Why hello pancake face!

Hopefully I am not alone in this. Maybe I am just super full of myself. When I look at a picture of a group of people and I am in that group, I look at myself first. I scrutinize how I look, and decide if I look nice or not. I briefly look at everyone else in the picture and decide that they look lovely. Usually, I come up with a reason that I don't look lovely.

Recently my cousin Sarah sent me some pictures of us over the holidays. In general the pictures are very nice. One is of me and her and the other is of me, my sister, my uncle and her.

Here are the pictures.

In general, these pictures are fabulous of my cousin and my sister and just ok of me. I was looking at them trying to decide why. Reason 1, My sister and my cousin are hot hot hot. Of course that helps them take a great picture. Reason 2, I think the picture is just ok of me because my face looks like a pancake face. It looks flat, not dynamic, and nothing pops. I have seen this in pictures of me before. I think I have decided on a solution that is make up. Currently, I rarely wear make up. I didn't realize how rare it was until I remembered that both of these pictures were taken on a special occasion. Special occasions are the definition of when you wear make up if you wear it rarely. I don't think I can become a full face make up person. That would lead to me being a different kind of pancake face. I would be the kind of pancake face that has thick powder caked all over and it wouldn't match my neck. I am starting with eye liner, mascara, and lipstick. Today is day one and so far so good.

I think the problem will be day two. See, whenever I wear eye make up, I look terrible the next day. I am not good at getting it off my face and it ends up with black smears all around my eyes the next day. Any suggestions? Should I just plan to look nice every other day? On the off days I can wear dark glasses or wear my hair over my eyes. All suggestions are welcome.