beauty blooper

A couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed a relaxing essential-oil head massage. "You should really keep the oils on your hair for at least an hour," my esthetician said. Fortunately, I had worn a vintage scarf that day, and so I MacGyvered a do-rag out of it for the bus ride home. Yeah, I looked like Baba Yaga, but that's the price you pay for beauty.

Back home, when it was time to shower, I had a bout of craziness. "Wouldn't it be great," I thought, "if rinsing the oils out and not shampooing turns out to be really beautiful and healthy for your hair?" I won't lie; I had goals of making some huge hair discovery and sharing it with all of you. So I rinsed my hair thoroughly, then hit the blow-dryer. Success! My hair was shiny, smooth, and lovely.

I left for Sugar HQ the next day happily, showing the world my Breck-girl hair. All was well until mid-afternoon, when I finally looked in the mirror. Horrifyingly, the bouncy hair of the morning had mutated into a greasy, slick mess. You know the creepy girl in The Ring? Yeah, like that. And as the day went on, I worried that OPEC was going to lay claim to my scalp. I think it's safe to say that things didn't go as planned.

Lesson learned: As it turns out, shampoo exists for a reason.

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This is one for the books. The other day I was walking home from a Starbucks run when I felt something cold and wet fly into my eye — correction, onto my eye. I was multitasking (talking on the phone and drinking) when a tiny little bug landed on my blue Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner that I just opened that very morning.

I hung up the phone, put down the coffee and peeled the fly from my eye, killing the fragile insect at the same time — gross.

Lesson Learned: Gel eye liners, cream shadows, and sticky lip glosses are traps for bugs. For anyone going camping this Summer, I suggest leaving these beauty products at home where they belong.

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Last night, some of the Sugar girls and I went out to celebrate a friend's birthday. It was a low-key affair, so I threw on a simple black sweater but decided to be a little more creative with my hair. I was experimenting with an updo with one of my new favorite products, Shu Uemura's Shape Paste, a fantastic sculpting paste that creates a workable hold. But as I found out that day, a little goes a long way. After several applications my hair looked wet, as if I had just stepped out of the shower.

I didn't have time to wash the product out, but luckily I remembered that I had some hair powder from Bumble and Bumble that would reverse the damage I had done. Since the powder I have is tinted white, I decided to spray a minimal amount and wear my hair down. When I left the house I thought my hair looked great. Unfortunately, I was at dinner when I noticed the white powder had crystallized and fallen on my shoulders, creating the illusion of bad dandruff. Not very appetizing.

Lesson learned: Next time I try out a new hairstyle, I'm going to make sure that I have enough prep time to accommodate for any disasters. Ideally it would be best to work out the kinks the night before.

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A girlfriend of mine just got back from a Southern destination wedding where she booked an afternoon massage before the event. She arrived early to the spa to take full advantage of the steam room and sauna. She was also pleased to see that the girls-only quiet room had a nice, big jacuzzi.

Seeing as she still had some time to kill before her treatment, she jumped right into the warm water without thinking twice. She sat there, enjoying this bliss, until panic set in. Just a few minutes ago she was alone, and suddenly the room was filling with the bridal party and mother of the bride who were there for pre-wedding beauty appointments. No big deal — except for the fact that my friend was in the hot tub completely naked.

She began to worry how she was going to get out of the hot tub since her towel was far away on a chaise. It was one thing for a stranger to see her naked, but for the bridesmaids and mother of the bride? Even worse, the women that were getting ready to join her had come wearing bathing suits. It never occurred to my friend to wear a bathing suit to a spa before! She wound up asking someone for a towel and then slithering out, covering herself in the process — all the while feeling embarrassed that she had been caught commando.

Lesson learned: Only go naked to a spa or gym if you can handle being seen by others. Also, this story makes me wonder: Do you wear bathing suits to steam rooms, saunas and hot tubs at spas?

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It's been some time since we've had a Beauty Blooper, but reader missy k is getting us back into the swing of things with a mishap from this past weekend. I'll let her explain:

"On Friday I had a lunchtime meeting in this trendy bar called Cocoon. I was a bit early so I decided to have a browse around the shops. To my delight, I happened upon some of my favorite DuWop Lip Venom. I grabbed the sample and liberally smeared it on, feeling the familiar tingle. Blimey this stuff really does sting, but I just love how it makes my lips feel like they’ve been Angelina’d!

"So I arrived at my meeting, feeling all bee-stung. Everything was going swimmingly until I suffered a sudden sneezing fit. Hoping I wasn’t allergic to watermelon martini, I rather unglamorously blew my nose on a napkin. In the process, I managed to smear Venom all over my chin. I quickly wiped it off but a couple of minutes later began to feel a worrisome heat creep over the area. I excused myself to the little girl’s room and to my horror, I found that my chin was covered in raised red welts! Luckily the people I was meeting with saw the funny side but still, it was pretty embarrassing. I will be more careful with Venom next time! Maybe it should carry some kind of warning!"

Lesson Learned: I wouldn't usually think to test out a lip balm or gloss on the inside of my wrist, but it sounds like that might be a good idea if the product has any wacky ingredients in it.

To submit a beauty blooper of your own, become a TeamSugar member and then send me a private message. (If you want, your story can be anonymous.)

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A few years ago I was en route to my new boyfriend's house for a dinner date when I noticed that my red nail polish was beginning to chip. I knew that it would soon become an unsightly disaster, so I decided to avoid any future embarrassment by purchasing some nail polish remover before my arrival. I'm not sure why I had to be so dramatic about the whole thing, but I stopped in to use the bathroom at a restaurant around the corner to clean things up.

Unfortunately, what I uncovered was far worse than chipped nails. A week earlier, I had been on a tropical vacation, and apparently the mixture of sun, SPF and polish had turned my nail beds an unnatural shade of yellow. My nails were the jaundiced shade of a longtime smoker's teeth, and all night long I did my best to keep them hidden. It took about a month for the color to return to normal, so I only wish that I had done something to prevent this whole mess when I was on vacation.

Lesson learned: Be sure to use a good base coat when wearing red nail polish, and always protect your nails when you are going to have excessive exposure in the sun. Try a product like Orly Sunscreen For Nails which is a topcoat that contains SPF, or if it's too late and you need to reverse the damage, Yello-Out Clear Acrylic Top Coat ($7) should do the trick.

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