The high cost of Lil Miss Makeup
All I wanted when I was 8 years old was Lil Miss Makeup but at the time, it was too expensive for my mother to buy.
Commercials for Lil Miss Makeup came on between morning cartoons and after school specials. Two little blonde girls in the commercials demonstrated different ways to play with the doll. They took turns applying makeup on the dolls’ cheeks and lids with the magic wand it came with. The girls laughed and convinced me how much joy I would have if only I had a doll just like it.
If the commercial came on with my mom in the room, I would take the opportunity to point out the toys’ special features, adding too that this doll would make me forever happy, leaving me wanting for nothing else. I promised her I wouldn’t ask for anything ever again if this final wish was granted.
Perhaps the magic wand would work on me too — turning me into a pretty girl just like the ones on tv. I remember mom was unmoving, saying it was too expensive and I just need to make do with the toys I already had.
I couldn’t understand why no was suddenly mom’s new favourite word. Before moving to Canada, mom and I spent Saturdays at the mall. We saw movies and window-shopped. We ate at Jolibees at the food court, or occasionally we would eat at Lancasters, a restaurant we reserved for mother-daughter days. We would sit at the corner booth and people-watched over rice and fried milkfish. The National Bookstore and the Sanrio Store were my favourite places and I was allowed a small treat or two from either store. I never went home empty-handed. But that was then, when we lived in the Philippines; before I discovered I was different and that I was doing it all wrong.
Before leaving for Canada, I had to part with a lot of toys and clothes. My belongings were split carefully between cousins. Except for the two barbies I was allowed to pack, I had very little to remind me of the abundance I once had. But the toys from my old life lost their sheen quickly in this new land. Toys seemed to be better here, more expensive, more exclusive and out of reach. Certainly, Lil Miss Makeup was not the only toy I coveted so desperately then, but my feelings for it were more than simply wanting a toy.
Around that time, I was becoming more aware of my otherness. In school, the other kids made fun of my accent and outdated clothes thrifted from Salvation Army and Value Village. My ears stuck out and I brought lunch that smelled funny and looked weird. I was shy too and unlike the little girls in the commercials, I had no playmates. Lil Miss Makeup embodied what seemed to me, the North American ideal of the cute and lovable blond I envied, desired and longed to be. With her magic wand, she transformed from the little girl next door to a wild child that had the freedom to express herself through colour and paint. She was beautiful.
I saw Lil Miss Makeup everyday on tv in the mornings over breakfast, and after school while watching MASH (which I never understood but put up with because I had nothing else to do while waiting for Inspector Gadget). Lil Miss Makeup became an important part of my dream world and it was particularly heartbreaking, that my mother could no longer give me the one thing I thought could save me.
My mother and I lived in the spare room of her friend’s sister’s house who agreed to take us in until mom could save enough money for our own place. We spent our first Christmas in Canada there and looking back, we were so lucky to have been taken in by them. The house was decorated with all the ornaments and a real tree I’ve only ever seen in movies. There was a lot of baking going on, of desserts with new smells and pies I’ve only ever seen in cartoons. Gifts were slowly piling up under the tree, though I looked only when I thought nobody was looking. I studied the shapes of the presents and assessed their contents. I hung around the tree a lot in those days leading up to Christmas Eve.
I don’t know how my little heart handled the suspense, but I know that despite myself, I was holding on to a small but important hope, Lil Miss Makeup was somewhere under that tree. At Christmas Eve, an ensemble of Filipino families (bonded by their displacement from the country and relatives they’ve left behind) gathered at the house. People spilled out of the dining room. Aunties chatted in the kitchen holding paper plates heaped with rice and turkey, Uncles sat on chairs bent over plates of noodles and lumpia. Some gathered outside despite the cold, puffing on their cigarettes. The smell still managing to waft inside. Children ran between rooms stopping once in a while to get a spoonful of something from their moms, who hastened to wipe their mouths. Older kids hid in the bedroom talking about boys or talking to boys on the landline until someone shouts at them to come outside. Like some of the other kids, I ate my dinner in front of the tv that played Christmas specials back to back.
It was nearing the end of the night when the gift exchange began. The process was too slow; there were too many people and so many gifts. There was endless picture-taking and chatting in between, making the suspense that much more delicious. When the present (with its shape I knew so well) was handed to me, with my mom’s familiar handwriting, I knew instantly it was Lil Miss Makeup. A part of me didn’t want to open the box, making it real. But I had to for my sanity. I wish I could say I unwrapped the present slowly and thanked my mother graciously, but I tore through the present and ignored the pleas to look up for a picture.
Lil Miss Makeup was finally mine. I held her and smelled her hair. The room fell away and it was just the two of us. She had on a shimmery cardigan and pink tights. Her lips were puckered into a smirk like she knew the secret.
My Christmas vacation became all about Lil Miss Makeup. I played with her every day after but her allure faded so suddenly. The soft curls of her blond mane straightened from too much combing and some of the seams of her clothes unravelled. I was never able to put on her bow the way it was before and the buckle of her left shoe began to tear.
The magic of her transformation (the makeup on her face was activated by cold water and disappeared with hot water) quickly became unremarkable. I grew careless and one day, I threw the wand in the freezer instead of running cold water from the tap. The wand sat in the freezer for some time and when I took it out, the sponge tip got stuck on ice and tore off. This was the final injury. The wand was the vital tool that made the toy what it was. The damage was irreversible.
The guilt I felt was unbearable to hold on to, but I couldn’t tell my mother. The wand breaking made me realize Lil Miss Makeup was nothing but a silly toy that mesmerized me into thinking it was more. If I was to be truly honest, I got bored with the doll almost immediately. Somehow I got the idea that this toy was what I needed and I made my mother feel inadequate in the process. The doll is long gone now and maybe this story is not even what happened exactly. What I do know for certain, was that my mom managed to perform a different kind of magic by somehow figuring out a way to buy me this doll, despite her already stretched means.
Of course, images of the white beauty standards like Lil Miss Makeup no longer affect me in the same way. Over the years I gained tools to help dismantle these falsehoods. At 40, I feel beautiful because of the experiences and wisdom I’ve acquired. It is not always clear-cut and its a process to continue loving the reflection in the mirror. I still don’t know the entirety of my worth, but that first Christmas in Canada I learned so much about what is truly valuable.
