Mirror app. Bad light
Someone watching. That is the commute. Warehouse to a night out, carriage as dressing room. This city does not give you a pause, so I stopped waiting for one.
I clocked out with warehouse dust still in the seams of my jeans and a blazer stuffed in my bag like a secret identity. Hair in a clip. Face doing that half-done thing where you look fine under strip lights and tragic the second you hit daylight. I had forty minutes if the Overground felt generous. It did not. It never does. I sat down anyway, cracked the little zip bag, and got on with it.
If you have never tried it, you will say something pious about bathrooms. Lovely. Find me a public loo on that line that does not smell like defeat and wet floor signs. I will wait.
The kit that actually survives the bag
I am not doing a twelve-step on a moving train. I am not that girl. I am the girl who has done this enough times to know what smears, what snaps, and what makes the bloke opposite start filming in his head.
Tinted moisturiser. Concealer for the night-shift shadows. A cream blush I can put on with a finger so I am not flinging powder over someone’s Tesco meal deal. Brow gel. Mascara. Lip. That is the shift-to-pub version. If I am going out out, eyeliner comes later, usually when the carriage stops long enough that I trust my own hand.
People online love saying they can lock in a full face on a six minute ride. Good for them. I have done a decent eye on a delayed train and I have also drawn a line that made me look like I lost a fight with a biro. The Overground does not care about your technique. It lurches when it wants to. You learn to pause. You learn to cap the wand before the doors open at Whitechapel and a push of bodies takes your elbow.
Loose powder is banned. I do not care how matte you want to be. You start misting the carriage and you become a villain. Even I have standards.
The light is a liar and so is the camera
The mirror app is a necessity and a menace. Front camera, chin down, that ugly overhead yellow that makes everyone look a bit unwell. I have left the house thinking I looked expensive and arrived looking like I applied foundation with a memory. Then I get into a pub toilet with actual bulbs and realise I am fine. Or I am orange. There is no middle on this route.
I still check. I always check. It is a habit. Catch myself in the window. Catch myself in the phone. Catch myself in the dark glass when we go through a tunnel and suddenly there I am, mid-mascara, mouth open like I am concentrating on surgery. Which, in a way, I am.
Someone will clock it. They always do. You can feel the look without lifting your head. London looking is a skill. People stare and pretend they are reading adverts. I let them. If I waited for privacy to put a face on, I would arrive everywhere looking like I had given up at 3pm.
Mind your business, I am converting
There is a particular man who exists on this line. You know him. He has opinions about women doing makeup in public. He thinks it is vain. He thinks it is messy. He thinks we should have woken up earlier. I would love to see him try to go from radio, pallet wrap and a supervisor who cannot add, to a bar where I still want to look like I meant it.
I did not fail to get ready. I stacked two lives on top of each other because rent does not pause for a dressing table. The Overground is the gap. I use the gap.
A woman across from me once nodded like we were in a club. No smile, just the nod. That is the highest compliment this city gives. Another time a tourist watched the whole thing like it was theatre. I finished the lip, looked at her, and said, “Show’s over, love.” She laughed. The man next to her did not. Fine.
I am not performing. I am commuting. If your evening starts the second you sit down, mine starts when I stop smelling like the floor.
What I am actually doing
It looks like vanity. It is vanity. I like looking good. I like the little click of feeling finished. I like walking into a room already a bit smug. That part I will not dress up as empowerment just to make it sound noble.
It is also armour. Always has been. If the face is done, I can be Els. The warehouse one can stay on the train with the hi-vis memory and the rota I keep checking like it might change. People meet the version with the lip product. That version gets through a night easier. She flirts better. She does not feel as poor. She can pretend the overdraft is a rumour until Monday.
I know how that sounds. A bit much for mascara. Maybe. Tell that to the version of me who has sat on this same seat after a late, makeup sliding, fluorescent lighting doing me no favours, still clocking the reflection anyway. Habit. Armour. A bit sad, if I am honest. Still useful.
The rules I keep so I do not become a menace
Elbows in. Cap everything. No setting spray that turns the carriage into a perfume advert. If the train is packed, I do lips only and accept my fate. If I have a seat and a bit of grace from the universe, I do the eyes.
I do not use the fold-down table as a vanity if there is food on it. I have standards, even if they are specific and slightly deranged.
I do not film it. I know that is content now. Get ready with me, but make it public transport. I cannot be bothered. I am already being watched. I do not need to volunteer a second audience.
And if a child is staring, I do the funny face in the phone camera and get on with it. I am not going to pretend I am invisible. I am also not going to turn it into a TED talk about beauty standards while the doors are beeping.
Warehouse girl, night girl, same bag
There is a particular London trick where you change costume without changing postcode. Blazer on over the top that was under a jumper all day. Trainers in the bag, nicer shoes if I am being optimistic about my feet. Hair down when I hit the street. The face is the bit that makes the rest look intended.
My flatmates know the timetable. If I come in first, I take the bathroom and I am a problem. If I am going straight out, they get a voice note from the platform and a photo that looks better than the lighting deserves. One of them always says I look like I have somewhere to be. That is the point.
Sometimes I do. A date. A pub. A person I should not be as keen on as I am. Sometimes it is just the girls and a round I cannot really afford. The face still happens. Showing up half-done makes me feel like I already lost the night. Showing up finished makes me feel like I might steal it.
The bit after, when the train has done its job
You step off and the air hits different. Makeup set in the time it took to get from work to wherever. Mouth tastes like lip product. Phone back in the pocket. The carriage keeps going with my old face still sitting in the seat I left, if you want to be poetic about it. I do not, usually. I just want a drink.
In the pub toilet the light is nastier and more honest. I fix the wing. I put on another coat. I look at myself like I do at home, except home has a door and this has a queue. Then I go back out. That is the whole ritual. Train, face, door, performance.
People talk about self care like it is baths and journals. Mine is often a cramped seat, a compact, and the decision not to arrive as the tired version of myself. Is that deep? Not really. Is it London? Yeah.
This city will take your time, your wage, and the hour you were going to spend getting ready like a person with a bedroom mirror and a lock. Fine. I will take the Overground. I will take the ugly light. I will take the stranger’s eyes and still get the lip on straight.
Mind your business. I have somewhere to be.
