Makeup is a fixation for Tess over the course of the book, and Tess’s appearance is directly tied to her self-worth. Her face, she feels, is “basically okay but needs some help to look pretty” (26). By comparison, Tess frequently describes her mother as stunningly beautiful, more so than Tess: “[…] she’s just beautiful. And not just in the way that makes strangers look at her longer than they realize but also in that way you never get tired of” (44). Tess’s lengthy beauty routine is a source of conflict with David, often causing her to miss the bus to school. In fact, on the day of Zoe’s death, Tess misses the bus, and while it is never explicitly stated, her morning routine may have contributed to her missing the bus on the day Zoe died. Jimmy insists that Tess doesn’t need makeup, and his birthday gift to Tess is a palm-sized makeup bag that he says should hold all of the makeup she’ll ever need for the rest of her life.

Tess’s extensive use of products and makeup is typical in some ways, and her friends’ routines take even longer than hers. She also says, however, that she enjoys applying makeup more than actually wearing it because it feels as though she’s “making a different person” (92).