cosmeticslog

"Omigod, do you have a hickey?!"

"Er... yeah."

"How old are you again?"

"Christ, I'm sorry! I have sensitive skin, okay? You mean to tell me you've never gotten one in your life?"

"Well, yeah, but it was more along the lines of an independently-existing huge black-and-blue cyst-like formation I'd gotten the one time I cheated on my boyfriend in college."

"So it served as your Scarlet A? How did you get rid of it?"

"Elizabeth Arden 8-Hour Cream™. It was gone in like two days, tops."

I wish I could buy that Elizabeth Arden could somehow feel my pain, but at the end of the day, she's lounging on a satin chaise flipping through the latest Danielle Steele in fuzzy pink slippers, whereas I'm trudging in the door checking for the daily-posted sign in my lobby indicating whether or not our building will have hot water for the night. Were I as much of an 8-hour girl as she is, I'd likely have left work at 5pm to stroll over to the cosmetics counter at Bergdorf to obtain Elizabeth's infamous hickey removal concoction. But since I'm more along the lines of a 12-hour girl, I forgot all about it until around midnight when I stumbled upon my tin of Badger Balm™.

Every year in my Christmas stocking there appears a tin of obscure moisturizing salve. My mom -- or, excuse me, "Santa" -- puts it there with the subtle intent of letting me know that my hands are visibly cracking apart and bleeding all o'er the starched linen tablecloth. They are given to me under the guise of "gifts" as an alternative to sending me straight into therapy for my obsessive-compulsive hand-washing disorder. They come with names like Terra-Balm and Udder-Saver and Lizard-Scale-Repair. In short, they've worked wonders in the Equine world and have just recently been released to the public at large. In short, they are little more than a eucalyptus-scented mixture of candle-wax and petroleum jelly.

First I exfoliated my neck. Not sure what I was thinking there, since (a) under no circumstances are you ever supposed to exfoliate sensitive areas such as your neck, and (b) exfoliating strips off the outer layers and brings new ones to the surface -- again, not particularly something skin that's already displaying plenty of blood just below the surface needs a boost in. Then I applied the Badger Balm™ and its soothing mentholyptusosity (combined with my Healing Gardens™ ZZZTherapy, which will be discussed at a later date) sent me into a deep slumber.

When I awoke, the hickey was still there. Ever so slightly faded, but still clearly visible, and still unmistakably a hickey, hands down, despite the fact that the skin on my neck was as soft as a calf's recently Bag-Balmed udder. So I reached for the ol' sleeveless black turtleneck, affixed my low-ponytail, and set out on my proverbial walk of shame.

And by the time I was finishing off my second cup o' the day, the 8-hour Elizabeth Arden girls of the world were just beginning to remove their sleeping masks, glancing demurely at their reflections in their vanities before calling in sick and ordering a box of Krispy Cremes.