What? No makeup?

Read this carefully because you won't hear me say it again: the French are right.
They are right that American women use too much make up (that's because they haven't been to Mexico City).
Full disclosure: I use makeup because I come from Mexico City, where the well to do, like Catharine Deneuve, don't do their gardening without makeup on (or rather, they don't ask their gardener to do the gardening without makeup). When you come from Mexico City you get so used to makeup that without it you feel like a peeled potato. In Mexico, going out without makeup is like going out with hair rollers here. Then there are the señoras who go out with make up and rollers.
My Mom would ask me to check her out as she was getting ready to go out (sans rollers), summing it up this way: Se me cayó el payaso encima? Did the clown fall on my face?
Here in NY it is a little different. The out of towners use more make up than the natives. However, LA is makeup crazy, as the article points out, which is one of the reasons why, besides the presence of millions of Mexicans, LA reminds me of Mexico City so much.

I use make up because my skin is too pale and has lots of uneven freckles and red spots and discolorations. My lashes are nothing to write home about without mascara. My lips are thin (Mr. Ex-Enchilado referred to them as Kenneth Brannagh lips). You get the picture. Yet I agree with Le French that bare, beautiful skin is tops, and my friends here in NY look gorgeous without it. Why can't I be like them?

I have always envied the French style, which is studiedly unstudied, like they just fell out of bed, but everything is somehow in its place. As far as I'm concerned, they are the only women on Earth that know how to tie a scarf, a foulard, correctly on their slender necks. I used to have a French roomate in Mexico City whose entire wardrobe consisted of clothes from the Salvation Army, and still, she was kind of chic. So I disagree that French women don't care. They are more insouciant.

I'm going to try to reduce my makeup usage now that it's going to melt down anyway, with the advent of global warming.