The Key To Nostalgia: A Makeup Table.

It's 30 years later, but I just recently realized my preferred aesthetic for getting put together is that of when I was 16. 

I like having a makeup table. One where I can sit down and do all the things.

My table in my dressing room.

It's even similar to the one I had when I was 16, which I used to sit at every morning getting ready. And on weekends, when I had dates, I would sit down at it two hours before I got picked up to start my whole process.

The hair has always been what takes the longest. Because I've always loved hot rolling it. 

That was always my secret. In high school people would ask how I got my thick hair so shiny and full of volume.

It was the hot rollers.

I'd let them heat up and "cook" for about 20 minutes. Then I would stick them in my hair - always rolling away from my face - and let them sit for anothere 20 minutes.

Sometimes longer.

I stopped using them when I cut my hair short at the end of my Sophomore year in university. And I really only properly started using them again a few years back.

But it just wasn't the same as when I was a teenager, rolling my hair at my dressing table.

The dressing table was the magic. 

Curlers in hair, I would start doing my makeup. Lipstick is and will always be my most important piece. In the 90s I wore a brownish nude or a deep burgundy.

Now, it's bright orange or pink that pops against my fair complexion and dark spectacles.

And at the age of 46, I am pleased to say I have finally mastered how to paint my nails so that they will last the week. 

(I keep them super short. And they are either completely bare, Rouge Noir, or Pirate. Both by Chanel.)

I sit at the makeup table applying the lacquer. 

At this age, I have added in using a microcurrent device on my face twice a week two. If I worked in office, it would be every day. 

Lipstick and perfume...

Those are every day, no matter what.

I even wear perfume to bed. 

It's just too pretty, with the bottles sitting on the table, to ignore their energy. 

Nostalgia. 

Of the past, in the present, and for the future.

I feel pulled together more than I have in decades, all because of the makeup table.