Make-Up
Buy and sell make-up in Guatemala.
Plenty of people in Guatemala do their own make-up for a fifteenth-birthday party, a graduation or a wedding instead of booking an artist, and shopping for one big night leaves spares behind: a second foundation in the neighbouring shade, false lashes that were never needed, a palette in colours that only suited the dress. Face, eye and lip make-up all change hands that way. What is worth taking from another person is sealed or plainly untouched, with the shade name still readable on the label and the box or wrapping it came in.
The make-up bag for one long party:
holds three kinds of product that are chosen differently. On the face, foundation and concealer carry the shade decision, and powder, blush and highlighter go on over them. Around the eyes, a palette does most of the work, with mascara and, for a big night, a strip of false lashes. Lips go from a classic bullet lipstick to liquid lipsticks that dry down and last through dinner. The brushes, sponges and lash curler that put it all on are under beauty tools and accessories, the primer that goes on first belongs to skin care, and the nail colour for the same evening is in hand and nail care.
Foundation shade, undertone and the photographer’s flash:
decide whether a base still looks like skin at the end of the night. Shade is only half of it: the undertone, warm, cool, neutral or olive, is what stops a foundation ending in a line along the jaw. Test on the jawline rather than the back of the hand and look at it outdoors after a few minutes, because many liquid foundations oxidise and darken once they sit on skin. A matte, long-wear formula holds from the ceremony to the last dance; a dewy finish looks fresher on an ordinary day. Under a camera flash, foundations with sunscreen in them and bright white setting powders can bounce the light and leave a pale face above a neck that kept its own colour. Waterproof mascara earns its place at a wedding, where somebody always cries during the vows.
Counter-line foundation and the drugstore bottle:
are where the money in a make-up bag really sits. A foundation from one of the department-store counter lines costs around Q400 to Q550 in Guatemala, while a drugstore or supermarket one comes to roughly a third of that. Mascara and liner are the cheap end of the kit. That is why an unopened counter foundation bought a shade too light is the spare worth listing at close to what was paid: for someone who already wears that exact shade, it saves most of the price as well as the trip to the counter.
Seals, heat and copied palettes:
tell you more about a make-up listing than a pretty photo. Sealed looks different on each product: a foundation with its shrink film or neck seal intact, a lipstick still in its cellophane, a palette with the clear sheet still lying over the pans. Mascara, liquid liner and gloss are only a fair buy sealed, because their applicators go from the eye or mouth straight back into the tube. Heat ruins make-up even unopened: beads of oil or a white bloom on a lipstick, or a foundation separated in the bottle, mean it was kept somewhere warm. Copies of the best-known palettes and lipsticks give themselves away with misspelt shade names, pans that sit crooked or shift in their wells, printing that rubs off the case and a price that makes no sense for the line. Pieces printed as testers were never meant to be sold.
The spare foundation, lashes and palette after a party:
sell on photos that settle the shade question before anyone has to ask. Photograph the label with the shade name or number readable, the seal or film up close and the box if you kept it, all in daylight, since screens shift skin tones. Say plainly if anything has been opened or swatched, and list those pieces apart from the sealed ones. Say where everything was kept. Most of these spares were bought in a rush the week before an event and pushed into a drawer the morning after, so list them while the shade is still on sale: the buyer is usually matching a foundation they already wear, and when they come to collect it they will want to hold the unopened bottle up to their jaw in daylight.