Beauty Misadventures: Smooth Away Layers of Skin!

Dear No One in Particular,

I am a huge fan of infomericals. I think they're hilarious, and if they're good (or at the very least, ubiquitous), I'll consider buying whatever they're shilling. I blame this on my mother, who is Billy Mays's dream customer. She'll buy almost anything, so long as she can convince herself she really does need a special chair to help her wiggle her way to a smaller waist. But this isn't about her -- not yet, at least.

Ok some background information: I am a hirsute lady. I'm not about to join a sideshow or anything, but I've always been aware of -- and therefore painfully self-conscious of -- my general furriness. No joke, I've met men with less arm hair than me.*
Only recently have I adopted an "Eh, fuck it" attitude about these things, but that changed when I saw the informercial for that best-selling European depilatory product, Smooth Away. $10 and I can have the hairless arms I've always wanted?! Jiminy Cricket was right: when your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. My request? Not looking like Teen Wolf.

About a week after my television beamed video of some toothy dame gleefully rubbing her hair off her arm into my living room, I traipsed into my local As Seen On TV store and was greeted with the glorious sight of a Smooth Away display. I eagerly grabbed one of the shiny pink-and-white boxes, daydreaming of my soon-to-be naked arms.

When I got home, I opened up the package to find a little blue plastic oval with something that looked like fine-grain sandpaper stuck to one side. It reminded me a bit of a curry comb, only more industrial.
I decided to try it out on my legs before I moved to virgin territory. I followed the directions, gently rubbing the Smooth Away in circular motions over my skin. It took a bit of time, but it did what it advertised: it removed the hair and left smooth, if slightly grey, skin in its place.
So emboldened, I went to town on my forearms. Again, it took some time (probably somewhere in the vicinity of 45 minutes) and a lot of effort, but my arms! They were bare! I danced around my apartment singing "Nooo hair! Nooo hair!" for about five minutes before the burning set in.

That's right: burning.

I don't know why I was so surprised (although, in my defense, the ad did say it was "painless"), since I was rubbing my hair off with "superfine crystals". My arms hurt so badly, the Boy suggested I apply some aloe vera to soothe the irritated skin. I don't know what happened, but "soothe" the aloe did not. It felt like I had dipped my arms into carbolic acid. I spent the rest of the night with ice packs on my forearms, whimpering about what went wrong.

We eventually chalked it up to applying too much pressure when rubbing with the Smooth Away pad. It sounded plausible enough, so a week later, after the burning subsided and the hair grew back, I (idiotically) tried again. Despite my best efforts to be as gentle as possible, the burning returned, and this time, it brought friends! Along with the pain, redness and rash decided to join the party. More weeping, more ice packs, etc. I decided that the Smooth Away people were sadists -- rich sadists, no doubt -- and liars, so I ended up tossing the whole lot.

Two weeks later, I get a call from my mother.**

Mom: You know that hair remover you bought? Rub Off? Hair Away?
Me: Close; Smooth Away. What about it?
Mom: I saw it at Walgreens and decided to try it!
Me: What? Why? I told you about what happened to me.
Mom: Yes, but that was you. I wanted to try it anyway. So, I bought it a while ago but I forgot I had it until last night. I wanted to try it on my moustache.***
Me: Oh God.
Mom: So I rubbed like the thing said and it hurt!
Me: Why didn't you believe me? I told you.
Mom: [swears that I shall not translate] And then, when I woke up this morning, it was all red! Really, really RED. And I had little ... you know, spots? Like pimples. ALL ON MY UPPER LIP.
Me: *can't breathe, I'm laughing so hard*
Mom: WHY YOU LAUGH? DON'T LAUGH. I had pimples! RED PIMPLES all over my lip. I didn't know what to do! Oh God, Aman, I had a big meeting this afternoon, and I was talking to, you know, a manager, and she couldn't stop staring at my lip! She was giving me this ... look ... like she was so grossed out. She was so grossed out.
Me: *gasping for breath* Stop! I have to go to the bathroom!
Mom: Oh. My. God, I looked AWFUL. It kept getting worse as the day went on, too. And that's not the worst part.
Me: You're kidding.
Mom: I was talking to my coworker, and I told her about the Smooth Away, and how it made my skin blister and she said "Oh, thank God. I was going to ask my husband to get me some tonight, and now I know to stay away." BECAUSE OF ME.
Me: She owes you $10.
Mom: I'm the opposite of a billboard for Smooth Away!

Moral of the story: Smooth Away is terrible. I can't get over how something so simple caused so much pain. For all the irritation, I'd rather wax and have the results last longer.

Anyone else try it and have a positive experience?

--amanda

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*I've also met men who insist on pointing this out. Yes, I have hair on my arms, thank you for pointing that out. You will have intense pain in your groin in 3 ... 2 ...
** She'll probably kill me for telling this story, so shhh! She already thinks I'm the Bad Seed.
***Her word, not mine.

What's in a Name?

Dear No One in Particular,

Last night, the Boy and I stayed up until 2:30 am talking about baby names.

Hold on -- let me be perfectly clear, in case someone I know finds this: I am not pregnant. I am so far from having children, I am not joking. I don't think I can handle a dog right now, much less a miniature human.

Ok, moving on. Back to the story.

So, for whatever reason, we were talking about what we would name our totally hypothetical future children. I love the Boy, but he's not allowed to name anything. He came up with some really awful options* but my favourite was far and away "Christian" for a boy.

The Boy's last name has very strong ties to the Roman Coliseum. Normally, this is just a neat little factoid about his family history. Yet with the first name "Christian" tacked onto it, it becomes a slightly different story: it is believed that many early Christians were executed in the Coliseum, oddly making it a holy, yet gruesome, place for modern Christians.

The hypothetical name is totally hilarious when taken as a whole, considering the Boy's surname and its connotations to the Coliseum's bloody history. Naturally, the Boy was delighted by the history lesson our hypothetical son's name would bear, especially since this apparently isn't common knowledge? So while most would think nothing of it, a handful would consider us to be either totally insensitive or big fans of gallows humour. I agreed so long as his middle name would be Leo.

Now I can't help but think that if our names shape who we are, what kind of person would a son saddled with such a name be like?

--amanda



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*One of the suggestions? Wyatt. Totally serious. Yes, that would be a perfect name, especially if we have another boy named Jethro. They can play dueling banjos and and run around in overalls with no shirts on.

Paint a Vulgar Picture

Dear No One in Particular,

This article about a woman who sold an original painting by Adolf Hitler yesterday reminds me of a story a classmate once told me. Her family was Austrian (she was a first-gen American) and her grandfather was a young man when the Nazis invaded. He eventually acquired a copy of Mein Kampf, and placed it in a prominent place on his bookshelf. Whenever a snoopy guest mentioned it, he would respond "Oh yes. It's signed by the author."*

--amanda

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*I have no idea if this is true. It's a nice conversation-stopper, though!

Turn it On (Again)

A conversation between me and the Boy, held last night.

Me: Wanna hear about something freaky I found on the internets?

Boy: Uh. Sure. I think.

Me: Michael Phelps SWITCHPLATES.

Boy: (looks excited) Really?!

Me: What. Why are you so happy about this? You're scaring me.

Boy: Dude, that's bitchin! (makes a stabbing motion) Bam! You just got stabbed -- by Michael Phelps, bitch!

Me: (laughing) Oh my God, no, I said switchplates, not switchblades!

Boy: (disappointed) Aw, damn. That would've been awesome. (makes stabbing motion again) I just stabbed you AND I won eight gold medals! (thinks quietly for a moment) So ... switchplates?

Me: Yeah, like for light switches. I looked through them and was thinking that they totally missed out on some hilarious places to put the switches.

Boy: Like putting the dual switches on his arms, so when he's swimming, his arms flip up and down.

Transcribing this is convincing me that someone really needs to do this. I might consider buying one just for the novelty value of being able to flip Michael's "arms".