Skin deep

So it turns out I’m living more dangerously than I thought.  Ohh good grief the lengths we go to in order to try and look half decent.  Work has been pouring in lately, which is brilliant and very enjoyable.  However it’s going to take a long, LONG time for the bank balance to recover and as happens to the best of us, when the finances take a hit, the first thing to go are life’s little luxuries such as manicures, posh hair-do’s and the like.

Still, if you can’t afford it at least you can try and fake it and I’ve been doing this for a while now with not too bad results.  I do my own facials, paint my own nails and even cut my own hair.  I thought I might have come a bit of a cropper recently when I read that olive oil made a wonderful conditioning treatment for your hair.  I slapped bucketfuls of the stuff on and rubbed it in with gusto before wrapping my head in Glad wrap.  What a truly wonderful sight that must have been to behold; particularly coupled with the chocolate mud facemask I was wearing.  I felt like a true professional! 

Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling quite so professional three days later when I still looked as though I’d had a fight in a fish and chip shop and lost and was madly Googling how the heck I was supposed to get the oil out of my lank, greasy locks.  The answer, dear reader is time.  Time and lots of shampoo.  And it turned out Google was right because once I actually managed to get the last of the oil out my hair was wonderfully soft and shiny for ages.  I would definitely do it again – but only when I’m not planning to leave the house for a few days!

There are some things which I'm not game enough to attempt however.  Like the first time I ever tried to wax my bikini line.  I enlisted the help of my husband and can still picture the kids bursting in to come to my aid after hearing the blood curdling screams coming from my room.  Needless to say I didn’t try to repeat the experience again and to add insult to injury I didn’t realise the pot of microwave wax I had hastily picked up and taken to the pharmacy counter was a ‘naughty’ version and came with its own set of stencil templates such as hearts, stars and lightning bolts.  Far too Marilyn Monroe for my liking – and look what happened to her!

I should have known after that to leave the stuff alone but I always did learn the hard way and this morning was my piece de resistance.  I’ve always gone to the salon to get my eyebrows done but once funds no longer allowed I began plucking them instead.  However I soon decided this lengthy form of self-torture wasn’t really for me so I was excited when a friend recommended waxing my own with a specially manufactured facial wand.  I got the local chemist to get it in for me especially and looked forward to my transformation from Brooke Shields to – well, someone less bushy.

I duly prepped the area with the special fruity-fragranced wipes, then carefully applied the wax.  Well, as carefully as I could – the stuff was about as easy to work with as toffee, and the same consistency too.  I was beginning to have second thoughts as I tried to get the sticky, gooey wax to stick to the right places and was more than a little perturbed at the stringy bits going all over the place – what if they took off some of the hair I didn’t want removed?  Still, I followed the instructions to the letter and expertly ‘zipped’ off the strips on my first brow.  Success! 

Buoyed by the fabulous results of my first brow I did a repeat performance on the other and stared at my reflection in horror at the realization that my second ‘zip’ had gone very, very wrong.  You know those stringy little bits I had been a tad concerned about?  I was right to be.  One of the little blighters had gone and attached itself to the middle of my brow.  The result?  I now look like Jonah Lomu back in the days when he had number 11 (his rugby position) shaved into his eyebrows.  The difference is, he did it on purpose and carried it with manliness and aplomb.  I on the other hand look as though I've had an unfortunate accident with a lighter.

 

So much for my efforts to save money.  I now have to go and fork out for an eyebrow pencil so I can draw some in until they grow back!

  

TODAY I LEARNED: Some things really ARE best left to the professionals.