PDM - Public Display of Make-up

We’ve all experienced the joys of PDA (public display of affection), whereby a couple feel the need to prove their love to the world by constantly touching and kissing each other. We get it, you fancy each other, but for future reference: nobody needs to sit through an entire train ride watching you and your other halves do everything but the full monty. It is yesterday’s news that public tonsil tennis in the UK is revered and looked down upon. In Paris it is considered a national sport, and a double date consists of sitting on water fountains snogging and only stopping to have a quick smoke of galloise before carrying on.

Recently however, I was thrilled to be shown a whole new form of public indecency, in the form of a woman doing her entire beauty regime whilst sitting on the tube. Why, I wondered, does a woman have so little time in the morning that she needs to apply her spot cream on the tube? Surely this is something that we should all be utterly private about? Being a long-time acne sufferer, my pimple ointment regime is a most embarrassing matter, Id place it on a par with not locking the toilet door at a public venue. Or perhaps on the same level as those disgusting people who mid-conversation start picking their noses whilst looking directly at you. Maybe not as disgraceful as that, but it still shocked me enough to watch her move on to applying her facial moisturiser, foundation, eye shadow, and mascara. The best part was when she started curling her eyelashes, at this point I looked around to see if anybody else was appalled and perplexed by this woman. Surely the whole point of make-up is that nobody knows you are wearing it, we are supposed to simply rise from our beds like goddesses, primped and preened, eyes shining, ready to take on the world. Yet here was a woman proving that really we are all liars and frauds, walking around as one woman and going to bed as another. It made me wonder what the next display of public indecency would be, and where it would take place. Getting dressed whilst waiting for the bus? Shaving your legs whilst chatting at a bar?

I recently read an article about people eating meals whilst sitting on the tube, not just a handy snack or drink, but actual meals. Imagine sitting down on the crusty, faded 80’s seats and enjoying beans on toast whilst everybody stares at you. I can’t imagine anything worse, not to mention the amount of germs flying around the meal provided by the tube which harbours millions of bacteria. There are exceptions to the rule of course, a quick drink or snack is fine. As is a slick of eyeliner or lipgloss. But full make-up appication and meal?? I cant decide if it is my overly private persona or if it really does seem odd to be applying various ointments and potions whilst on the tube? Or any public transport for that matter?