If you’re like me, you love a good makeover. Many of us do, if the plethora of movies and reality TV shows revolving around this v. concept are any indication. Even Harry Potter takes a break from Quidditch and Voldemort to stage a duckling-to-swan transformation (for a girl of course; makeovers are the provenance of females. Guys [likely gay] might help transform us, but ladies are almost w/o exception the ones undergoing the change).
Makeovers are charged w/ expectation. If you put in the work, if you use the right products, if you buy the right dress, if your stylist is competent…then you will look incredible. Eyes will widen and breath will catch when you float into the room. You will be yourself…only better.
My first experience w/ this phenomenon was during Homecoming of my sophomore year of HS. It was my first big dance. I was 15, and so felt quite mature (laughable, I find this now), and I actually had a boyfriend (I believe we had been together for a whopping two wks by that time) to serve as my chevalier.
My mom and I had spent ages suiting for a suitable, but not too-expensive dress, and finally at JC Penney’s we had found a floor-length persimmon creation with spaghetti-straps and a matching wrap. But for its color, it was quite plain; I’ve never been one for glitter or rhinestone embellishments.
One the day of the event itself, my mom took me to her hair salon to get my hair put up into a French twist. At the time I was blissfully unaware that my hair would radically thin out a year later, leaving me mystified and tearful as I frantically googled “adolescent hair loss” to see what was wrong w/ me. Had I known, I might have appreciated the moment more, b/c I looked pretty great.
Then we went to a department store and I got my make-up done by one of the ladies at the counter. When I saw the finished result in the mirror, I smiled, if only to conceal a budding, uncomfortable suspicion.
I went home, put on my dress w/ its matching shoes, fastened costume pearls around my neck and took up my dainty evening purse (the first of its kind I had ever owned), looked in the mirror, and began to cry bitter tears of disappointment. For this is what it had all come to, the money, the time, the effort. This was it? This was it. I was not impressed. I had thought I was going to undergo a magical metamorphosis and emerge preternaturally beautiful. Instead, all I could see was that my bodice was baggy and my arms looked fat and my bra straps showed and there was NO WAY I could take off my bra b/c then my date might notice that I had shrunk two cup sizes (despairing that real breasts might ever emerge, at 13 I bought a water bra, and wore it every day–including under my bathing suit–for the next 2.5 years). Also, how could the dance–or anything–possibly live up to the amount of work I’d put in?
This pattern would go on to repeat itself a few times. There were always tears, and reproofs, and piles of rejected clothing strewn everywhere. Gradually, I gave up on the idea of transformation, and used the training training from my intro-level economics courses (which I passed) to formulate the theory that pre-party preparation offers diminishing returns.
Notice your appearance starts out pretty low, w/ zero being dead (zombie). Well, who do you think you are, Halle Berry? More to the point, the most dramatic improvements occur in the first 20 min (pants, eyeliner), and a peak is reached btwn 40-60 min. Fuss any longer and you start to second-guess yourself, leading to choices of questionable merit. NB: This is for to a special occasion/night on the town, and not applicable to the simpler daily routine.
Today is New Year’s Eve, and my best advice is this: don’t worry about it. Soothe yourself by spending the afternoon cleaning your bathroom (nothing so therapeutic as the smell of Tilex); that way, everything will be organized when it comes time to use it. Get ready as quickly as you can, and try not to change your outfit more than three times. Keep the hair simple. And go have fun, you crazy kids! 
I look great when I’m dead!
I can’t believe you wore a waterbra under a bathing suit! Poor Dragon! I always had weird bras, until I went to highschool. I had those ones that are just thin fabric, but in a bra shape; they made my boobs look really odd and pointy. When I was talking about this a while ago with my friend, she said, “Oh, I just thought your boobs were a really weird shape!” One more failure on the part of my mother to help me out with all the mysterious lady accessories we’re expected to use after age 12, leaving me to awkwardly figure it out on my own.