw her leave the house without slathering a coat of Revlon's Caribbean Coral lipstick on first.

As teenagers, MaryCatherineFullofGrace and I couldn't wait to wear makeup. We piled on the cosmetics thick and dark in a furtive attempt to look older. When I look back at the awkward high school dance pictures and our copious purple eye shadow and magenta lipstick, it looks terribly wrong. Like Jon Benet Ramsey wrong. It's evident that under this window dressing reside gawky, goofy kids who are doing their best to look like hip party girls.

During that time, I had a friend named Paula who was always a little more mature than the rest of us. She used make-up, she wore daring off the shoulder peasant tops, she dated a senior (whom she lost her virginity to well before any of us had even made out with a guy) and she took her GED as an 11th grader so she could quit school. She was a man magnet for teenage boys and older men alike. I hoped my association with her meant that some of her coolness would rub off on me. However, the only thing that I really came away with was how to properly apply makeup. I thank her for that. Had she not intervened, I would probably still look like a drag queen after a night out in the Bowery.

It's curious to reflect back on formative makeup days in light of the fact that with age, we use make up with the intent to camouflage rather than to enhance. For all the time it took that woman on the subway to make up her whole face, I have labored over pots of Benefit eye brightener to banish dark circles from under my eyes. I can no longer wear eyeliner or mascara on the lower portion of my eyes, for it inevitably ends up smudging and transforming me into Vampira. I simply can't wear red lipstick anymore or pastel eye shadow or even powder with some sparkle in it. The intent is to look natural and fresh like you just rolled out of bed, even if it takes you an hour to get to that point.

So curiously, when we're younger, we can only afford lower end products and we wear them to peacock-like effect. And then we get older and buy expensive products to create a non-makeup effect. Then we're really old and on a fixed income so we have to use the lower end stuff again. And we start to look like peacocks again. Life coming full circle.

I'm glad it's the weekend. No makeup till Monday.