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"  Stopgap fixes aren&amp;#039;t really my thing. I prefer to have my flaws zapped, injected, and Rx&amp;#039;d into semipermanent submission\u2014FDA-approved beauty! Which is why I go for Latisse over false lashes and favor acne medication over cover-up. At least these lasting solutions look believable\u2014no one needs to know they&amp;#039;re not exactly the real thing. The longest my hair\u2014real or fake\u2014has ever been came courtesy of a waist-length clip-in extension worn to a loft party, at which I overdrank, fell asleep in a spare room, and woke up the next morning to find my fake hair missing. Hours passed, and instead of going anywhere, the man of the house invited more friends over to join him. One of whom is a famous actor. When I finally revealed myself, the hair was noticeably absent. And no one mentioned it. Was this some sort of &amp;quot;don&amp;#039;t ask, don&amp;#039;t tell&amp;quot; policy? I&amp;#039;ve had a fear of all things clip-in ever since. &amp;quot;Society pushes women to look attractive and rewards them for it, but also says we want it to be natural,&amp;quot; says Nancy Etcoff, PhD, author of Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty and a practicing psychologist who teaches at Harvard. &amp;quot;A woman who doesn&amp;#039;t enhance her physical appearance may not get as favorable a job interview or as favorable an electoral vote, but then there&amp;#039;s also the fact that if you enhance too much, you&amp;#039;ll be seen as insincere or narcissistic or vain.&amp;quot; And nowhere is maintaining the illusion of natural more rewarded than in the dating world. While my engaged friend Emily brazenly stores her clip-in extensions in a &amp;quot;hair cabinet&amp;quot; lovingly constructed by her fianc\u00E9, I would never let someone I&amp;#039;m dating know that I was wearing extensions\u2014and I certainly wouldn&amp;#039;t remove them in front of him. Ditto false eyelashes, which also help create the illusion of perfection. Even slipping off a pair of heels can feel like a big reveal with someone new. Yet in the era of imperceptible spray-on tans and lash extensions that look realer than the real thing, I wonder, Who will notice if I go totally faux? Click here to see the tanning, nail, and eyelash products that will amp up any look! Hair Extensions &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s do full Hawaiian Tropic,&amp;quot; says New York City hair extension expert Brenda Pedersen when I arrive at Oscar Blandi&amp;#039;s midtown salon. Thirty minutes later, my normally stringy shoulder-length hair is a butt-grazing cloak of glossy black, the result of 16 tape-in Platinum Seamless human-hair extensions. Pedersen explains how to care for my extra hair\u2014how to prevent the strands from losing their luster, as dullness is a dead giveaway. I&amp;#039;m to apply leave-in conditioner before bed and sleep with a low, loose braid. My new look makes me feel more self-conscious than sexy, but Pedersen assures me that after a few days I&amp;#039;ll be hooked. I meet my friend Clayton for dinner, and when he sees me from afar\u2014extensions billowing behind me like a superhero cape\u2014he erupts into hysterics. But he doesn&amp;#039;t seem to notice the hair. &amp;quot;What have you taken?&amp;quot; he asks. &amp;quot;Your energy seems different.&amp;quot; For those who feel more confident and attractive with hair extensions, a new set might serve as a security blanket. For me, all other daily anxieties have been replaced with one uncomplicated obsession\u2014hiding the truth about my hair. &amp;quot;Part of your mental resources is being drained by this,&amp;quot; Etcoff later tells me. &amp;quot;You can&amp;#039;t pay full attention because you&amp;#039;re thinking, What if someone notices? So there&amp;#039;s a tremendous discomfort. There&amp;#039;s always that chance that your lie will be detected.&amp;quot; That night I take my hair to SL, a slick club in Manhattan&amp;#039;s Meatpacking District where excess in all forms is the norm. It could be hair dysmorphia, but I swear I&amp;#039;m receiving special attention. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re so pretty,&amp;quot; says a girl outside my apartment as I hail a cab. &amp;quot;Do you want to come out with us?&amp;quot; SL is packed body to gyrating body and soaked in spilled champagne. Concerned for the well-being of my extensions, I make a beeline for the banquette behind my friends&amp;#039; table. My extensions are safe from scrutiny and, worse, damage, but they also don&amp;#039;t serve their intended purpose: I don&amp;#039;t meet anyone new that night. The next morning I wake up to a text message from a guy friend whose highest compliment up to that point had been &amp;quot;you&amp;#039;re kinda pretty.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You looked beautiful last night,&amp;quot; it reads. His gesture is totally out of character\u2014it had to be the hair! After a few days, my extensions begin to itch relentlessly. They need washing, but I&amp;#039;m terrified to introduce water or cause tangles. It doesn&amp;#039;t matter. As Pedersen predicted, I&amp;#039;ve quickly become addicted to the extra attention that my extra hair has given me. Contouring I can&amp;#039;t help but admire the way Kardashian faces are sculpted\u2014no one really knows what they look like! And so for the daunting task of faking a more angular face, I call upon contouring expert Kristofer Buckle, who works his illusionist magic with celebrities such as Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez. &amp;quot;A lot of my clients are accused of having nose jobs after I start working with them,&amp;quot; Buckle says. &amp;quot;Two of my clients were accused of having face-lifts.&amp;quot; I want plastic-surgery-rumor makeup! Specifically, I want to learn how to create the look of sharp, gleamy cheekbones. Buckle breaks down the basics, advising me to choose a &amp;quot;matte drab&amp;quot; powder one or two shades darker than my skin tone for shadowing, a paler shimmer tone to highlight, and an ultrasoft brush to blend the shading together, making it look seamless, not streaky. Buckle fakes bone structure by using dark to create shadows and light to accentuate the fullness of the cheek. &amp;quot;Whatever you want to magnify, you put dark underneath. Just go &amp;#039;ooh,&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot; he says, pouting his full lips. &amp;quot;That gives you the right line. It starts at the top of the ear and goes to the outer corner of the mouth. Just don&amp;#039;t go past your nose.&amp;quot; He also recommends a dusting of darker powder under the jawline for added definition. At home, I mimic what Buckle has taught me as best as I can using a matte bronzer. The final product is more severe than my usual look, and perhaps slightly aging, but my nonexistent cheekbones do seem more pronounced. I meet my friend Marissa at PH-D, the rooftop bar above the Dream Downtown hotel, a place where heavy-handed makeup like mine isn&amp;#039;t unusual, and I spend hours talking to a tall Texan. Tall enough, I hope, that he won&amp;#039;t notice my shapely cheekbones are actually the product of paint by numbers, not genetics. While he never asks outwardly about my ombr\u00E9 face, he tries to guess my age and overshoots by four years! I blame the makeup. By the time I get home, the optical illusion has migrated down my face and diffused into murky smears. I feel like Cinderella\u2014my bronzer disintegrated at the stroke of 2 A.M. File this look under &amp;quot;strictly for photos.&amp;quot; False Eyelashes I remember a recent dinner with my meticulously groomed cousin from Beverly Hills. Every so often, she&amp;#039;d blink off a tuft of shiny false eyelashes, sweeping them gently to the floor with a manicured finger\u2014not so much a giveaway as a pronouncement: These are fake! Buckle suggests a traditional (and tidier) band of faux fringe as opposed to my cousin&amp;#039;s clusters. Falsies don&amp;#039;t have to be expensive to look great, Buckle explains\u2014it&amp;#039;s all in the technique. &amp;quot;Bend the band so that it curves,&amp;quot; he advises. And trim to fit. &amp;quot;It should go just past the iris and not beyond the outside corner of your eye. Put a thin line of glue along the whole band and wait about a minute,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Tilt your head back, hold the lashes by the middle, bring your elbow all the way up, and lay them right on.&amp;quot; I fail to master Buckle&amp;#039;s pro elbow-lift technique and struggle to make the lashes stick. My eyelids are covered in Duo glue, and my falsies are barely hanging on, but from afar they do make my oversize round eyes look more almond shape and feminine. I could see myself adopting fakes as part of my regular makeup routine once I master their application. At the Woods, a sweaty bar in my Brooklyn neighborhood with a big, bright backyard for people-watching, I meet Olivia, a former coworker, and we perch on one of the park-style benches, closing everyone out just as we would when our desks were side by side. Despite our body language, we&amp;#039;re interrupted several times by persistent out-of-towners. &amp;quot;Where are you from?&amp;quot; one of them asks. &amp;quot;Can I buy you a drink? Can I get a smile? Come on.&amp;quot; A few hours pass, and I check my falsies in the bathroom mirror. They&amp;#039;re dangling from a few clumps of Duo and have shifted from the lash line to midlid. And no one thought to tell me! Perhaps the poorly executed eyelashes make me look falsely receptive and approachable\u2014or drunk. That&amp;#039;s my cue to head home. Weeks later, the guy I&amp;#039;m seeing is brushing his teeth in my bathroom for the first time, staring into my medicine cabinet\u2014too full to close. Each shelf brims with skin-care products and makeup. &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t wear those, do you?&amp;quot; he gurgles, signaling a discarded set of false eyelashes. Like a beauty witch-hunter, he&amp;#039;s already questioned the authenticity of my eye color, lip volume, and skin tone\u2014given my profession, he knows I have tricks up my sleeve\u2014all of which, I&amp;#039;ve been able to proclaim (truthfully!), are 100 percent natural. &amp;quot;Of course not! They&amp;#039;re for a story,&amp;quot; I tell him, the weight of my hair extensions (which I&amp;#039;ve kept) suddenly heavy against my head. &amp;quot;I would never wear those.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Good,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re awful.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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