Girl, Stop Passing Out in Your Makeup

Just in-case any of my fellow past Party Princesses need a good reality check - this book just absolutely blew my mind.

Zara Barrie is the author of not just this incredible self-help book, but also has by-lines for over 2,000 sex columns and listicles on all of the hottest and most trendy news outlets and magazines - including Elite Daily (where she was the senior Sex and Dating writer,) and GoMag (where she is the former executive editor.) She has been published and seen on The View, The Real, The Talk, Huffington Post, Cosmo, and many many more. After she felt she had exhausted all possible sex exploits in her columns, she tried her hand at fiction writing releasing Girls on Jane in June of 2021 - which is an Audio-Drama based on the lives of a group of lesbians in the early 2000’s partying it up in New York City ; in podcasting, with her own podcast GirlZ InterrupteD, and appearing on many others, (including my favorite - Dyking Out - where I learned of this book!) ; and in acting, which has been one of her biggest passions, (along with writing,) since high school. In each of these instances, Barrie calls herself everyone’s “Lesbian Big-Sister,” explaining to young lesbians, (and really all young girls,) how to maneuver through life, and end up on top in the end.

In Girl, Stop Passing Out in Your Makeup, Barrie takes a deep look into her recently left behind life as a party-girl. Not just “a” party girl, but THE party girl. The one we all know, and either were ourselves - or avoided at all costs. For me, it was as if Barrie had a recording device inside of my own past-life, and was writing this book specifically for me. The book was based around the same idea as one of her very own favorite self-help books - Girl, Wash Your Face, by Rachel Hollis. However, she had the same issue as I did in trying to read this book ; it was far too based in religion and traditional marriage than I was comfortable with - her too. She decided to take advice from a Toni Morrison quote that states, “If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” (I will do this someday too, apparently Barrie and I’s lives are just twins.) She redirected her audience from Hollis’s “motherhood and marriage” - and instead spoke directly to the,

Single, millennial girls reared in the age of social media and Kate Moss and leaked sex tapes. Girls who have done drugs and slept around. Girls who are wracked with guilt over what they did last night. Girls who burn so intensely, they often end up unleashing their fire unto themselves, leaving them scorched and scarred … [It is] A book made for girls who not only need to traipse over to the bathroom and scrub their faces, but who also need to confront the lifetime of mascara residue resting beneath their eyes, the stained-into-the-skin leftover bits of eyeliner that gave them a forever raccoon-like appearance. And I don’t mean literally. - Barrie, Girl, Stop Passing Out in Your Makeup

Barrie isn’t asking us to LITERALLY wash our face before we pass out at the end of the night, (“passing out” versus “falling asleep” is a topic she goes deeply into) ; but she is instead asking us, as all of our Big Sister, to “look at the naked reality of [our] lives.” She asks us to find the truth under “the shiny exterior we are forever presenting to the outer world.” And finally, to accept that that truth - “unlike the shimmery blush and creamy lipstick we slather across our skin like armor every morning - doesn’t have to be pretty. All it has to be is true.”

Throughout the twenty-two chapters of this book, Barrie dives directly into some of the most taboo of topics. She discusses her lesbian sexuality and sexual experiences in almost every single chapter - but also included are topics like cocaine addiction, binge drinking, disordered eating, black-outs, creepy dudes with drugs at music festivals, “How to eat a piece of pizza without wanting to die,” and even how to pray to Lana Del Ray (who is her own higher power.) Even in just the forward we are given the amazing advice that “validation is like a bump of shitty coke,” and that “there is nothing more powerful than a wild-child who has finally decided to channel her messy girl prowess into a fabulous, fulfilling, productive life.”

This book was absolutely written for women - and NOT for men. She makes this resoundingly obvious through the entire book ; calling the reader “little sister” quite often, and writing an entire chapter on how to not black out when you're PMSing. She talks about a few of her gay-male friends, and how the gays must stick together - but every mention of cis-striaght men (though, there are very few,) are in absolute digust. The only exception of this is her thanking her father in her Acknowledgements, and talking about how “actively” he loves her.

Barrie does an amazing job of not making assumptions about her readers' relationships. While she does assume that the reader is probably female, and probably has an interesting past - that is where her assumptions end. She goes into deep discussion on the ins and outs of virtually every type of relationship - be it incredibly toxic or codependent ; or be it the most beautiful relationship known to womankind and real, true, honest love. Her chapter entitled “The Great Toxic Relationship Cleanse” even goes into relationships that are not of a romantic nature. She discusses the toxic relationships some young people have with their parents, that friend that is incredibly bad for you - your “enabler,” if you will, and the “energy vampires” that we all have around us that need to be cut from our lives. However, Barrie does not just focus on unfulfilling and bad-for-us relationships. She also goes into some detail about her marriage, and how wonderfully and fully supportive her wife is. She ends the chapter discussing this loving relationship with this bit of advice,

Here’s the weird thing about stable love, I have found that stable love enables me to take even more exciting risks than I ever have before. Because when stable love is your baseline, you’re able to plunge headfirst into any opportunity. Because you know when you fall, you'll always have this soft-yet-sturdy foundation of love there to catch you. - Barrie, Girl, Stop Passing Out in Your Makeup

Though she does not make assumptions about us little sisters gender experiences, she does dive head first into one of the most dramatic of her own. Barrie is a self-proclaimed “lipstick lesbian,” and slathers her face full of shimmery foundation, thick black mascara, and bright red lipstick on a daily basis. In her chapter “The Toxic Relationship with Myself,” she talks about dating a girl named Ivy who bashes and discredits her for wearing makeup and stilettos on their first date. It’s an obvious red flag how much this girl flagrantly disregards Barrie and her style - so they obviously end up in a 6-month relationship. When she finally ends this fling, Barrie finds herself in therapy where she is told, “Maybe you’re drawn to Ivy because her low opinion of you matches the low opinion you have for yourself … And you think that if you convince her that you’re good enough, you’ll convince yourself that you’re good enough.” I felt that therapist's advice deeply in my own soul - and reading about how Barrie struggled and made it through this kind of torture was incredibly relatable. Really, the entire book was unbelievably fascinating and applicable to a lot of areas in my life.

Ty Howard in his article The Benefits of Reading Self-Help Books, says that the most important reason for reading books such as this is that “the experience puts the reader on a path to where they can read, practice the strategies learned, and make improvements in their lives without having to ask others for help” (Howard, 2012). And in another article written by Darko Jacimovic on the Self-Improvement Industry Statistics website states that “The majority of readers are women, or at the very least, they're more willing to admit to it” (Jacimovic, 2021). My question with these findings is why are women the only ones to realize that their lives are not perfect? And that sometimes realizing our issues, and putting in the work to improve on them can lead us to intense happiness and satisfaction in our lives.

…and that this is not just advice that women should take! All humans could do better - could BE better. However, if enough of us women can take this advice, perhaps we could also take over the world.

Barrie has written an extraordinarily relevant, and unashamedly provocative reality into existence. If all of her little sisters reading along take her advice, and follow her Lesbian Big Sister guidance ; perhaps we really could finally make our stand, and finally ~ confidently ~ take up as much space as we please in this world. As Barrie says, “Good girls, watch out. We ‘bad-girls’ aren't taking a backseat anymore. In fact, we’re driving the goddamn car. And the road we take might’ve gotten off to a rocky start, but it’s leading us to a magical place.”

Check it Out

Barrie, Z. (2020). Girl, stop passing out in your makeup: The bad girl's guide to getting your sh*t together. Post Hill Press.

Howard, T. (2012). The benefits of reading self help books by Ty Howard - Article. Funny Engaging Motivational Speaker Ty Howard. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from http://www.tyhoward.com/article/The-Benefits-of-Reading-Self-Help-Books#:~:text=The%20first%20and%20foremost%20benefit,to%20ask%20others%20for%20help.

Jacimovic, D. (2022, June 3). 19 self-improvement industry statistics you probably didn't know [2021]. Deals On Health. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://dealsonhealth.net/self-improvement-industry-statistics/