I pride myself on not being a squeamish, dithering, idiot girl. Except when it comes to needles and bats. Then my stupid kicks in and whilst I know I am being pathetic I can\u2019t help myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can run after a dog in high heels, been there done that, now it is flats only but I still run. My list of \u2018can-do\u2019 is a long one and I pride myself in the fact that I am mightier than most woman of my age but there was this one thing that really destroyed my me for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think it was in 2003 when the art of eyebrow, lip and eyeliner tattoos just took off. Now my eyebrows have always been very faint and when my beauty therapist excitedly told me about this awesome offer that their salon would do for ONE DAY ONLY, I did a Yvette and booked myself for everything. The whole bang ska doodle. Lips, brows and eyeliner. What could be better than getting up in the morning and looking like a model? I have always been a balls-to-the-walls girl, go big or go home. I even paid everything in advance. The bookings were made for the next Saturday and excitement was high as the therapist that would be doing it was an EXPERT from America. America, where everything is big and good so I gave the process no further thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Come Saturday I arrive at the salon which was situated in a local shopping center early for my appointment as I am just so eager. I am introduced to a skinny middle aged guy dressed like a teenager and I am told he is going to sculpt my face for me. First of all, I am rather taken aback. A man, dressed like a child, thin as a rake and not much to look at is going to make me pretty? I had questions but the next information threw me off my perch as the salon had decided to put the entire procedure on display in the window of the salon so all the people walking past could see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WTF?! No. Just no. I firmly stated that I would not consent to this and thanks God I did. What followed was the most harrowing moments of my entire life, not even child birth came close. The bed changed position and was moved to the back of the salon under the best light available. Seeing that I didn\u2019t want it done in the window the lighting had become a problem. I couldn\u2019t care. There will be no window even if you had to have a torch strapped to your head. So, our relationship started off on a rocky front. The guy was a little tight lipped and I was very tight everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He starts by informing me that he was going to put a numbing cream on my lips. Then he would wait 10 minutes and start the procedure. Nothing rang any bells. I just lay there like a sheep going to slaughter, not thinking about how or why. After 10 minutes he informed me that he was starting. I was told to keep still and not move. I heard a humming sound and he started on my bottom lip, left side. After about 5 minutes I could feel that this was not going to be without pain. After 10 minutes it felt like he had hardly moved on from the spot where he started. I think my eyes started to go quite big at this stage as he kept looking at me. Twenty minutes in and I felt like a swarm of bees had stung my bottom lip. My eyes started watering and I could feel everything in me going tight. \u201cKeep still\u201d is all he kept on saying. \u201cFuck\u201d I thought \u201cI am going to die\u201d. I thought I had controlled myself well but when he reached the middle of my bottom lip he looked at me with narrowing eyes and whispered: \u201cYou better keep still or I am going to tattoo your face..!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTattoo?! What tattoo?\u201d I thought. I waved him down and with a sigh he stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou are \u2018tattooing\u2019 my lips?!\u201d I whispered incredulously with one sagging, half lined bottom lip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYesses\u201d he said. \u201cHow else am I going to do it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWTF! I am out of here\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, I would first look at what I look like before I make that decision\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I grab the mirror and look at myself. I look like Quasimodo\u2019s aunty. My bottom lip is bleeding, hanging and swollen. My nose is running and my eyes are watering. I have red blotches all over my neck and face from being upset. This is not the picture I had in mind when I paid for my makeover from America. What now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had no choice but to let him continue. I tell you without any lies that I endured a few hours of hell but those last few minutes were ugly. It got to the point where he was nearly lying on me to keep me still. I had dehydrated from crying so much that the towel under my head was wet with my years. I think I squeaked and moaned and groaned. Lying on the bed in the back of the salon had also not helped business. All the eager beavers that arrived, like me, starry eyed and ready for the big change had left. There was no way they were going to put themselves through this pain for any better eyebrows or lips. By the end of our wrestling match the poor man put his tattoo thingies down and quietly said:\u2019 You can now put your legs down\u201d. His hands were shaking and to my surprise I found that my legs had been straight up in the air, for how long I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I immediately got up from that bed and informed him that he can keep the money for the eye liner and brows. I was not going to stay there one minute longer. He sighed with relief and said:\u2019 I am going to go outside for a smoke. Please don\u2019t come back.\u201d Later I learnt that he had quit smoking a year before this incident. Obviously, my lips drove him to start again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My misery didn\u2019t stop there. Noooo. My lips went into revolt for all the pain and suffering that I caused them. They were so swollen for three days that they burst the skin and then that skin started peeling. One week after the process I was still sucking my dinner through a straw. Customers at work would stare at my mouth in a fascinating, not in a good way manner, mentally not processing anything that I was saying and asking me to repeat myself whilst staring at my lips in a fascinated way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was it worth it? Well as I lie here writing this my lips have no signs of being outlined by a skinny tattoo artist masquerading as a beauty therapist that had just come from AMERICA. No. Just no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would also say it was pure folly on my part. Just use lipstick, people. Or squash some berries and paint your lips with that. Better still, use your child\u2019s water-based paint. Take what God gave you and don\u2019t try to tattoo it. It is not worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I pride myself on not being a squeamish, dithering, idiot girl. Except when it comes to needles and bats. Then my stupid kicks in and whilst I know I am being pathetic I can\u2019t help myself. I can run after a dog in high heels, been there done that, now it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yesterdays"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}