The Eyes Have It?

Last Friday, as I was melting in the pedicure chair, I saw a sign about eyelash extensions. Wouldn'tcha know that I got the brilliant idea to try out a set? Now, my eyes are my favorite feature of myself, so I don't know what possessed me. Honestly ... do any of you think I needed eyelash extensions?

Anyway .... I decided to give it a try. My intention was to just get a few wispy extensions - these were the individual lashes, not the full strip kind. Well .... the technician had other intentions. Looking at my coloring, do you think I need black or brown eyelashes? I do brown mascara, and when au naturale, my eyelashes are barely visible.

I laid there for what seemed an eternity, but it was really just under an hour. The process itself wasn't that bad. The aftermath ... well, that's an entirely different story. I arose from the table with eyes that looked and felt like they had big, hairy black tarantulas on them - that were attached to my eyelashes with black SUPERGLUE. It was HORRENDOUS. She said, "They might feel a little heavy until you get used to them." MIGHT? A LITTLE heavy? OMG. Then she said what I thought were the magic words ... "If you want to take them off at home, just put warm wet washrags on your eyes and it will loosen." "Really?", said I. "Yes", said she. NOT HARDLY!!!!!!!

What followed was no less than 2 full hours of abject misery. I trotted to the kitchen sink and got the water as hot as I could stand. I then proceeded to soak some lap sponges, which I plopped onto my eyes. I waited till they cooled, then tried to remove the tarantulas. They didn't budge ... not even a bit. Holy crap! This went on over and over for what seemed an eternity. So, y'all think plucking your eyebrows hurts? Hah! It's nothing compared to pulling out your eyelashes.

To make a long story short, what ended up happening is that I pulled out almost all of my own eyelashes just to de-tarantulize my eyes. About halfway through the process, I snapped. Surely there is something out there that's available to help me out of this Hell I created for myself. I drove my red-eyed, nose-running, sniveling ass up to the local beauty supply store. There it was! My salvation in all of this! "Individual Eyelash Glue Remover"! Yay!! I snatched up the one remaining bottle and guarded it as if it were solid gold and my life depended on it. Well, in my book it kinda did.

Do you think it worked? Heh ... after my sore, raw eyes almost burned out of my head, the tarantulas didn't budge. Pardon me ... the tarantula. Remember, I got one eye off. Hell just got worse! I then decided to slather triple antibiotic ointment on my eyes in the hopes of maybe loosening up the tarantulas. Do y'all think that idea worked? Hell no it didn't!!! I decided to just suck it up and rip all the remaining mofos off. HOLY HELL!!!

I was so traumatized by the whole series of events that I didn't know what to do with myself. I ended up propping myself up on the couch with icepacks on. My lashless eyes stayed swollen till Monday! I did not take a photo of the tarantulas, nor did I take a photo of the aftermath. This is, however, a close approximation of what my once beautiful eyes now look like:

Pretty sexxay, huh? Moral of the story? Don't do crap like this without really researching the whole process. I seriously think that I have a bonafide case of Eyelash PTSD now. But ... airing it out here has proven to be somewhat cathartic. Thanks for "listening" to my admission of sheer stupidity.

On a side note, I'm going to TRY to make a more concerted effort to post more frequently/regularly. I'm just in a lazy phase right now. Work has been kicking my butt lately, and I don't want to do much during my off time. I hope you understand!

~RWS