Well. I've done it again.
It all started (this time) with a glance in my car's flip-down mirror in harsh noon-day sunlight that brought some new wrinkles and dark spots into glaringly sharp focus. I stared back at my reflection, taking in ALL the glory of the dark circles and puffy bags under my eyes, the stray eyebrow hairs growing rogue in weird places, the crease in my forehead that makes me look slightly angry and a lot tired, the dry patches of skin right next to....oh good grief!!! Is that a pimple??? Then I widened my focus to include my lack-luster hair that I'd pulled back from my face with a pink plastic head-band that belonged to my daughter about 12 years ago and noticed the dark roots, the split-ends, and (le sigh) the ever-increasing gray hairs. So I flipped up the visor mirror and with some grunting, huffing and puffing, I was able to unfold my body from the car seat and limp into Wal-Mart, feeling at least 212 years old.
Once inside the store....I secured my shopping cart, planted my purse purposefully in the infant seat and strengthened my resolve and steadfastly pushed right past the bored greeter to the health and beauty section of the store. I spent a long time there. I read labels, I compared and contrasted and debated and finally settled on a box of hair dye in "Light Blonde" and a revitalizing facial mask that I knew was FANCY-SMANCY because there were pictures of chocolate, mint and lots of scientific mumbo-jumbo on the packaging....but what really sold it was the fact that it was named "Masque Chocolat" instead of just plain old Chocolate Mask. I probably would have seen right through the ruse of a product called "Chocolate Mask"......but "Masque Chocolat" sang a siren song to me...... of glamorous promises that it just couldn't possibly keep.
I need moisturizer too! Oil of Old-Age? Copper? Jojoba oil? Acid????? Anything with the word acid or "PEEL" in it scares me silly. I don't want to peel my face. I will peel an apple. I will peel a banana. Shoot, I'll even peel an orange. I know how that looks....and can only imagine how it FEELS to the fruit. I don't want my face peeled. No thanks!!! It just sounds so very painful!! I'll stick with the tried and true thin pink stuff my Grandma used to use. The smell of it reminds me of hugging her. Oil of Old-Age it is!!!
I also decided that a tube of new mascara was in order because the mascara I have at home is a million years old (okay, maybe just months old, but still...). The choices were almost overwhelming. Just choosing the color alone was intimidating: "Black" or "Very Black" or "Ebony Black" or "Midnight Black" or "Black-Brown"???? What's the difference??? Then I had to choose: Plumping? Anti-Clumping? Lengthening? Strengthening? Curling? Lash-Defining? Waterproof? Smudge-Proof? Long-Wearing? Well, DUH???? I want all of those things!!! And I definitely want the one that they call Mas-carrrrr-a on the commercial. Because it's better. I used to just buy "mas-scare-a" Before I knew better. If they found a chic way to spell Mascara with a Q, I'd probably have bought 10 tubes of it.
So I carried my beauty-loot home with such fine intentions! I am going to treat myself to a DYI-SPA DAY!!!!!!!! It sounds so relaxing! So decadent! So soothing! First thing, I get the sticky vinyl gloves on from the hair-dye and get the color mixed in with the developer. Shake it up, Baby! Twist and Shout!!! Come-on, Come-on Baby now.....get that gray out!!!! I'm in pretty high spirits as I part my hair and apply the dye to my dark offensive roots first and then work my way all around my head, squirting the smelly solution and working it out to the ends of my hair. I shake the bottle of goo and .....SPLAT.....it drips onto the tile of my bathroom and all over my sink. What a stinking mess. Finally, I get my entire head plastered with the gunk and I'm ready to start my facial while the time ticks way on my hair color.
I open the MASQUE CHOCOLATE and squirt out the fragrant brown mud-like substance onto my fingertips. It smells like a chocolate candy bar! How lovely!! So I smear it on my face....avoiding my lips and eyes as directed. It felt rich and creamy and smelled chocolately and dreamy. It's supposed to dry for 15 minutes, then I will remove it with a warm,wet washcloth. I decided that it would be hilarious to snap a picture of my facial mask and post it on facebook. So I snapped a selfie pic and looked at it to see if it was post-worthy.........I'm soooooo glad I looked at it closely before I hit post this time!! I would have offended the entire world!!! That chocolate mask looked JUST like I had on black-face makeup!!!! It was horrific!!! I almost died laughing at how awful it was! That un-PC pic got deleted pronto, and I narrowly avoided a social media racist scandal guffaw.
I flipped through a magazine for a while, nibbling on some fresh strawberries that I had purchased for this relaxing spa adventure. Then, I realized that I couldn't move my lips. My MASQUE CHOCOLAT had dried and turned into the Mohave desert on my face...freezing my lips and facial expression. I tried to laugh nervously, but found that when I tried, the masque around my mouth cracked like drought-weary dirt. It took a good 20 minutes and lots of elbow grease to scrub that mess off my face with my warm, wet washcloth. I was terrified I was going to have to walk around with my offensive racist masque on until my skin sloughed off!! I also think I know what a "PEEL" feels like now. And it's as bad as I feared.
This whole DIY spa adventure is simply destined to be a disaster. It has been EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. that I have attempted such a thing. There was one time that was the worst ever though.....it also involved a so-called "masque"..........but there were....uhhhhmmmm....OTHER body parts involved.
I was working 3rd shift at the time and during the summer time, the middle of the night was very slow because all our patients would be asleep. From around 2am to 5am was the slow part of the shift and the nurses would often bring magazines and books to read to pass the time. I made the mistake of picking up a Cosmopolitan Magazine. "Cosmo", for you cool gals. I honestly believe that they should put a disclaimer on all those DIY articles........something along the lines of "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME." I was reading this article along about 3:30am that said that sagging breasts could become (I kid you not!) FIRM AND SUPPLE if you used a firming facial "masque" on them. My mind began spinning. The words "firm" and "supple" bore no resemblance to my sagging, bagging breasts. No, My girls had breastfed two greedy, hungry babies and had been fighting the brave fight against gravity since I was in the second grade. I could use some firm and supple. Firm and supple sounded pretty darn good! I just had to have firm and supple.
I got off work the next morning and headed straight to the store on a mission: FIND A FIRMING MASK!!! I was going to do this spa thing up right! I bought a sea-kelp firming mask, some scented candles, a CD of "Peaceful Ocean Sounds" and things little cucumber-scented disc thingies you were supposed to place over your eyes to reduce puffiness. So........I went home and got ready to be firmed and suppled! Boy, oh boy, was my husband going to be surprised when he saw how firm and supple I had become!
I lit the candles, I turned on the ocean-sounds CD (nothing like the sound of squawking sea-gulls for soothing relaxation!) and I stripped down to my panties and slathered the firming mask all over from my chin to my bellybutton and waited, fully expecting the magic to happen!! I used the whole dern tube!!! The seaweed/kelp must have had some kind of eucalyptus or mint or vapor-rub or battery acid or something in it....because it tingled and slightly burned. I guess I thought that the tingle just meant it was working! Tingle/burn = Firm/Supple....well, OKAY!!! My bedroom had a skylight over the bed and the early morning sunlight was streaming in onto my bed...it was so inviting looking.....so I decided I'd recline on the bed in the sunshine with the cucumber slice thingies on my eyes and just relax while I waited for my magical firmness and suppleness to happen.
Did I mention that I'd just worked a 12 hour shift and been up all night? You know what happened. I somehow fell asleep amid sea-gull squawks and the gentle lulling roar of the ocean waves, soothing lavender candles, warm sunshine, and dreams of sporting supple,firm boobies.
I was having the BEST dream EVER.......and then I suddenly woke up and realized that my CAT was trying to lick the sea-weed/kelp mask off my breasts!!!
And then I realized that I must have been asleep for quite some time....because the mask had dried in some places and my skin underneath the mask had formed large, fluid-filled blisters! And to my dismay, I found that my cat had shed all over the sticky, gooey mess, leaving a matted kind of weird, white shag carpet on parts of the mask. I tried peeling it off. Nope. I tried washing it off. Nope. I tried scrubbing it off, but the blisters were very painful. I ended up getting my husband's Lava Soap out of the garage and using a combination of washcloths and a loofa and after almost an hour of torture, I managed to get rid of most of the mask and quite a bit of skin. Needless to say, there was no firm or supple. Just raw skin, pain, and disappointment.
DIY spa treatments should be banned from my household FOREVER. For my own good.
