Dear Kid,

Have you heard of eyelash perms? Clearly, I’m behind the times, because I hadn’t heard of this trendy beauty treatment until recently.

The idea is straightforward—like your eyelashes before the treatment. Well, not your eyelashes. You have gorgeous lashes. Sigh.

But not all of us have beautiful, thick, upturned lashes.

Back in the day, those of us that wanted curly hair but weren’t blessed with cooperative locks got our hair permed. The process went something like this.

Sit in the salon chair for about 73 hours while someone painstakingly rolled tiny bits of your hair in individual curlers. Squinch your eyes tightly closed while the stylist soaks your head with perm solution. Mop the drippy part out of your eyes, off your forehead, and off the very back of your neck where it wanted to trickle the most. Wait. Pretend your scalp doesn’t itch or burn. Repeat while the neutralizer was applied. Wash, cut, dry, have curly hair.

Then go through the whole thing again when the curls grow out. Because if you think growing out bangs is hard, it is nothing compared to growing out a perm.

So it was a long, uncomfortable process with results that were (in hindsight) something of a fashion mistake. Faux curly hair was not necessarily a good choice.

On the other hand, there is no question that gently curled eyelashes are a good choice. They make your eyes look bigger and more alert. This is why we spend countless minutes every day curling our lashes and slathering on mascara.

At least some of us do.

So the idea of permanently curled lashes seemed worth investigating.

Until I figured out that what was uncomfortable on my head would be ridiculous on my eyeballs. Can you imagine someone rolling your lashes on tiny little rollers and then pouring ouch-y stuff on your eyes?

And here’s the kicker—the chemicals can cause your lashes to break—entire effort, defeated.

And here’s the double kicker—even if it works perfectly, your lashes will grow out, fall out, and in just a few months you’ll be back to straight eyelashes.

All in all, I’m sticking to an old fashioned curler and a boatload of mascara.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

You might think it is a simple matter to remove nail polish. A task that can be accomplished in a mere minute or two.

As accurate as that thought might be, it is also (and simultaneously) dead wrong.

Here is how it actually works.

Day 1

Look at nails. Be pleasantly surprised that the polish is still in reasonably good shape and since it’s a neutral taupe you can go another day.

Day 2

Determine it’s time to remove nail polish, but you’re too tired and tomorrow will be soon enough.

Day 3

Decide it REALLY is time to remove nail polish. Get distracted by reruns of NCIS. Start texting friends to find out what reruns they are watching. Remind yourself that Tomorrow Is Another Day. Search Google to find out what year that film was made (1951) and realize it wasn’t the movie you were thinking of after all.

Day 4

Get serious about removing nail polish. Search for cotton balls. Eventually concede that there aren’t any in the house. Realize there is just about Nothing In the World that could persuade you to go out to the grocery store at 10:30 at night just to get cotton balls. Convince yourself that it’s too late to paint your nails and naked nails would be embarrassing.

Day 5

Stop at Walgreens for cotton balls. Feel victorious when you check out having only bought 6 items. Place all 6 items in the car—and go back into Walgreens for the cotton balls you forgot the first time around. Hide your fingernails while you pay since they are in a state of embarrassing chipped-ness.

Review a term paper, answer three texts, and write a blog. Go downstairs to the kitchen to find the nail polish remover because you live with a teenage girl and Duh.

Go back downstairs because you left the cotton balls sitting on the dryer because life.

Remove nail polish.

Realize your nails are in terrible shape and you really shouldn’t have waited this long.

Now I have to go find some polish. But that’s another story for another day.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Makeup can be hard to understand.

I don’t know if you noticed, but I didn’t wear any makeup over the Thanksgiving break. I didn’t even bring any makeup with me on our trip. I figured the family has seen me without “assistance” before, and it would be a good break. Also, I really needed the extra 6 hours of sleep.

I bet you thought the makeup would have rested nicely while we were gone and just start up as if nothing had happened.

You’d be wrong.

Disastrously wrong.

My foundations started things off with the foundation of the protest. It glopped. It smudged. It refused to smooth itself out, instead keeping all its particles grouped together for warmth and safety.

My eyeliner scampered about like a hungry cocker spaniel puppy. To be fair, it’s a newish eyeliner (very pretty color called Topaz), but we’d had the scampering under control before Bird Day. And like a new puppy, it pooped on my eyelid. Small break for cleanup.

My eyeshadow pranced around like the Lipizzaner stallions (you don’t know about them? Remind me), marching in unison but showing off unexpected moves here and there.

And then there was mascara.

In general, if something bad is going to happen with makeup, you can bet that it’s either blush or mascara. Or both. (You get one guess.)

Not only does black mascara look bad when it smears all over the place, it has the effect of dumping arsenic into water. Which is to say “scorched earth.” You just have to suck it up (swear a bit) and start the whole darn makeup thing over.

And then try to figure out how to explain to your colleagues why you’re late for work.

Love, Mom

Know someone who would appreciate the Makeup Rebellion and DearKidLoveMom? Share!

Dear Kid,

An eyelash has taken up residence in my eye.

This is not good.

It’s not that I don’t like eyelashes. Some of my best ocular accessories are eyelashes. It’s just that I prefer them in their normal location doused with tons of mascara.

Floating around my eyeball is not the prefered (or even acceptable) location for any foreign debris, eyelashes included.

It is truly amazing how something so small and seemingly insignificant can cause such crazy annoyance discomfort pain.

Pebbles in shoes are the same sort of thing. Little tiny object, big huge problem.

The difference is that taking a pebble out of a shoe is generally a relatively straightforward process. Trying to dig out an eyelash generally requires 6 people, 2 mirrors, a bright light, and a lot of frustration. It’s surgery without the equipment or skills.

Eyelashes are stubborn things. I’m convinced that when they fall into your eye they excrete a glue-like substance that keeps them attached to the cornea. Or that guides them into a corner of your eye from which they absolutely, positively cannot be extracted.

Which is frustrating.

And annoying uncomfortable painful.

I’m going to go find some mirrors and bright light.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I admit it. I have bad habits.

I don’t always get 8 hours of sleep. I don’t floss my teeth every day (job security for my dentist). I watch too much bad TV. I rarely say no to chocolate. And I generally don’t take my makeup off at night.

I am not recommending any of these habits. They’re my bad habits, and if you choose to borrow them you do so at your own risk.

Not taking off makeup isn’t really smart. Makeup can clog pores and lead to acne and all sorts of other rotten stuff. Except it doesn’t on my face. There’s no secret except not wearing too much makeup and good genetics. (Thanks mom!)

I generally take off my makeup from yesterday in the morning. Only I didn’t today.

But I have a really good excuse: I was studying chemistry.

More specifically, I was reading a blog about chemistry (sounds more believable already, doesn’t it?).

I hereby pronounce myself the newest fan of Yvette d’Entremont at scibabe.com and here’s the article I was reading.

The thing is, Yvette is not a fan of people who make things up and claim they are talking science.

I’m pretty sure she’ll be ok with my nonsense since when I make things up I say so (which is most of the time) and when I make things up and don’t say so I generally attribute them to Mrs. Joe Neanderthal and if you can’t figure out that I don’t have a direct research line to Mrs. Joe then you have bigger problems than worrying about whether she invented grilled cheese or not.

Anyhoo, Yvette the Science Babe was debunking some of the things (and by “some of the things” I mean every dang word) written by Vani Hari, AKA the Food Babe, who is to science as I am to morning exercise—we’ve heard of each other, but have absolutely no plans to hang out.

Apparently, Hari is marching against any and all chemicals in food. Which is weird since (as I understand it) all food is chemical. Yvette wondered if anyone had told Hari about dihydrogen monoxide. (See, I told you there was chemistry involved.)

In case it is too early for your brain cells to be awake, I will spare you the embarrassment of asking: dihydrogen monoxide is water. H2O. The good stuff.

It was a long article and consequently I had no time to remove yesterday’s makeup with dihydrogen monoxide or makeup remover. So I had to commit yet another sin and slather on today’s layers over yesterday’s. It’s terrible, but I like to think of it as building up an archeological dig for later makeup removal. The experts tell you to layer fragrance, so I say why not borrow from the experts?

The truth is, I’ll have dark circles under my eyes all day. But since I plan to go around saying dihydrogen monoxide as many times as possible, I’m hoping people attribute it to my brilliance (she must have been up working all night) rather than to my bad habits.

Love, Mom