CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: SOMETIMES BOTTLED BEAUTY ISN'T EVEN SKIN-DEEP

Never shop for brown eyeshadow at the end of a really long day.

I was putting on my face the other morning when I realized I was almost out of many of the key ingredients necessary for me to be seen in public.

That's not a good feeling. What if the end of the world comes and I don't have any mascara?

So I headed to a giant discount department store after work and set about restocking the old makeup bag.

Sometimes shopping for makeup is fun. You and a couple of girlfriends go to a cosmetics counter and try on all the lipsticks with sultry names.

Sometimes shopping for makeup is just plain work. The FDA may regulate ingredients, but it has no say over standardizing shades, or even naming lipstick colors.

It had been a long day, full of much work, and, near the end of it, came the heart-stopping epiphany of looking down at my tired feet and realizing I was wearing two different shoes.

And I had another pair just like it at home. No more black flats, that's my motto.

My makeup is pretty basic. It takes 10 minutes, and I really don't have to be awake for it.

But if I skip that step, people ask me if I'm feeling well. Sometimes they ask when I'm getting my new kidney. So it's an important 10 minutes.

And I don't wear anything out of the ordinary. No frosty white eyeshadow or lavender lipstick (I'm not making this up; check out this month's issue of "Vogue").

I wear brown eyeshadow, peach-ish blush and base in some shade close to "Too Pale to Live."

Here's a beauty tip: Never shop for brown eyeshadow at the end of a long day.

I say this because there are many, many shades of brown (who knew a neutral could be so varied?) and they all have names like Mocha Latte Double-Decaf (frost), so it's hard to be sure what you're really getting.

Fluorescent lights can play havoc with a beauty routine. And after a while, it's hard to distinguish the merits of "Bashful Beige" from "Sonoma Clay."

It's brown. It might be light or dark or medium, metallic or matte, but it's still brown.

That's why they come up with weird names for it, because if they just called it brown, they'd have to cut the price.

Of course, makeup isn't about brown eyeshadow. It's about illusion (especially in my case) and escaping the reality of dull things like brown eyeshadow. That's why they sell lipsticks with names like "Marrakesh Expressway" and "Pink Lemonade."

If they called them brownish-red or pinkish-brown, nobody would buy them.

And women have intense relationships with their cosmetics. Ask any woman who's ever learned her signature lipstick has been discontinued.

There are days when I know, deep in my bones, that if I could find the right lipstick shade, I could rule the world.

The real problem with bottled beauty is it's too shallow to be even skin-deep.

Of course, with enough makeup, who needs skin?

Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.