You know what? I’m 31 years old….there are some things I
should have figured out about myself by now, and one of those things is that
Do-It-Yourself beauty products are NOT designed for people like me. These things should have warning labels on
them to remind us. Something along the
lines of “This product is unsuitable for people prone to mishaps and/or
incapable of following simple instructions without ending up burnt, cut, bald,
violently ill or permanently disfigured.”
Every now and then though, I’m
inspired to give it all another go despite past experiences that SHOULD leave
me (and have, quite literally) scarred for life and determined never to fall
prey to the same misfortune again.
Today I found myself in the midst
of another episode of DIY home beauty product disasters. *sigh*
I’m trying to save money at the moment, basically that’s what it comes
down to. Ideally I should have gone to
the hairdressers and got my hair colour done and my eyebrows waxed, then followed
it up with a facial and a nice lunch.
But instead I decided to save myself some serious cash and have my own
little lovely relaxing “day spa” type experience at home.
First, I purchased a permanent
hair colour (for the first time) when I got the groceries which involved 20 minutes
of examining six billion different boxes all claiming to do amazing
things. The one with the picture of an
avocado on the front won me over…it looked very convincingly natural and beautifying. Once home I googled “home made facial recipe”
and found one made with lemon juice, coconut oil and honey. Images of me with my naturally induced
glowing skin, flicking my thick shiny dark brown hair around my shoulders (it’s
grown somehow too) fill my head. This is
going to be great!
So, I wasn’t silly about it….I
spent a good few minutes reading the instructions of the hair colour
first. I mix the different things
together and shake the bottle vigorously.
I strip off my top and bra as I don’t want to get stuff all over my
pretty things. And then I set about
squirting it all over my head, “massaging it through from the roots to the tips”. Too easy!!
I bundle my hair on top of my head and pull off the gloves, most
satisfied with my efforts. Time for the
eyebrows! I wasn’t silly enough to give home waxing another go (long story,
also with sad ending) so I get out the tweezers and pluck away enthusiastically. My interest starts to wane a bit on the
second eyebrow though and I give up halfway through. I decide one nicely plucked brow is better
than none, right?
Facemask time!! This is the bit I’m
excited about. I lather the goop all
over my face feeling quite the lady of leisure…massaging as I go. But quite suddenly, my eyebrows feel like
they are on fire. What the!? Oh right, lemon juice on freshly plucked
eyebrows may not be the best thing. I
persist though, wincing as I finish off.
It’s dripping a bit down my neck and nose but I don’t lose motivation.
Right, so that’s done and I’ve got 10 minutes left before I need to wash
my hair out. I check how it’s
going. Hmm…it’s very black. It’s kind of on the skin around the hairline
too and I look very much like a lego man with his black square hair that you
can pull off.
So…I decide to relax and eat some
lunch while I wait the ten minutes. I
wander out to the fridge and find a leftover turkey rissole from last night’s dinner. I zap it in the microwave then sit at the
bench to eat it. When I open my mouth I
get a dribble of honey, lemon juice and coconut oil in my mouth. The first mouthful of rissole burns my
tongue, it’s way too hot and as I’m trying to do that sexy mouth hanging open
flapping around thing you do to get some cold air in and save my taste buds, a
piece falls down and next thing my left boob is scalded with a big chunk of
half chewed turkey rissole. How this
happened I do not understand because it’s not exactly poking out all that far
to be sufficiently considered in “the line of fire” so go figure. I quickly pull it off and race to the sink to
rinse it with cool water….as I’m doing so I notice something strange. Black dots in random places over my chest,
stomach, and arms. Huh? I look closer….oh even on my ankle! I suddenly realise this is the hair colour
that I obviously flicked everywhere as I applied it. Excellent, I look like a cheetah. Certain it will come off in the shower, I get
back to finishing my rissole quickly so I can get to the rinsing out part.
I have two minutes left so decide
to put my shoes back in the wardrobe…I’m so productive you see, not a minute is
wasted in this house! As I lean down to
put them on the rack, my head makes contact with a row of dresses hanging
down. Damn it! Black marks all over them. I rip them off their hangers and run (still
half naked mind you) down to the laundry to submerge them in a bucket and try
to save them.
Right, let’s get this stuff out
before I do anymore damage. I enter the
bathroom and note black dots all over the floor tiles. Hmmm.
Whoops. I examine my lego hair in
the mirror while I wait for the water to heat and notice big red splotches on
my face from the “mask”. Lovely. Not exactly the healthy glow I was aiming
for.
As I’m rinsing the colour out in
the shower, the grouting is the next thing to be splashed and blackened….but I’m
at the point where I’m like “whatever everything is covered in black spots”. I am still a cheetah….the spots don’t wash
off my body and I’m trying to rinse the “mask” off but the oil just slides
around my face and my eyebrows and left boob are burning under the hot water.
Somehow, the hair colour is
mostly a success (black spots everywhere aside), it’s true that the roots are
obviously a much lighter colour than the rest of my hair (it SAID to avoid
massaging it into the scalp!) but still…I’m just pleased I didn’t end up with a
permanent lego hair look. It’s now three
hours later and the red splotches on my face have faded (happy days!) but the
glow never came. My eyebrows came
through relatively unscathed and my left boob has only a very superficial
turkey rissole shaped burn.
So I suppose I shouldn’t be too
disheartened. Things could definitely be
worse. Like the time I inadvertently
purchased tanning lotion thinking it was hand cream. That one took three hours of soaking my hands
in straight bleach to fix. Or the time
as a teenager that I was shaving my legs in the shower and I reached up to
scratch my head with the razor in my hand.
That took about six months for the bald patch to grow back.
Or the time I was driving home to
get ready for a big night out and in the afternoon sun, I flicked the rear view
mirror down to check myself out and was repulsed to see I had a GINORMOUS big
moustache that somehow I had never ever noticed before. I immediately pulled into a chemist to
purchase hair removal cream, holding my hand over my top lip as I was served to
hide the hideous growth there. I raced
home to lather the cream on my lip, relieved as soon as it was sitting there. But when I wiped the cream off, yes the hair
was gone but I was left with a flaming red line above my lip that just got
angrier and redder when I tried to sooth it with moisturizer. I had to coat on about 87 layers of
foundation to try to hide it and was left with a brownish reddish very odd
looking bar above my lip.
Not to mention that when I first
discovered the joys of plucking your eyebrows, I got ever so slightly carried
away by the whole process and from the ages of 15 to about 17 I had no eyebrows. Those are the photos I try not to look at
hanging on Mum and Dads walls.
So really, in the grand scheme of
things, today’s mishaps were indeed very minor.
But they still left me feeling a little frazzled and very tempted to
open the bottle of wine sitting there for later tonight. I suppose, on a positive note, my 4 year old
niece will be most delighted with my cheetah look when she sees me tomorrow!
