EXPERIMENT Friends face life minus the magic of makeup

Three women agreed to go without makeup and hair products for a week.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
They like to put on their best faces.
So when three girlfriends -- Priscilla Phillips, 41; Anne Humphreys, 48; and Conni McLemore, 48 -- agreed to take off their makeup for seven days, it put their vanity to the test.
The three friends accepted a challenge by their hometown newspaper, the Knoxville News Sentinel, to take it all off, including hair products, and to keep a journal of their experiences.
They think of themselves as modern-day "Golden Girls." Lovingly calling each other "pookie," they talk often, have slumber parties at each other's houses -- and never walk out their doors without a dab of lip gloss or a swipe of color on their faces.
How it makes you feel
It was Phillips who enlisted the other girlfriends for the sacrificial experiment, and they agreed because of the Salon Visage makeover they would receive at the end.
The end couldn't have come fast enough for McLemore, who has spent a lifetime "putting on a face."
"When I really began wearing makeup in the eighth grade, I became quite popular," she said.
Feeling "nude" without her makeup on for a week, McLemore said she was desperate, like a teenager all over again, anxious "to feel and be the popular one."
By Day 4, McLemore said she'd heard plenty of the "you look tired" or "you must be sick" comments from family and co-workers at the hospital and medical center where she is a neo-natal clinician and educator.
The once-bubbly, smiling McLemore crawled into a shell without her morning routine of cleansing, moisturizing, applying anti-wrinkle cream, concealer, eye shadow, mascara, blush and lipstick, "and we were scared we weren't going to get our friend back," said Phillips and Humphreys.
Even the evenings were dreadful the week of no makeup, because McLemore was used to washing her face and reapplying her makeup before heading to bed, a habit which she had had since cosmetology school.
Married for three years, McLemore wrote in her Day 3 journal entry, "My husband always tells me how pretty I am, and it's not the makeup, he assures me; though he has yet to tell me that I look beautiful this week."
Change in routine
Phillips' personality stayed intact, but her day-to-day routine underwent an overhaul during no-makeup week.
The first day of the week, Phillips realized she needed to make a trip to the grocery store.
"I go early ... in prayer I can safely avoid human contact," she documented in her journal entry.
Phillips made it out of the grocery store unrecognized "with my sunglasses on ... they make me feel oddly attractive."
Her introduction to beauty products began with a bottle of Revlon red nail polish in 1977. She responded to any advertising that would promise her beauty, said Phillips, who owns rental properties with her husband, Michael.
Phillips said she buys a tube of lipstick at least once a month. And she spends about $25 a month, "with a splurge here and there," on cosmetics, she said, laughing.
Remarking in her journal on Day 2, Phillips said: "Going without makeup is like cleaning your car without washing the outside of the car. It just doesn't feel right.
Hair-raising experience
In Humphreys' case, it was her hair being undone that bothered her the most.
"I had to play with my hair to get it to do anything without any hairspray or gel," she wrote in her journal.
And going without makeup was a "horror of all horrors" after Day 2, "when I scratched a bump on my face."
Easing her fears was Humphreys' 11-year-old neighbor who said, "I really don't see much of a difference (with or without makeup)."
By Day 3, Humphreys' husband, Mallory, "told me I didn't look that bad."
"I realize this statement is a far cry from saying that I looked good without makeup, but I will take whatever I can get," Humphreys wrote in her journal.
Humphreys says she needs a little foundation, blush, eye shadow and mascara to give her a boost, but she is more of a slave to her hairstyling products.
"The whole week I was trying to figure out what to do about my hair so it wouldn't be flat to my head when I stepped out the door," said Humphreys, who owns an antique booth.
Having had her first experience with eye shadow in the eighth grade, Humphreys, like the others, was suffering from makeup withdrawal by week's end.
When the end of no-makeup week finally arrived, the girlfriends blew the dust off their makeup bags and were ready to get back to themselves.
"All week I thought about cheating," said McLemore. The same thought crossed Phillips' and Humphreys' minds, too.
Their reactions to the week came out the night before their makeovers at Salon Visage, when a slumber party was called at Humphreys' home.
"We all agree makeup can change you; it can give you confidence and change even the way you stand," said McLemore.
Even if their makeup-free mornings went a little bit faster, all three agreed, "We would never do it again."