More on the Pursuit of Beauty

After posting about my little Nair disaster I got several comments from others divulging some of the things that they have done to themselves in the pursuit of beauty. So I started thinking about other beauty disasters I have had...and for my age I think I have had too many. But aren't we all trying to become more beautiful all of the time? Maybe it is like the picture above says...we hope that if we are beautiful enough that people will forget how annoying we are. Subconsciously I know that's what I'm hoping for when I put myself through pain in order to seek beauty. Create a distraction so people will overlook my personality flaws...that is the key. So here are a few more of my beauty disasters that go beyond the normal pain of plucking, exfoliating, peeling, and lasering that I regularly do to myself...

In 9th grade my wacky science teacher told us that traditional shampoo is bad for our hair because it is just filled with a lot of unnatural things that clog our hair follicles and cause build-up on our scalp, etc, etc and how we really should just use bar soap for everything since it is much more "natural." Even though this particular science teacher was a total nut I did everything he said to do because he always made me feel like I was such a little science genius. So, of course I washed my hair with bar soap one morning. Did it make me feel natural and build-up free? No, instead my hair was all sticky and nappy all day long. As if it wasn't already hard enough to feel okay about yourself in 9th grade! I never did that again. I love shampoo.

Somewhere I read that washing your hair with eggs would help your hair look beautiful and healthy due to the added protein. And who doesn't want beautiful, healthy hair? So of course I whipped up a bunch of eggs one morning and took them into the bathroom (I wonder what my family thought) so I could put them all over in my hair and then wash them out. Unfortunately the article I read didn't mention that you might want to use cooler water then you normally shower with to wash the eggs out. Yeah, that's right, the hot water in my shower turned the eggs in my hair into scrambled eggs. Breakfast in the shower anyone? Anyway let's just say that picking scrambled eggs out of your hair is a pain. And oh yeah, your hair stinks afterward. Buy some V05 and skip the eggs in your hair...just a suggestion.

Haircuts in Argentina...these were emotionally painful rather than physically painful. Let's just say that after a few attempts of having an Argentine "hairdresser" cut my hair I decided that I could do a better job myself...and sometimes I did. But one morning before catching a bus to go to our Mission Christmas Conference I decided that I wanted to give myself a little trim. The Mission Christmas Conference was a big deal. It was the only time in the mission when all the missionaries in the whole mission would get together so everyone wanted to look their best. But somehow instead of looking my best I gave myself a horrible haircut that I kept trying to fix but I ended up instead with some inch and a half bangs that I had to clip back to keep out of my face. Great.

I wanted to come home from my mission looking great. Eighteen months of wearing the same clothes, having bad haircuts, no time to pluck your eyebrows, gaining weight from being force-fed 4000 calories a day, etc. and all you want to do is feel beautiful. So I decided that I was going to highlight my hair. I had seen my cousin Audrey do it so I was sure I could. I bought the brightest platinum blonde hair dye I could because I already have light blonde hair and wanted the "highlights" to show up. Well lets just say that my "highlights" got all smeared together and instead I ended up just having to dye my whole hair platinum blonde. Not how I wanted to come home, but oh well.

So maybe my attempts at outer beauty don't go so well. I guess I could always work at being less irritating instead...Nah.