“What’s that on your face? Take it off!”
As a blossoming young sixth grader, I was chastised the first time I attempted to apply my own slutty eye liner.
“What else are you doing that I wouldn’t approve of?!”
In retrospect, it was probably in part because I used the only thing I had – a melted mock makeup crayon from a princess play kit I’d dusted off from five years earlier. That, and the fact that it came out looking like Alex the Droog and The Joker’d joined forces as my stylists. (Actually, that’d make an excellent reality show: Villain MUA’s.) Anyway that response I got and the rest of my life I blame on my childhood, led to this deep emotional trauma that left me fearful to even venture near the makeup aisles ever again (can we all tell this is going to be a satire piece yet?). Thus, from the quiescence of the dungeon in which I was locked until my late teens, I slowly came to develop my own DIY-with-household-items hack list. And as I peruse this strange and beautifully foreign world called the internet, most of the lists of beauty tips I’m seeing seem to repeat and plagiarize eachother. Which is why I can’t help but think my fresh new concepts will be welcomed with open arms. Especially since they don’t even require an overpriced Sephora trip!
1. Let’s start with your bumpy skin
Astringents and antibacterial ablutions failing you there, J-Law? Still pimply as a basketball? That’s just the acne bugs building up a resistance. I learned this from dungeon life when I got an infection from the spiders that lived among me, had to take three different kinds of bacteria killers after they bit me, and then was subsequently punished for costing my guardians too much money to keep alive. The point is, the same thing happens in your face pores. Much like round one of my festering flesh wound meds, your old face cleaners aren’t working. The solution? A solution of Lysol.
And once that stops working?
Move onto the stuff Tyler Durden pours on Ed Norton’s hand in Fight Club.
2. So, the bug holocaust’s outta the way.
But now you’re stuck with flaky, dead skin sloughing off everywhere…
Fun as dead-skin peeling is, it’s time to exfoliate.
And that shitty stuff you believed would work when you saw the highly filtered image of a made-up Jenn Aniston in a Youtube commercial with perfect lighting isn’t working, is it? Didn’t think so. Lucky for you, there was one time my mouth was literally washed out – with auto mechanic scrub, lava water, a Brillo pad, and then polished off with a sandblaster for good measure. (Can’t recall why, but I think it may have been the time I said, “I love you” to one of the people who lived in the part of the house that gets daylight). The lesson I gleaned from that was – yes – I had no taste buds left, but the inside of my mouth was next-level smooth. Double benefit? If you can’t taste, you’re less hungry. For me, that meant my bailiffs were proud of me for costing them less money at the market. For you, it means losing that five pounds before childhood friend’s wedding! And both feel good…
So, when you try it the way I was taught – don’t forget your chew hole for a dietary double benefit!
3. What about those pesky roots?
Yes…I used to be brunette like you.
But then I took a box of Clorox to the head.
Ya know, I don’t think this one was a punishment so much as bored brothers and sisters (there were about five or twenty of them) who’d gotten bored of their toys and decided to experiment in cruelty. To be honest, I was just happy to be getting some attention. Like the way your dog wags his tail when you yell at him for shitting on the carpet because he’s just glad you’re finally home and talking to him. Plus, I didn’t hate my new look years later when I escaped and caught a glance of myself in a reflective surface. Granted, I didn’t have anything to compare it to – but you do: namely that inch of dark, hateful growth cascading from your cranium. And, wouldn’t you know it, you don’t have time to schedule a salon visit before that gala you’ve gotta go to. Well, if my experience taught me anything, it’s that if the laundry whitener can rid the skidmarks from your lover’s whitey tighties or turn a cephalic assault into a platinum makeover, it can certainly do the same for you when you need to update your roots.
Just make sure to really scrub it into that scalp.
That way it’ll last longer.
4. And you know what else lasts long?
Days and nights.
Which lead to… under eye-bags.
The solution?
Cut them off.
Get your money’s worth out of those eyebrow trimmers.
If you’re waiting for a horror tale of abuse anecdote backstory on this one, you’ll find yourself disappointed. I actually thought up this one all on my own – after I’d graduated from dungeon life and started trying to make my own way in the world. It was around this time that a kind stranger also showed me there are these places called hospitals where people try to fix you instead of kick you with bladed boots. Though I found this concept foreign and ridiculous, I thanked the surgeon repairing my eye the best way I could think of.
By stabbing his. With a scalpel.
And I’d do it again, seeing as he planted quite a variable in my experiment. I mean, we can never be sure if his pre-mortem blepharoplasty operation or my DIY one was responsible for my now ever-puffless peepers. But, ya know, it’s an easy fix really. Try it my way first. And if it fails (and if you live through it) get one of those dudes with letters after their name to do an eye edit. And if he fails worse than you did?
Well, you know what you have to do.
5. But maybe plastic surgery is outta your price range – both for eyes and nose.
So, what to do about that wide proboscis bridge?
Just imagine how much more wide set your eyes would look if you could downsize your sniffer.
Well, who says everything’s gotta be about “nip/tuck”?
Why not a bit o’ “crush/squeeze”?
It’s simple, really. Just steal away in the night to your new love’s woodshop… and let the vice grip do the hard part. If you can power through that initial panicky feeling that waves over you and keep cranking, you’ll have a Heidi Klum honker in no time. Well – at least after the swelling has gone down. Protip: make sure you’ve got the bridge in the grip. Aim too low and you’ll just come away looking like Squidward.
6. Don’t you hate your tiny thin lips?
Wish they were fuller?
*Sigh*… Me too.
This is why I bring my Wicker M.A.C. tote wherever I go: it comprises a fully stocked supply of live kissable hornets, right there in my cosmetic case. Protip here: just try to avoid missing when you go to pucker up. Oh, and also try to avoid losing your product in the public loo of a Mexican restaurant when everyone’s shitting synchronistically.
I don’t envy the janitor who had to clean up the aftermath of the last time I did that.
7. And what about those Golightly eyelashes?
No, we can’t forget the eyelashes. But fake is such a sticky, time consuming chore.
Once I was free and on my own, I realized that I needed to assimilate to what society said was pretty and desirable to get along. That’s why I wrote this thing! And even in those beginning years, it didn’t take long for envy to set in. Mine set in on a girl called Jane. Ever since Jane saw that I was lonely and offered to be my friend, I was tremendously grateful. And I also wished I had her big, beautiful eyes with their awnings of long naturally gorgeous eyelashes that needed no mascara.
That’s why I took them from her.
Jane doesn’t miss a thing these days. Except the skin that used to cover her optical organs.
Welp. That’s all for now! I truly hope this helped all of you. Bee-sting kisses from my dungeon to yours.
Loooove,
The masochistic makeup artist