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" In preschool, I wore Disney princess costumes in January and snowsuits in July. My mom gave me free rein over my clothing\u2014as long as I was comfortable and in accordance with my school&amp;#039;s dress code, she wasn&amp;#039;t going to convince a screaming four-year-old to wear a practical outfit.\u00A0 These days, I dress like Blair Waldorf with a vintage twist. I like prim blouses, pencil skirts, 1950s fit-and-flare\u00A0dresses, loud prints, and pointy-toe pumps. On the weekends, I live in Crop Top City. My beauty routine never changes: black eyeliner, jumbo lashes, red lipstick, loose hair.\u00A0 My mom, on the other hand, loves strong-shouldered\u00A0jackets, figure-flattering silhouettes, solid colors, and denim. She goes for a blonde blowout and understated\u00A0makeup. We are, in other words, nothing alike when it comes to our style. After 22 years of sartorial freedom, could I survive a whole week with my clothing, hair, and makeup in my mom&amp;#039;s hands? We talk constantly, I love her to death, etc., so\u00A0I assumed that when my editor asked me to try, it\u00A0was going to be a breeze. I couldn&amp;#039;t have been more wrong. Day 1: Monday The night before the challenge begins, Mom sends\u00A0me an email with instructions to wear flared jeans, a white sleeveless blouse, silver hippie jewelry, and nude pumps. It feels a little casual for work and\u00A0I expect to feel dressed down, but the outfit actually makes me feel really chic.   Mom\u2014who is clearly already *really* into this whole project\u2014also attaches\u00A0two photos: a close-up of a girl in cream eyeshadow with a hint of blue eyeliner ripped from Pinterest, and a photo of Ashley Tisdale with a deep side part and a curled side ponytail. Sure. Why not time-warp to 2006. I create a pronounced part, gather my hair in a side\u00A0pony, and curl the tail. I dust on some eyeshadow for the first time since that night during\u00A0my sophomore year in college when I believed I could do a smoky eye drunk. (Spoiler alert: I could not, and\u00A0I&amp;#039;ve been afraid of eyeshadow ever since.) After some\u00A0cream shadow, I dip a\u00A0brush into a few drops of water and pick up blue eyeshadow to use as liner. It&amp;#039;s the very first beauty trick my mom ever taught me. More than a decade has passed, but I still have to FaceTime her\u00A0to see what she thinks.   &amp;quot;Cute!&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;But your eyeliner is too thick. And your ponytail isn&amp;#039;t far enough to the side.&amp;quot;  It&amp;#039;s too late to fix the liner, but I adjust the hair\u00A0and rush to work. The deep side part gives me almost a fake bang, which makes me feel like I&amp;#039;m at my Bat Mitzvah. (Actually, Ashley Tisdale was probably my beauty inspo back then\u00A0too.) I&amp;#039;m worried about the strands\u00A0in front separating to give me a Trumpy combover situation, but when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window of a\u00A0Starbucks, I think I actually look okay? Also, my ass looks ridiculously good in these jeans. Thank you, Mom, for everything.  After work, I arrive at my friend Kelsey&amp;#039;s apartment, and\u00A0the first thing out of her mouth is, &amp;quot;OMG, you look amazing!&amp;quot; (For the record, she\u00A0knew nothing of this experiment at the time.) Kelsey is the fashion assistant at the Wall Street Journal\u2014she knows what she&amp;#039;s talking about.  Before I go to bed, I get an email from Mom with instructions for tomorrow&amp;#039;s look. Bring it on, Mom. I can handle this.  Day 2: Tuesday I definitely cannot handle this.  Mom wants me to wear a printed silk skirt, a black top, ankle boots, and dark pink lipstick. All fine. But she also wants me to wear tights, cat-eye liner, and a French twist. By the time I finish getting dressed, I&amp;#039;m overheated with\u00A0bloodshot\u00A0eyes from scrubbing off liner attempts #1\u2013724\u00A0and\u00A0hair that makes me look like a nun on a business trip.   I had forgotten to tell Mom where I was going, so the outfit is all wrong\u2014after work, I have a date on the Lower East Side. I want to look pretty and cool, not uptight and out of season. But she&amp;#039;s at work and unreachable by text, so I&amp;#039;m on my own.  I take off the tights, clean up the Taylor Swift-at-the-VMAs-level eyeliner I had drawn on and replace it with a gentler flick, and take my hair down from the ultra-severe French twist. I feel bad about abandoning her hairstyle, so I flip my head over and shake to boost the\u00A0volume, just like Mom taught me.\u00A0  I wear a variation of this outfit pretty much every day anyway, but I gotta say: Mom did good with this one.  The date is with a guy I met a few months ago through mutual friends. We go for Jewish comfort food first, then to a live jazz show. Everyone in this neighborhood has long, scraggly hair tied up in man buns (except Isaac, who&amp;#039;s more clean-cut), so I&amp;#039;m glad I skipped the French twist for a more relaxed look.  We leave the concert early to walk through the twinkling lights of downtown Manhattan. I feel guilty for half-ditching Mom&amp;#039;s instructions, but according to Isaac, I look perfect. I&amp;#039;m inclined to believe him.   Day 3: Wednesday I thought I could escape this week without the French twist. I was wrong. She insists on an updo with lots of volume in front and on top and a twist in the back.  &amp;quot;You want me to do a Snooki pouf?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yes! Exactly!&amp;quot;  I cackle\u00A0for a thousand years before I realize\u00A0she&amp;#039;s completely serious. Oh. I try it out and send her a photo.   &amp;quot;Wow! You have NO hair talent at all!&amp;quot; she writes back immediately.  She sends instructions for me to follow. I tease the front, coil the back, and pin the whole mess to my head. It looks all wrong. I take out all the pins, shake out my hair, and try it again. And again. And again. It&amp;#039;s okay\u00A0from the side\u00A0but silly and messy from the front. I text her a photo and she&amp;#039;s not pleased.   &amp;quot;I failed you,&amp;quot; she writes. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m so sorry. You have your father&amp;#039;s genes for hair-fixing, not mine. Do what you want with your hair, but let&amp;#039;s work on the gene pool for the next generation.&amp;quot;  Oy. I go with a half-hearted Snooki pouf. The volume would never pass muster on the Jersey Shore, but I&amp;#039;m running late.  Today&amp;#039;s makeup is a bright pink lip and mascara, no eyeliner (for the first time in a decade). The\u00A0outfit is\u00A0a blue fit-and-flare mini-dress with magenta suede pumps, and a long silk scarf tied in a knot at the side of my neck.\u00A0  Let us pause for a moment of silence to commemorate the silk neck scarf of yore. The dress was a hair too short for work, especially when paired with 4-inch pumps, and the scarf makes me feel like a flight attendant hiding a hickey. It&amp;#039;s\u00A0just not working. Even though I love the way the pink lip, scarf, and shoes pop against the blue dress, I spend the whole subway ride to work fuming about today&amp;#039;s look. I detest the scarf. It feels tight\u00A0like a noose.\u00A0 Day 4: Thursday I&amp;#039;m seeing the guy\u00A0again tonight after work, so I ask Mom for a pretty date-night outfit. She goes a liiiittle bit overboard: a hot-pink A-line skirt, a cream peasant blouse embellished with pearls, leopard wedges, a deep side part with big curls, brown eyeshadow, rosy cheeks, and burgundy gloss. I feel like an overgrown toddler\u00A0or the human incarnation of a valentine.   My hair is still damp when I curl it, so the waves come out\u00A0limp and sad.\u00A0The colors of the skirt and blouse\u00A0don&amp;#039;t quite work to my eye, and I typically pair this\u00A0skirt with a less voluminous top to show off my waist. I look fine, but there&amp;#039;s nothing remotely flirty or sexy about this outfit. Someone at my office looks me up and down\u2014and not in a good way.   When my date\u00A0texts to say he unfortunately has to reschedule, I&amp;#039;m relieved. No overgrown toddler dates tonight. Day 5: Friday It&amp;#039;s my friend&amp;#039;s\u00A0birthday, so I ask Mom to pick out an outfit for dinner, an apartment party, then dancing on the Lower East Side. She chooses a draped black cotton dress with an asymmetrical neckline, a black leather jacket, and black heeled leather boots. I love the outfit, but it&amp;#039;s something I would wear to work\u2014I&amp;#039;d feel silly getting down to the Weeknd in this look.   The hair and makeup, though, kind of work. She instructs me to straighten my hair, which I haven&amp;#039;t done in years, and do dark eyeshadow with a nude lip, which is way out of my comfort zone. I pull out my roommate&amp;#039;s old flat iron to run over my hair, then I cover my lids in cream, charcoal gray, and black eyeshadows, blend, and pray I don&amp;#039;t look like my middle-school icon Avril Lavigne. I do not! So I add smudgy black liner and mascara. It&amp;#039;s a\u00A0180-degree departure from my usual waves and red lip, but I&amp;#039;m into it. I feel like someone else.   When I arrive at the dinner, my friends notice.  &amp;quot;You look so different, but I can&amp;#039;t put my finger on it,&amp;quot; one guy says.  &amp;quot;You look amazing,&amp;quot; a female friend adds.  Because I am old and exhausted, I never make it out to the club, so I can&amp;#039;t tell you how I\u00A0fared among the crop-top-wearing masses. But changing up my look for the night makes me feel hot\u00A0and proves to me that I don&amp;#039;t have to bare any skin at all\u00A0to feel sexy on a Saturday night.  What I Learned I didn&amp;#039;t make it to day six or day\u00A0seven. I just couldn&amp;#039;t deal.\u00A0&amp;quot;I liked telling you what to wear, but you kept pushing back and trying to regain control,&amp;quot; Mom told me over the phone.\u00A0&amp;quot;It was cool that your friends noticed the change and responded positively,&amp;quot; she noted. And she&amp;#039;s right. So\u00A0when the experiment ended, I\u00A0scrambled back to my black eyeliner, but I kept a few of her tricks. I played around with eyeshadow more often, deepened the side part in my hair, and added a flatiron back into my routine. But the neck scarf? Yeah, that&amp;#039;s a hard pass. 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