Wearing Red Lipstick on my (pre-)Anniversary Date

I am usually a fairly modest make-up wearer. I try to match everything from foundation to lip gloss to my natural colors, and wear it only to make all the colors look even. (I’ve come to the conclusion that my face is like a Monet. There are lots of splotches of perfectly normal colors, with a few abnormal splotches thrown in. It looks fine, make-up-less, from far away, but up close it gets a little…busy.)

Last week, however, I decided to go crazy and I bought a tube of red lipstick. (Revlon’s Certainly Red, to be precise, with red lip liner. Revlon doesn’t test on animals.)

I don’t know exactly where the idea originated–whether from Dexter or from me. Dexter has some hipster tendencies, and his taste in women–rather, in woman–is a little bit hipster, too.

I think he would much rather I sport the style below than long blond hair and contacts.

Dexter is one of the main reasons I’ve had short hair and glasses for the past several years (because if you don’t know what you want, you might as well get the haircut that one person in the relationship will love).

Dexter claims that he would have really liked the new Emma Watson short haircut on me.

It’s not that I don’t trust him that he would like it. (Okay, I a-little-bit didn’t believe it.) I was just pretty sure I’d feel like a boy unless I was wearing a dress, heels, make-up, and earrings. And I don’t have time time, money, or sense of style to make that work.

Plus, I think I might be coming into a hipster style of my own.

Plain, loosely gathered, feminine hair feels a little bit more me. The only thing I wouldn’t naturally have worn in this picture is the red lipstick.

So, I went ahead and tried it. I still expect people to laugh when they see me in my clown make-up.

I’ve worn it three times now. Once the first day I got it, to see how it looked.

I wore it again to the farmers’ market on Saturday, when Dexter didn’t recognize me as I was walking toward him. (I was wearing a new dress, sunglasses, and red lipstick, and I had my hair up. So I can’t exactly blame him. He even looked away from me because he didn’t want to start checking out cute girls at the farmers’ market. ::blush::)

I wore it again last night when we went out to eat at Atlas.

We sat out on the patio for the first time ever–it was gorgeous, just the right temperature, and we were in the shade.

One of their specials was a rhubarb spritzer. And since you know how I love rhubarb, I had to get it. It was pretty delicious and contained a house-made rhubarb syrup.

I got the Greek Goddess salad. Usually I get the Greek Goddess burrito, but I decided to spice things up. It was a good decision. The croutons definitely made up for the lack of tortilla.

Dexter got a buffalo chicken wrap. I had a bite. It was a little heavy (for me), with mashed potatoes and fried chicken, but it tasted delicious. (Their meat is antibiotic and hormone free, but they don’t provide any other information about its source. So it’s on the no-meat-if-i-stop-being-veg list for me.)

The reason we went to Atlas last night was because every year, they email you two coupons–a free entree for your birthday and free chocolate cake and champagne for your anniversary. Although our anniversary isn’t for a few more weeks, we decided to use the coupon early since we have other day-of anniversary plans.

Atlas is the home of the “chocolate paradise” I mentioned on Tuesday (see balsamic ice cream).

When it’s gone, it looks like this:

We rounded out the evening by talking about some of our favorite memories from the last five years.

Would you ever sport red lipstick in public?

Check out Alicia’s Homemaking for more Try New Adventures Thursday. And stop by The Diaper Diaries for more Things I Love Thursday.

*Click the top three pictures for sources. All others by Dexter and me.*