My biggest beauty blunders

I was inspired to write this post by a talk on Temptalia, Christine's blog.

My beauty blunders are many and hilarious and I'll illustrate them where possible. I'm going to try to do this fairly chronologically, from the age of about 14 when I got interested in hair and make up.

Aged about 14 I got hold of make up - any make up - and splashed it all over regardless. We were dirt poor and I was just so happy to have some make up finally. This lead to bright blue shadow up to the eyebrows and hot pink lipstick! A cheeky chap at church once asked me if I'd been beaten up as he thought my eyeshadow resembled bruises. I thought I looked amazing, as you do. I started wearing blue mascara to school at about the same period, which got me told off every day as we weren't supposed to wear any make up, let alone electric blue mascara! At about the same age I started to use Sun In on my hair, which made my naturally dark hair eventually turn into white straw which had to be cut off. For the uninitiated, you could put Sun In on before you went into the sun or activate it with a hair dryer. I had no idea of moderation at the time so I used it all the time.

I had my first proper hair cut when I was 15 or 16. I went to the same hairdresser my friend went to. It turned out to be rather embarrassing as the hairdresser yelled across the salon 'Who's been doing your hair? It's one and a half inches longer on one side than the other!' I sheepishly said my mum had been cutting it, and you know how embarrassing it is at that age to even admit your parents exist.

Again, when I was at school we were so poor I had no nail polish, but I used to put Tippex on my nails and colour them in with highlighters. (Mum found the money for stationary somehow.)

The perms! Oh Lord. I had 3 in about a year and totally frazzled my hair. When I got my first boyfriend he liked to buy me perfume, so I'd go out REEKING of Poison. It's a wonder I didn't kill someone as I used to douse myself in the stuff.

I could devote a whole blog to the state of my eyebrows through my lifetime. I didn't pluck my eyebrows for years at a time which led to caterpillar brows, as I'm very dark.

Caterpillars!
Then for a long time I over-plucked my eyebrows, so it looked like I had a pair of paretheses over my eyes.


Then on a PMS-induced whim I shaved my eyebrows off altogether last year or the year before. The photo below was me having a go at drawing them on for the first time and making a hideous bodge of it. It got better, but it was ill advised to begin with. You live and learn.

Ye gads!
Then there are the faux-pas with foundation shades through just about my whole life - it has only recently occurred to me I'm extremely pale under all the freckles. Usually a company's lightest shade is too dark for me, so I've always had a lovely orange tidemark!

Let's not forget the lifetime of strange hair do's I've had. I had it so short once I kept getting mistaken for a boy from behind! I even cut my own hair for a long time, but I thought it looked good. Oh dear I will dig up some more photos of some crazy hair and my perms to show you. Everyone did it at the time. Frazzled hair was the norn. I mean, I lived through the 80s and 90s fer gawd's sake!!

What have been your biggest beauty blunders? 

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