Elizabeth Taylor is frequently quoted as having said that her recommended salve for all of life’s ills was to “pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together.” It’s impossible to know for sure if those words really did come from the red-stained lips of that beautiful, beautiful drunk, or whether someone just slapped the words on a photo of her and posted it on Pinterest, where it quickly spiraled out of control. (Our money’s on the latter.)
Either way, there’s something to be said for the fact that something as simple as putting on lipstick can change your worldview, even when you feel like shit. That’s why going to Sephora can feel euphoric, like a deeply emotional healing ceremony and not the lead-up to you spending all your money. On a recent trip to the superstore, a 15-year-old girl in Ontario learned firsthand that beauty isn’t all about what you’re putting on your face — it’s about feeling, well, beautiful. Then her mom had to go and write about it on Facebook, because of course she did. Thanks, mom.
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The woman explained that she took her daughter, who’s been struggling with her self-esteem, to their local Sephora. “She has been relentlessly ridiculed by many of the ‘young ladies’ (trying to be delicate with my wording) she now goes to school with — they pick on her for her clothing, her skin, her voice, her hair, her eyebrows, the list goes on,” she wrote. “It breaks my heart to say that this bullying has convinced my beautiful daughter that she is ugly, and her formerly outgoing and peppy personality has dimmed.”
(Let’s just pause for a second and acknowledge the fact that this is so shitty. Why are they so mean? It's unreal. It’s like Heathers up in here.)
Her mother went on to detail her young daughter’s experience with Shayna, one of the sales associates at the store. “We were helped with products of course, but more than anything [the saleswoman’s] kindness towards my daughter was what stunned me,” she wrote. “I feel as though she somehow caught onto my daughters struggles with self-esteem during our conversation, and she went above and beyond to make her feel comfortable in her own skin.”
She finished the post, “So, Shayna, I hope you see this, and from me and my daughter (who is no longer begging me to let her wax her eyebrows), a sincere and heartfelt thank you for your beautiful spirit.” It's a very sweet story, but this mom is really asking for trouble by enabling her kid's Sephora habit so early in the game. This one's gonna cost her.