Makeup is amazing and silly: it’s undeniably fun to paint on your face. Yet the process of purchasing products and learning to use them can border on bewildering. As a public service, I have assembled some of toughest lessons I have learned. Reader beware: it isn’t pretty.

7. One of life’s greatest riddles is where your lip gloss has disappeared to. Don’t try to understand it. Some things weren’t meant for humankind to unravel.

6. Wearing red lipstick will make you feel Brigitte Bardot – sexy and ready to confidently kiss whomever you like. However, because you are wearing red lipstick, it took you at least 20 minutes to get it on and you kept using makeup remover to fix the parts where you accidentally went over your lip line and now your skin is irritated, so you will choose not to kiss anyone. You will also spend the rest of the night worried that the red has smudged. It has.

5. The foundation you are wearing is probably the wrong shade of color for your skin tone. Not even your closest friends or boyfriend will ever alert you to this fact, EVEN IF you ask point blank, “Does this makeup look weird?” Since you will never know if the color you paid way too much money for “works”, the only thing you can do to mitigate the situation is to wear very, very little.

4. The girl who says “I’m not even wearing any makeup” is definitely, definitely wearing makeup.

3. You can’t try on the lipstick colors at CVS. It’s not worth the hit to your dignity to hide behind the nail polish display, slowly ripping off the plastic seal as quietly as you can, and then testing said color on your hand all while holding an economy size shampoo to obscure your deed. You look super suspicious.

2. Celebrities will say that water is their beauty secret. If water means Photoshop, plastic surgery, chemical peels, facials and a team of artists applying layer after layer of makeup for hours to their already pretty and symmetrical faces, then yes. Yes, water is key!

1. You will go to a makeup counter hoping for someone to suggest a basic, daytime look but the cosmetic artist will either a) select colors that you detest, b) tell you it’s time for her lunch break or c) not listen to anything you have just mentioned and try to pitch you on a “wild, nighttime look that really pops.” The only thing guaranteed in this experience is that you will feel pressure to buy something (lip gloss) and then will feel immediate buyers remorse and will fantasize about returning it. You will spend days with the lip gloss and receipt in your bag, ready to return the gloss ONLY TO LOSE THE DAMN RECEIPT. And then to lose the lip gloss (see lesson 1).

Bonus Lesson: You do not need the toner, the primer, the finisher and the loose powder.

What makeup lessons did you learn the hard way? Tweet me @taraschustar!