Working Girl Wednesdays: “Do You Realize What a Wicked Woman You Are?”

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

Chapter 3, “Make-Up and Live,” argues for cosmetics as an essential part of a working wardrobe.

Many an “expert” advises working girls to keep make-up to a bare minimum. An office, they say, isn’t the place to razzle and it isn’t the place to dazzle…Well, I’m convinced the experts must all be left-at-home wives who, if they had their way, would also have office girls wear shrouds and nettles. Of course you don’t keep your makeup at the office to a bare minimum! For the love of heaven an office is where the men are!

After the jump, all 16 steps of Helen Gurley Brown’s regimen to achieve the “natural look”! Next week: Landing the job with “the taffeta-rustle sound.”

For the record, this is a heavily abridged version of the regimen. The complete descriptions cover about four pages in the book.

1. Start with a clean face. Liquid cleansers are great.

2. Pat on a lotion or astringent…It is also supposed to close pores, and you don’t want to go running around with your pores open! Of course you don’t.

3. Put on a moisturizer.

4. Put on your favorite make-up (liquid, cake, whatever)... Don’t be a scaredy cat about under the eyes. That area’s part of your face too.

5. If you have heavy shadows under your eyes, use Max Factor’s Erace over this area.

6. Dab fluid rouge high on cheekbones just under eyes.

7. Now powder over everything with translucent powder.

8. Draw a ribbon of eye shadow from the inner corner of your eye to the outer edge.

9. Use a tiny brush to outline your eyes with eye liner…You want only a breath of color for a shadowy effect. Go under the lashes, dear. Don’t daub on top of them.

10. This is the point where you put on false eyelashes if you’re wearing them.

11. With a razor blade sharpen your eyebrow pencil to a wedge-shape (not round like from the pencil sharpener)…Never curve the brow downward or you’ll look like a beagle.

12. Apply mascara…You can do as many as six applications to each eye if you want to build really beautiful lashes (and get to work at twelve noon!). A working-girl friend of mine washes everything off her face but mascara and leaves her “lashes” on from one month to the next.

13. Put on your lipstick…You know all about drawing in a completely different mouth than the one you own—beefing up here, minimizing there. Of course you do!

14. For the royal coup to make you look like a glowing angel, dust cheekbones ever so lightly—but lightly—with dry rouge stroked on with a powder brush. Try it! It looks heavenly.

15. Lily gilding: If you are not using Erace or another product to cover under-eye smudges and they still seem to show a bit through your make-up, take a 5/8” brush, dip it in your make-up foundation and paint lightly over the shadows. Do you realize what a wicked woman you are? You are painting your face—and is it ever fun and flaw-hiding!

16. Final Touch! Dampen a small silk sponge with water and gently pat it all over your face. This gives you an alive little glow no matter how much make-up you’re wearing…voila, the natural look!

Comments

[Citronella]

SIX layers of mascara? Kept on your lashes for one MONTH? What do we mean exactly by "working girl" here?

[Sharn]

Because I have nothing better to right now, I just applied six coats of mascara.

Oof. I now have one solid eyelash mass that goes all the way across each eye. My eyelashes are stiff and clumpy, and they make my eyelids feel like they weigh about ten pounds each. If I look up, I can see them. Oh yeah, this is sex-ay.

[Athena]

How come the "natural look" never actually means not wearing any makeup? Anyone who followed this regimen would never actually make it to work. I suspect that a women who wears that much make up would most definitely be mistaken for a hooker.

[tanya]

I think the 6 coats of mascara might be for the 'other type of working girl' :0)

[vanessa]

I can't wait for next week...the taffeta rustle sound!

[Kate]

That sound of your nylon clad thighs swishing together creates a frenzying effect?

It's easy to mock Helen Gurly-Girl, but for years, no one gave advice to women who worked and liked it.

[Alicia]

I know it has already been said, but SIX layers of mascara? I can barely get the clumps out with the one coat I apply every work day.

"For the love of heaven an office is where the men are!"

LOL, this tickles me pink. I'm totally circulating this to the guys in my office tomorrow.

[Ace]

I've been using this book for my pick-up lines.

Based on last week's post:
"I noticed your raw bosom from across the room."

This week:
"So...how many layers of mascara are you wearing?"

Next week:
"Do I hear taffeta?"

Results: two black eyes and the unanswerable question, "What do you mean, raw?"

Thanks, HGB!

I'm trying to sew an 18th-century style men's jacket from taffeta. It's good to know that the rustle will have men flocking around me, even if I'm a geek who wears historical clothing.