So Mikki had some people over yesterday for what I can only describe as a peer-pressure pseudo-science-o-rama. Two ladies came over with a bunch of makeup stuff and proceeded to hawk it on everyone else. They sat around trying stuff on and making repeated trips to the bathroom mirror, "explaining" how it "worked," and then making very sleezy-salesman-like arguments for why they've simply got to have it.

I used the whole thing as an excuse to cook for people, so I made more homemade pizzas. I gimped up the first one but the rest came out well.

Anyway, so this lady tried to get me involved with the disgusting sales whoring that was going on in my living room and told me that their company has a men's line too. Gave me a sample pack. I tried to take her to task on exactly what a "balancer" does but she didn't seem to understand my question. She told me it balances the pH of my skin. I asked how a single product could correct for possible swings in pH in both directions... thinking that one material cannot be an effective donor of hydrogen ions and hydroxies. No answer to that one. I asked what pH we were shooting for and she said 7.3. Actually she said "point three" which made me very leery of trying her product. But she corrected herself. When asked why 7.3, she indicated that "it's the most healthy."

Something about essential oils and waiting for my hydrating cream to dry up... The whole thing amused me in a sort of sick dirty way. For someone purporting to be selling products to help us all feel clean and pretty, the whole episode sure made me feel gross.

Anyway, after accepting the sample pack mostly to get this freakishly made-up woman out of my face, I distanced myself from the whole thing and just giggled from my kitchen. Mikki got a lot of stuff put onto her face. First she had something done to her eye that, and I swear I'm not exaggerating, really looked like she had a bruised eye. She asked me how it looked and I told her that she looked like someone had hit her in the eye. No one asksed my opinion from then on.

Now I don't really care for makeup in the first place; I find that truly beautiful people don't need it, and people who wear a lot of it just seem to be saying to me "don't look at the real me; it's ugly. here's some makeup - look at that instead." And I've never really been attracted to low self confidence. So even if the product all over someone's face improves their appearance, it is generally obvious and it reveals an underlying personality that I find depressing.

Perhaps makeup could be done subtly, but there certainly wasn't any of that going on last night. Wow. The scariest part, I think, is when they were testing out different techniques and combinations on either side of their faces, then walking around with these two different grotesque masks. It was surreal and disturbing and I couldn't sleep well.