Beauty Tortureware

I poked myself in the eye yesterday with my mascara wand.

While not a “sign me up!” experience, it did remind me that I need to out the female tortureware industry. If you’re reading this without text-to-voice assistance, chances are high that you haven’t yet encountered Exhibit A.

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Exhibit A.

What?! It’s just an innocent little fold out comb thingy. I recognized it while still in the impenetrable plastic packaging. Like many others (and you know who you are), in the ’80s I sported the obligatory spiral perm. The wide-tooth comb folded up nicely into your purse and didn’t turn your (mostly) spirals into straw. At the highest level of consumer familiarity, I was sold.

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Plus, it was from a highly reputable company. I love my Tweezerman tweezers. The day my eyebrows got hormonal and decided they wanted to grow out of my chin, Mr. Tweezerman and I got very tight.

And what’s not to like about an “i” anything, especially when it actually translates to an “eye” something?

My only defense is that it was a good company promising to help comb out my lashes into pristine wide-eyed loveliness during the post-gummy mascara application stage.

I bought one.

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The instructions said that immediately after applying mascara, one should carefully place the comb AT THE BASE OF ONE’S EYELASHES while the mascara was still wet and brush out to the tips.

I want baby-clean extendo-lashes just like the next girl, so I tried it.

Once.

I had no idea my hands shake a teeny bit first thing in the morning.

Also, I had not previously known that I was willing to voluntarily place THIRTY pointy barbs, clustered in ONE INCH, within a literal hair’s width of my eyeball before I had even had a second cup of coffee.  Hell, my eyes are barely even open then.

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Let history show that on the rare occasion, I don’t have to  permanently and irrevocably wound myself before realizing  that, statistically speaking, I was going to really hurt myself, soon.

Let me be clear: the product works as advertised. I had one eye’s worth of incredibly believable “two-year old natural” eyelashes.

Fortunately, I had the sense to let the other eye muddle its way through the day in a resigned declaration of “… yes, I do wear mascara that has glued every second eyelash together.”

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I love macro photography. Without it, I would probably have not realized that Mr. Tweezerman already knows the dangers inherent in this little beauty futzer. Why else would they have advertised the country of manufacture or the proud fact that this sucker is under patent… in beginner braille?

And Tammy… yup. Let’s all just step away from those eye-lash curlers.

8 thoughts on “Beauty Tortureware

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    1. rickandkathy

      Um, Esther, I think you missed the point. Do NOT buy this product! You can poke your eye without even blinking, and trust me, there is a lot of blinking as well.

  3. Tennye

    Wow you have me rolling in the floor on this one, not laughing at you but with you.I have so been tempted by such a gadget and now I am glad I didn’t go there.

  4. Betty Crockett

    My beauty torture device of horror is the curling iron with stiff, plastic bristle looking things around where you put your hair, which them can also spin. Ya try getting that sucker untangled from your hair in less than an hour, not going to happen! I think I would rather have gum in my hair!Betty for Buns has become my slogan.

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