Deception Level

Even though I have the medical exemption and I won't have to come to the office, there will be some occasions when my attendance is required. One of those is in a little over a month.

Have I begun planning my outfit? Of course I have. Makeup? It's complicated.

The last time my coworkers saw me, I wore makeup. Foundation, eyeshadow, lipstick, but no mascara or blush, because mascara and blush combined with the rest exceeds my deception tolerance. On the rare occasions I wore mascara or blush I dialed back either eyeshadow or lipstick. 

Only now I have the ultimate lie perched on top of my head: a wig. This blows the deception algorithm out of the water.

For Zoom calls with the wig I’ve been wearing nothing but a touch of eyebrow pencil on my left eyebrow. Not the right, the right’s fine, and it’s partially covered by the wig anyway, but the left side of my left eyebrow needs some augmentation. 

But in a little over a month, I will be face-to-face with my team without the Zoom filter. They will all see my lashless lizard eyelids in person. 

Right now I think I am comfortable with this level of deception: wig, mascara, tinted moisturizer, lipstick until I eat something then that’s it for the lipstick, and the left eyebrow pencil. And that just goes on the outer half of the left eyebrow. For the full eyebrow I would have to deduct the tinted moisturizer.

How does this work for other people? Do women with breast augmentation stop conditioning their hair? Or is this just me?

Comments

[KC]

... pretty sure it's *mostly* just you. I think I've known some women who aimed to not startlingly change in appearance, which might have some slightly similar effects, but I don't think I've known anyone who has tallied accuracy of appearance the way you are describing. (but: there is probably someone out there)

If I feel phony while wearing makeup or otherwise Not My Usual, I don't do phoniness math but I do tend to just blurt it out. (...this has been weird on occasion.)

[KC]

I *am* familiar with women taking outfits up or down a notch in terms of Dressiness or Fanciness or Casualness, though. But that feels different vs. having a specific Acceptable Degree of Divergence from your entirely unadorned or entirely unaltered state?

[TheQueen]

KC - I think the closest thing would be “evening” makeup vs “daytime” makeup. Of course I have only a few instances of slapping on extra makeup for the evening.
Maybe It’s more like wearing Spanx AND a padded bra? I don’t know.

[KC]

The only rumination I've heard on things like Spanx/padded bra deception is basically the concern of catching a guy who is then frustrated/disappointed that the, uh, underlying reality/territory is not as advertised; that might be applicable to wigs and false teeth as well, I guess, but is 100% not applicable to your situation since Gary knows by now what he has gotten into. :-)

[theQueen]

KC - Even though he knew what he was getting, what he ended up with is so, so different.

[KC]

HA! Fair, but also unrelated to your current office presentation. ;-)