Perhaps more fun than talking about beauty routines is talking about beauty blunders, the funny and also traumatic experiences we have when our beloved and trusted consumer products rise up against us. Consider Samantha Jones' fateful chemical peel-cum-flesh eating virus in Sex and the City—and all because she wanted to look good for Carrie's party! Sometimes, selflessness leads to injury. Or, as Carrie referred to it, "beef carpaccio" face. (Way harsh, Car.)
Every day spent slathering your face in acid creams and jabbing plastic spoolies at your eyes is a potential for horror. And yet we do it, because we love glamor and are masochists. At Glossier HQ, our lives are just a series of unfortunate beauty-related events—and in the spirit of Halloween, here are our beauty horror stories. Along with our costumes, because why not?
"My mom was driving me to tennis practice, and as a dumb teenager, I felt it was absolutely necessary to have a full face of makeup on for what was essentially a two hour-long sweat session. Anyways, I was putting on eyeliner and mascara in a moving car. My mom slammed on the brakes at a red light, and my mascara wand scratched my eye and went pretty far deep into that little inner-corner eye area. I was completely blind out of my left eye for a week and was forced to wear an eye patch for several days. Never apply eye makeup in a fast moving vehicle!" —Lauren Daccache, PR Intern and Yayoi Kusama for Halloween
"I was poisoned at a MAC store. It actually started with my quest for good beet-colored lipstick—a few years ago I went in and asked what they had in that color range and was pointed towards the lip pencil in (literally) the shade Beet. I saw the person who helped me clean the pencil before I tried it, but regardless two days later I was so sick I couldn’t swallow anything. This remains the most expensive lip product I’ve ever purchased—$17 liner, $75 urgent care co-pay, $10 antibiotics… I still use that pencil, though." —Nina Blass, Email Marketing and "Asleep" (wearing an ancient nightgown and a sleep mask)
"I once bought a new fragrance and was so excited about it that I literally soaked my body in it for my friend's birthday party, before getting obliterated. It is Etat Libre d'Orange Afternoon of a Faun, with beautiful top notes of 'red wine and tequila' and base notes of 'falling asleep outside my front door because I couldn't find my key.' Everytime I smell it now, I want to throw up. I still have it, though—the bottle is cute!" —Brennan Kilbane, Assistant Editor and a Troop Beverly Hills scout
"One night I was feeling a little stuffed up with a cold, so I went to Whole Foods and bought peppermint and eucalyptus essential oils to help. So I get home, put some generic bubble bath in the tub, and sprinkled a healthy dose of each essential oil in. Let's say 10-12 drops—OF EACH. I take off my clothes and get in the hot bath, which I had made extra hot, because I was sick. It takes between five to 10 seconds before the water engulfs me fully—like, fulllly. Then, a tingly cold sensation crept over my entire body. I stung all over. It was a burning and cooling sensation from the inside out, everywhere. It felt like a bath of Icy Hot. It was hot, it was cold, it was burning and it was painful. I wanted to take off all of my clothes and put on a sweater at the same time. I wouldn't wish that feeling on my worst enemy." —Jessica Sheft-Ason, Digital Product Manager and a cat
[ed note: These are all wonderful, but the next one is the best. Read on...]
"I don't love getting bikini waxes—I once punched my waxer in the face as a reaction. To avoid that, I purchased a non-heat wax kit from CVS. And Jessica [Sheft-Ason] came over while I did it. It was going swimmingly as I applied the wax and then put the strip on. I started pulling, and then sweating, and I had a physical mental block. Like, I couldn't pull it off. I asked Jessica to come do it but she refused, because that's really intimate, even for best friends. So I started screaming for my mom, because the longer it’s on there the longer it dries and the harder and more painful it is to remove. And my mom, salt of the Earth, sweetest woman I know, runs upstairs thinking I had critically injured myself. And she starts laughing at me! There I am, sitting on the toilet seat, Jessica in my bedroom listening, when my mom rips off the strip. I scream. And I have a patchy bikini area for some time after that." —Melissa Souto, Physical Product Manager and this
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