I’m not much of a prissy girl. With this new haircut of mine I really don’t need much more than a dime size drop of drugstore gel and my fingers to get gussied up. Did I just say “gussied up?” Indeed I did. And I meant it. My entire regimen in the morning is 30 minutes, tops. Even on my wedding day. I guess you might think I didn’t care or look all that great. But the reality is that I wanted to look like me in my photos, not some Glamour Shot glimpse of a girl I knew for a mere 24 hours. And for the record, I think I looked pretty good on that hot March day back in 2000 in Key West. Whether I still fit into that sheath of a dress is another story.
Despite what you might think or what my friend Will proclaims to all who will listen, I am a relatively low maintenance woman. Black tie gala with Mac Daddy, jaunt around the lake with the boys, or brunch with girlfriends, it will take me 30 minutes to get ready. In a crunch I can do it in 20.
Try me.
So all this leaves me wondering why I have so much crap in various size bins under the cabinet on my side of the bathroom sink. You know by now that I am a neat freak and I love compartments so everything has a home. No random bottles or potions stacked upon each other every which way on my watch. I did a quick inventory today, and this is what I found:
- nail polish (15 bottles, 5 of them red)
- nail polish remover (acetone free, 2 bottles)
- 2 sets of foam toe separators
- 2 bags of cotton balls
- box of Qtips
- bag of make up sponges
- 1 bottle eye makeup remover
- 1 pouch of makeup wipes
- tray of makeup, including 4 mascaras (2 of which are Lash Exact), 6 liquid eyeliners (4 of them black), various brushes (I don’t use anything that requires a brush so I’m not sure why I have all these. Also 4 eyeshadow palettes; I don’t even know how to apply eye shadow.)
- 3 bottles of face cream in varying SPF ratings
- spray water bottle
- 1 large tub Aquaphor
- 2 bottles of lotion
- 1 bottle of rubbing alcohol
- 1 bottle of witch hazel (What the hell is this stuff even for?!)
- 1 eyelash curler (never used for fear of blinding myself)
- 2 pots of hair wax or some such thing
- 1 bottle of spray hair gel
- 1 tube of hair gel
- 1 unopened tube of black hair color (the temporary kind you brush on with a mascara wand looking thing…I’m pretty sure I specially ordered this from the salon.)
- 2 shower scrubby/spongey thingees
- 1 huge can of hairspray (unopened)
- 1 bottle of mousse (Not the chocolate kind, unfortunately.)
- 2 bottles of face wash
- 1 pot of cucumber eye gel
- 3 tubes of eye cream
- 1 tube of eye gel
- 1 pot of night cream
- 2 sticks of deodorant (Degree and Secret for a “pit off.” So far Secret is winning.)
- 1 bottle of neck and decolletage cream (I couldn’t make this up.)
- 1 flattening iron (I have hair shorter than most boys so this will do me no good.)
- 3 hairbrushes in various textures, sizes, and shapes
- 5 combs, unsure of origin
So what’s a girl like me doing with a veritable pharmacy of beauty products? My cabinet looks as if I looted a Walgreens delivery truck. Granted, most of the products are unused. I don’t even know what to do with half the stuff. I shower, lotion up, put on some sunscreen and eyecream, concealer under my eyes, a swipe of black eyeliner, a coat of mascara, lip balm, finger comb some gel in my hair, roll on deodorant and am out the door. Well, I do get dressed, natch.
Is it hard wired in all women to flock to the health & beauty aisle and just stock up on crap we don’t need? Is this why Mary Kay and Avon are so popular? I admit to having a slight orgasmic reaction in Sephora or Ulta stores, even though I don’t know what any of the stuff is for. What makes us buy all these lotions and potions and gels and creams? I am not generally a sucker, but my bathroom cabinet would prove otherwise. I look at that cache and am left wondering who the hell I am? Tell me I’m not alone.
Conversely, under Mac Daddy’s sink:
- 1 bottle of lotion (Unused. I bought it and put it there so he’d moisturize in winter. He hasn’t. Ever.)
- 1 bottle of SPF 30 face cream (Ditto above.)
- 1 can shaving cream (top off)
- 1 razor
- deodorant
I wonder what an anthropologist would say about us? I’m a consumer researcher by day, and I sure know how I’d sum us up.
But I’d be totally wrong.
Simply having the trappings doesn’t make a girl prissy. I know this much is true.
I think I might have more stuff than my wife does.
I live in fear of what's in my loo cabinet. I don't think I want to know what it says about me.
I love this. I could make a very similar list, and so could my husband.
By the way, we used to go to the same hair dresser 🙂
This is lots of fun! I'm like you–very low-maintenance (though all this hair does take a bit of "doing"), but my bathroom cabinet looks like a drug store.
It's comforting to know that MacDaddy's shaving cream lives with the top off–my husband's does, too. It irks me. A lot.
I have all of that, but mine is spread out over three rooms in the house and the bathroom in the apartment!
I've also got the lotion my wife bought that I've never used. And an after-shave. I've got the Q-tips on my side, though. And a brush.
And because it's not nice to talk about people when they're not there, I won't mention my wife's shelf in the linen closet. (Or her other shelf in the linen closet.)
By the way, how much of the stuff in your collection did you receive as gifts? The women I know seem to treat "smelly stuff" as the default gift for other women when they don't know what to buy.
Sounds like you need to box some of that up and bring it to girls weekend so we can use it!!!
This reminds me of an old issue of Colors Magazine where they took pictures of people's medicine cabinets around the globe. It had more a pharma-angle, though. Still enlightening and interesting. I'll see if I can find it online.
Yeah, mine looks like that, too. But it does come in handy when your teenage son goes goth, and suddenly needs all those odd shades of nail polish and eye liner and shadow, and that white paste you bought for Halloween one year, and the false eyelashes…
Just saying.
I have deodorant and hair gel, and not much else. My daughter? She's like you, or heading that way, at least. And she's a bit of a tomboy!
That's a lotta stuff! D and I have about the same amount of very little in our drawers…the few hair/skin products I have are balanced out by his jars of vitamins and "herbal remedies!"
I'm a consultant for Mary Kay.
No we do not make money selling you stuff that you don't need.
In fact my money is made by customizing my products to your normal skin care regimen.
If you don't use microderm abrasions regularly then I won't sell them to you.
I want my clients to have what they will use and that is the advantage of having a personal cosmetics consultant.
Call me and I'll maximize your everyday habits with products that work because you'll use them.
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-Tony
There are days I don't brush my hair…. and then go out. I am not proud of this. I don't want to know what this says about me either.
Jack keeps a running tally of the number of items on my bathroom sink.
Since he started, I hove around 12, all of which I make sure I use daily.
Wow. I often say I'm not a real girl. I take a shower, put lotion on my face and legs, brush my hair, apply deodorant, and I'm done. I do own two bottles of nail polish – one pale pink for bribing the child, one dark grey to horrify the husband. And that's it.
The worst is when my husband adds up how much I've spent on my products. I HATE IT WHEN HE DOES THAT!, Mr. Only-Has-Deodorant-In-His-Medicine-Cabinet Man.
In related news, I love your haircut. I saw pics from Type A Mom and you look super chic.