Putting on make-up on the train was something of an art in my day. The ancient bone rattler that I used to catch to school had few through carriages back then. More commonly, there were individual compartments with slam doors on both sides and facing banquettes that seated eight. Not that we ever had eight in ours — who would want to be terrorised by a bunch of teenage schoolgirls?. Which meant we were usually free to do what naughty schoolgirls did — smoke, swear, talk about boys, and drink (not that we did much of that: I remember we were put off the joys of alcohol for years after we had made ‘wine’ one time at school from whatever fruit we could find — in my case bananas — and were violently sick from consuming each other’s brews).

Now I know what you’re thinking — what was an adolescent schoolgirl doing wearing make-up in the first place? And you’d be right to think that, because I did spend every Monday morning without fail in the school lab, having my nail varnish removed by the chemistry teacher with acetate. (How my maths teacher, who was blind as a bat, never failed to notice my nails, even though she couldn’t see further than the end of her nose, was always a source of curiosity to me.) But I was a Saturday girl in Boots, and when the Max Factor display had become outdated, I got to take it home, and there began a love affair with make-up that endures to this day. (Okay, some of the lipsticks were a bit manky; I had to scrape the fingermarks off the eyeshadow palettes, and I’m sure the foundation testers had enough germs on them to keep a biology lab in experiments for years, but when you’re that age, who cares?)

I like to think that I’m a bit more sophisticated in my application of slap nowadays — gone are the three shades of colour across my eyelids, the heavy kohl that turned my eyeball fluid black, and the clashing purple mascara and orange lips (although I might keep the lips bit, as I’ve heard on good authority — the Sunday Times Style magazine, no less — that orange is this season’s lip colour of choice). Gone too is the foundation, that panstick caked-on effect is not a great look, is it, girls?

Anyway, to the train. And putting your face on, as my old ma used to say, in public. Call me old-fashioned, but I feel it’s quite an intimate thing to do, and I feel the bathroom or boudoir is the place to do it. I see girls doing eyeliner and all sorts, and good for them that they know they’re guaranteed such a smooth ride, they’ll get it on evenly (as we all know, liquid eyeliner application takes some skill; Amy Winehouse eat your heart out). Still, I prefer to apply my warpaint before I leave the house and take on the world. Lipstick is my only public make-up vice, and that’s because the Partner-in-Crime hates the taste (and colour), and doesn’t relish the idea of going to work with the latest Mac shade (orange, natch) plastered all over his smackers. Might put the patients off.

So that’s where I draw the line. But all I can say is, good luck to the girls who draw theirs halfway to Haywards Heath.

Picture by One Hell of a Loser on Flickr.