he said, she said

i have never worn fake nails, hair, boobs, or anything else for that matter. it’s just not me. i would forget that i was wearing these unnatural extensions of myself, and an acrylic tip would get stuck in my nostril, or my artificial DDs would get caught in the volleyball net. i can’t even wear eye makeup without smudging it because i forget i have it on and i rub my eyes.

but there are plenty of high-maintenance girls who are always camera-ready with hair (and extensions) perfectly coiffed and makeup perfectly applied. and when i say “high-maintainance”, i mean it literally — they spend $200/month to maintain their hair style and highlights and $50/month to maintain (fill) their acrylic nails. but that’s just not me! mostly because i’m lazy, i don’t spend more than a few seconds on my everyday look — that’s about how long it takes me to put my sunglasses (my favorite hair accessory) on my head, in headband-like fashion. but for my wedding day, i wanna be a high-maintainance girl! there will be cameras everywhere, so i need to be camera-ready all day long, right? but do i need to hire a $100 makeup artist to make me look pretty? i figure i can apply my own makeup, maybe with the help of an experienced friend or two.

but here’s the real issue. i don’t really have any eyelashes to speak of. my brother got all the beautiful genes in our family, down to the long, naturally curled eyelashes. yes, the BOY in the family got the beautiful eyelashes. what kind of sick irony is that?! life is unfair. but lucky for me, i can fake it.

when i first considered fake eyelashes, my thought was: no way! i don’t want to look like a cheap hooker! but almost every bride i’ve known has worn false eyelashes on her wedding day. the girls have ranged from the high-maintenance type who were accustomed to wearing make-up and looking perfect all the time to the no-maintance type who were unfamiliar with brushes and sponges and blotting techniques. but they all looked beautiful on their wedding days and in wedding photographs!

so, after talking it over with some former fake-eyelash brides, my mother (a former professional beautician), and margo (my potential wedding day makeup artist), i decided to buy some false eyelashes and experiment with them. my plan was to wear them around the house this weekend and see how mike reacted when/if he noticed. if he really hated them, i would nix the fake eyelash idea. but i figured that once he got used to it, the sexy dramatic look would win him over. i even planned to post before-and-after photos and solicit opinions from you! project fake eyelash was born.

but i couldn’t wait til the weekend to try em out! so, this morning, project fake eyelash was set in motion. i removed the fake eyelash from the packaging and applyed a thin layer of special adhesive with a q-tip. apparently, i didn’t use enough glue, or maybe i took too long, cuz the glue dried up and the eyelash strip wouldn’t stick to my eyelid. so i applied more glue and tried again. this time, the fake eyelashes stuck, but it stuck to my eyeLASHES! — not my eyeLIDS! i hurried to remove it to avoid ripping out my real eyelashes. ok, third time’s a charm, right? i applied more glue, and this time, i was determined to make sure the fake eyelashes stuck to my lid. i was successful with the center portion, but the ends were sticking out and they poked my eyeball when i blinked. so i pulled em off and trimmed the width. attempt #4: i applied more glue and pressed the eyelashes to my eyelids the best i could. they stuck alright, but they were about 3mm above my natural eyelashes! the four layers of glue formed white clumps at the base of my lashes, and my eye was stinging and watering from some glue that must have gotten in it! aaack! i looked like tammy faye baker on crack! but i left it. it was the best that i could do =P

i decided to leave one eye au naturel, for comparison’s sake. mike would be home in about six hours, so that was perfect. i wanted to see how (un)comfortable i would be wearing the lashes all day, and i also wanted to see how long they would stay on.

i didn’t last five minutes. my eye was still stinging, the ends were coming loose and poking my eyeball… it was awful! so i ripped off the fake eyelash. i still have clumps of glue on my eyelid and eyelashes. i’m afraid to be too aggressive in washing/scraping off the clumps because i don’t want to remove any of my five real eyelash hairs in the process!

so uhhh, i’ve learned one thing for sure. i’m either going to have to forgo the eyelashes, or hire the makeup artist. there is NO WAY that i have the skills to do it myself. have you (or anyone you know) worn fake eyelashes? what do you think of the look?

when i heard that christi was considering getting fake eyelashes for the wedding, i cringed.  fake eyelashes??  ewwwwwww.

it turns out that most of my friends who got married had them and i didn’t notice.  i guess it’s ok if i don’t notice.  but when i read christi’s eyelash adventure it reminded me of an adventure of my own.

it was a long time ago.  i felt like i had been in a rut and i needed change.  the change was a brand new wardrobe and a new haircut.  i went to this asian salon and asked the guy to give me a new haircut.  back then, i had a part on the side and looked like any other good japanese boy.  after the haircut, i had short spiky hair.  beyond that, the stylist recommended color.  so i shrugged my shoulders and let them do it.  i had a brownish-gold dye.  the dye burned while it sat on my head and when i was in done, i was a little mortified at how i looked.

faking it?  oh yeah, i was!  when i got back my family was appalled and my friends were pretty shocked too.

because i had such short hair, it was only a matter of weeks before my hair grew out and i had to decide what to do.  not wanting to spend several hundreds of dollars every couple of weeks, i decided that i would try to color my own hair.  i had seen it done before, so it couldn’t be THAT hard, could it?

so i went and bought all of the necessary items and started at it.  the dye burned again, but i knew that that was normal.  after i had rinsed off, what i had not anticipated was that the dye also dyed my skin.  i wasn’t very careful about where i had applied it and it looked like my skin around my head was all dark brown!  needless to say i was embarrassed and it was a while before it had faded away and washed off my skin.

i have never since considered coloring my hair by myself.  i’ll leave it up to the professionals if i ever want to do it again.