Velcro Rollers, Eyelash Ass

The other day I posted:

“Just in case anyone wants to live vicariously (and glamorously) through me, I’ve been at work an hour and just noticed I left a Velcro roller in my hair.”

Confession—that’s not me.

On the bright side, I’m the first one in the office and by myself for at least an hour before anyone else comes in, so no one was witness to my beauty brilliance. On the dark side, I still felt the need to let everyone know what an ass I am.

But this isn’t the first time that I’ve done that, and it got me thinking about how I am a perpetual “Before” picture when it comes to day-to-day beauty.

If someone were to sweep me away and completely make me over, I wouldn’t object one perfectly separated eyelash. However, I have no interest in investing either the time or the money in learning how to do it myself—kind of like automotive repair or computer programming, but with more glitter and possibly more power tools.

So while I am (obsessively) clean, always smell (relatively) lovely, occasionally color my hair and get my eyebrows waxed, my general “beauty” routine consists of washing my hair, putting on a coat of foundation in the winter, mascara, a little eyeliner and chapstick.

That sounds simple enough, but there are even snags with those simple steps:

• When I wash my hair, there have been times I’ve forgotten to rinse out the conditioner, as I was too distracted reading the back of the bottle in each of the foreign languages.
• And while I start out with styling products and Velcro rollers in the morning, by the afternoon I’ve usually resigned myself to the fact that my hair would like to join my chest in remaining flat and lifeless. Bobby pins are inserted—in my hair, not my bra—and I move on.
• I have directly applied foundation to my eyeball, resulting in a beige splotch and searing pain.
• Using an eyelash curler is a daily thing, despite the fact that there have been times more times than I can count when I’ve pinched the skin near my eye with the damn thing and unleashed a string of profanity that scares my eyelashes straight again.
• I have sneezed immediately after applying a coat of mascara and then forget that I sneezed immediately after applying a coat of mascara—more than once. It’s attractive.
• We won’t even get into my clothes, but let’s just say that I do have my “good” T-shirts/jeans/yoga pants/tennis shoes when I need to be classy.

Hey, I go for comfort.

And it seems whenever I do try and make an effort, I wind up at work with a Velcro roller in my head, resentment over having to wear a real “big girl” bra (for social convention, not out of necessity) and chicken tracks under my eyes until I remember to look in the mirror.

Plus, my real goal in life is not to learn how to French manicure, but rather to get through a meal without dropping some morsel of food on my “good” T-shirt or finding the fabric softener sheet in my sleeve before someone else does.

But in an effort to make me feel better, a stunning friend of mine who actually works in the beauty industry shared her latest snafu. It seems she wore her fake (black) eyelashes to bed and woke up to find what she thought was a huge black spider on her leg, freaked out and started swatting at it with the ferocity of a home run hitter. 

In actuality, it was her fake eyelashes stuck to her ass.

That made me feel a little better, if only for the visual.

So here’s your chance to confess your beauty blunders—or those of a “friend”—in a safe and caring environment.

Was it toilet paper stuck to the shoe? A glob of food in your hair or teeth? Fake eyelashes stuck to your ass?

Remember we’re not laughing at you, we’re laughing with you.