Making Faces
The first time I got cosmetic injections, my eyebrows drooped down my forehead until I looked like a cave woman. Apparently the dermatologist had injected the wrong muscle group. My coworkers elected a spokesperson to tell me to never do it again. They called me “angry eyes.” I even had to have my company-ID photograph reshot. When I went back to the doctor, he told me I was going to have to wear sunglasses for a month, until the effects wore off.
Cyndy Celmer
Jacksonville, Florida

My eyelash curler got misaligned somehow. Instead of curling my lashes, it chopped them off like a guillotine! The little stubs looked ridiculous for weeks as the lashes slowly grew back.
Ashley Petry
Indianapolis, Indiana

I was going out and my eyebrows were in desperate need of shaping. There wasn’t enough time to make an appointment, so I had to do them myself. I decided to try out a new waxing treatment, one that uses cloth strips. I didn’t count on the wax spreading when I applied the cloth and basically removed a vertical strip of hair at the center of my brow. Fortunately, I have a wonderful husband who always makes me feel beautiful, even when he can’t catch his breath from laughing.
Nicole Anderson
Danvers, Massachusetts

My wedding was an extreme beauty disaster. My hairstylist and makeup artist liked to dress in drag, and he just assumed I would need all the makeup he did. My mother and sister watched in horror but couldn’t say a word; my three-year-old niece was inconsolable. Yes, my makeup job made me look like a character out of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video: gray lines for cheekbones, white powder all over my face, etc. So I washed my face and applied my own makeup before the ceremony.
Sally Kokernak Millwood
Milton, Massachusetts

In the 1970s, I attended a play with a friend. The play was a tragedy, and I cried my eyes out with no hankie or tissue. Afterward, my friend and I went out for drinks and supper and had a good time. It was only later, when I arrived home, that I saw that my black mascara was streaked down my cheeks in watery smudges, like Pierrot. Apparently, it had been that way for hours. My mom was right: Always carry a hankie.
Lynne Day
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota

Prior to a presentation at work, I had a dentist’s appointment. He had to do a filling, and my mouth was numbed. Rushing from the dentist’s office to work, I quickly applied lipstick in the car. When your mouth is anesthetized, you can’t feel where your lips end, so I wound up with lipstick smeared all around my mouth. Fortunately, I caught the mistake before delivering my presentation.
Page Lee
Chicago, Illinois

I was 16 and dangerously armed with a magnifying mirror and a pair of tweezers. The next thing I knew, I had tweezed my eyebrows almost into nonexistence. All I had left were inch-long pencil-thin brows and a look of perpetual surprise. I still remember my mother trying not to laugh when she saw the brow massacre.
Justine Sherry
Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey

Natural Disasters
When I was 17, I put cucumber slices on my eyelids to reduce puffiness. Apparently, I had an allergy to cucumbers, because my eyes swelled shut. Cold compresses got the swelling down a bit, but I still had to wear sunglasses to the rock concert I went to that night. My friends teased me endlessly.
Cheyenne Hornburg
Austin, Texas

Back in the 80s, I read about the benefits of putting raw egg in your hair as a conditioner. My best friend and I thought it would be even better if we let the egg get warm and really soak in. So we sat out in the summer sun, massaging the goo into our scalps. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. We combed scrambled egg out of our hair for a week. Maybe we should have added hot sauce?
Elaine Adams
Denver, Colorado