«لُولَا عِلْبِةْ مَكِّي كَانْ حَالْنَا يْبَكِّي»

The saying pokes fun at beauty that comes from a cosmetics case rather than from nature. The speakers pretend to confess that, without the ointments and scents of Makki the perfumer, their true faces would be a pitiful sight. The point is that adornment is doing all the work.

More broadly, it is aimed at anyone who masks ugliness or defects through embellishment and display. It suggests that the pleasing surface is borrowed and fragile. Take away the decoration, and the unflattering reality underneath would immediately show.

Use it wryly when someone's attractive appearance depends on makeup, perfume, or adornment that hides something unappealing. Spoken in the first person, it becomes a self-mocking admission. Because the saying can sound mocking, aiming it at a real person's looks may give offense.