Okay, I've finally hit bottom and now I have to admit: I'm powerless
over my addiction to beauty products. I buy them compulsively, use them
frequently, and yes, like many other women, I hoard them. But the real problem is that I eat them.
You name a product; it's a pretty safe bet that I've
tasted it. I’ve eaten everything from Clinique's Turnaround Cream to Tiger
Balm, Vick's Vap-O-Rub to Coppertone's Cocoa Tanning Butter - which I wouldn't
recommend, it left my tongue numb for over an hour. In the '70s, I would
literally drink Love's Roll-On
Kissing Gloss by popping the rolling ball out of the glass tube and sucking out
the gloppy gloss. To me, it was better than ambrosia! I've tried every flavor- I mean, scent- of Victoria's Secret Luxurious Hand and Body Cream, my favorites
being Whispering Mist, and of course, that divinely edible Pear Glace. I use
that one up so fast that I've actually cut open the tubes with a scissors so I
can lick out the hard-to-get remnants when the container is virtually empty.
Once, at a raging
party in Austin, Texas, I became instantaneously infamous for eating an entire
package of jalapeno potato chips using Noxema as a dip. Frantic revelers tried
to stop me, erroneously thinking I'd crossed the line of sanity (not to mention
socially acceptable behavior) and was doing something I'd surely regret, if not
in the morning, then when I'd sobered up. WRONG! What those good Samaritans
failed to realize was that I knew exactly
what I was doing. The plain fact is a
jar of Noxzema is the perfect pairing
for jalapeno potato chips. It’s cool refreshing minty taste was just
what those hotter-then-hell morsels needed!
Of course, like most glamour queens, I've made jokes about
the ridiculous amount of make-ups, lotions, masques, exfoliating scrubs, and
other treatments I use on a regular basis. I used tell people I got my
signature look by mainlining liquid eyeliner.
But I really don't know anyone else who eats the stuff, and
though I wouldn't recommend this unique and highly personal habit - maybe I
should say fetish - to others, I can honestly say that it hasn't hurt me in
the slightest.
This was a dark, shameful skeleton in my closet...er,
medicine chest...I was so focused on beauty products that even the mention of
them sends my pulse racing. I mean, my favorite line in the film Silence of the Lambs is when the serial
killer bellows,
"It puts the lotion in the basket!"
Recently, I had to admit that I was powerless over my
addiction, the first step towards healing. I wanted to come clean, get it out
in the open,and decided to put my cards on the (vanity) table and be upfront
about everything. The man in my life uses a Japanese hair pomade stick called
Tancho, with an utterly intoxicating lavender scent. Not only am I obsessed with him, the smell of his hair
drives me bonkers. In moments of high passion, I'd take a quick sniff behind
his ear and be driven into a frenzy of desire.
Soon, having located the source of my pleasure in his
bathroom, I'd lock myself in, grab the Tancho, and hold it under my nose,
inhaling its heavenly aroma. A few days of that and it just wasn't enough. I
began actually wiping it on the end of my nose so I could smell it all day. In a dizzy downwards spiral, it
was just a matter of time until I began eating
Tancho, furtively scraping the waxy substance off the top of the stick, taking
great care and making sure to smooth the
surface so my boyfriend wouldn't catch on to the fact that I was devouring his
hair pomade.
Alas, one day, I was caught in the act.
Incredulous, he
demanded to know what I was doing. In a scenario almost identical to the one at
the party in Austin. I tried to explain
that for ages I'd been eating all manner of beauty products, but he looked at
me dubiously, with a mixture of pity and suspicion, the way you'd regard any
common street junkie.
Trying to sound rational yet no doubt appearing completely
insane, I gave him the history of my cosmetic consuming obsession, which dates
back to early childhood, I guess it all started when I was about eleven years
old. My family lived in New England, where the winters are brutal and chapped
lips are a problem. Ever vigilant, my mother armed us all with Chapstick. What
she didn't realize, however, was that Chapstick freezes in your pocket when
you're out all day sledding and making snow forts. The paraffin becomes so cold
and stiff it actually does nothing to prevent your lips from becoming more
chapped and cracked. At that point, I hadn't realized that either. So one day,
when I lost my Chapstick and told my mom, she replaced it with Sea & Ski
Lip Balm, in Orange Mint. Now, Chapstick, in those days, wasn't flavored, so
not only was the Sea & Ski Orange Mint a pleasant novelty, but it had a
different, softer, slicker formula - it didn't freeze. It remained soft, even
in sub-zero weather.
I'd slather the delectable stuff on my lips, all satiny smooth, and it would smell and taste so
good, I'd eat it right off. It got to
the point that I'd be caking in on really thick just to taste it, then scraping
it off my lips with my teeth.
Needless to say, the condition of my chapped lips wasn't
improving. If anything, it was getting worse. One day, I just cut to the chase,
rolled the entire contents up and began sucking on it like a lollipop. This was
so unbearably satisfying, that unable to contain myself, I took a bite. In a
matter of euphoric seconds, I'd gobbled up the entire thing. Of course, I
needed more. That night at dinner, I blatantly lied to my mother and told her
I'd lost my Sea & Ski. On her next trip to the grocery store, she replaced
it....with Chapstick!
"But M-o-o-o-o-m," I wailed, my disappointment
barely concealed, my uncontrollable urges starting to surface, "I need Sea
& Ski!"
Clueless to my by-now burgeoning addiction, she replied with
the practicality only a mother can muster, "They're all the same."
End of subject.
Ever crafty, I waited what I thought was a decent number of
days, jonesing the whole time, until I thought the incident would be forgotten.
I once again told her I'd lost my Chapstick, pointedly asking for Sea &
Ski. Still oblivious to my growing needs, she replaced my "lost" lip
balm with- shudder to think - more flavorless, hard, dull, boring, ugly old
Chapstick.
Realizing that to argue would be utterly pointless, I asked
for an advance on my allowance, which was the pricey sum of a quarter a week. I
figured, quite rationally, that I'd just buy the Sea & Ski myself. What I
didn't realize until I stopped at the pharmacy on my way home from school was
that Sea & Ski was twenty-nine cents a tube, a full four cents more than my
weekly allowance. Confronted with the horrible reality of the situation, up
against a wall, I made the split-second decision to take the Sea & Ski, my first foray into shoplifting.
Well, I got away with my petty crime, and got an adrenaline
rush from the danger in the act of stealing. Like most junkies, I entered the
world of larceny to feed my habit. I stole all the Sea & Ski that the
pharmacy had in stock, then began accompanying my mother on her weekly trips to
the Grand Union or Stop'N'Shop to steal more. Clearly, I was enslaved to my
habit, eating the stuff in the bed at night, slipping into the girl's room at
school to take a discreet bite between my fifth grade classes. I was out of
control, but the sheer magnitude of the situation didn't hit me until, in one
colossal embarrassing incident, I hit bottom.
My mother had sent me
and my two little sisters (twins, four years younger) to the Palace Theater to
see Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet.
Barely twelve, I nevertheless had a handle about what was going on in the
movie, but my sisters had no idea. They'd been disrupting everyone around us
by asking multiple questions in rather loud voices. It was getting towards the
movie's dramatic climax, when Juliet comes back to life inside the Capulet tomb
and sees her beloved Romeo dead, lying on the floor. The entire theater was
weeping unison.
"WHY IS EVERYONE CRYING?" my sister Meghan
practically yelled, as half the theater turned to glare at us in annoyance.
"Because it's sad,"
I hissed. "Now shut up!"
"WHAT'S JULIET DOING WITH THAT KNIFE?" Meghan
asked urgently, her voice rising with hysteria, desperate to know what was
going on.
"Just be quiet!" I pleaded through gritted teeth.
"I'll tell you later!"
Convinced (and rightly so) that most of the patrons were
about to band together to lynch us, I decided to de-stress by getting a calming fix of Sea & Ski. Alas, my
container was nearly empty. I could see that there was a little bit down at the
bottom, and tried to wedge my pinky down into the tribe to scrape it out, but
my finger wouldn't fit. Hit with a moment of inspiration, I took a bobby pin
from my hair and proceeded to use it as a tool to get the rest out. Since she
couldn't understand the movie, my sister took an instant interest in my furtive
actions.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"Nothing!" I stammered, horrified at being caught.
"WHAT IS THAT?" Meghan asked loudly, as nine more
sobbing people turned look at us in outrage.
"It's Sea & Ski," I whispered, hoping beyond
hope that my answer would placate her.
"OH...YOU EAT IT WITH A BOBBY PIN?!?" she
screamed.
Mortified, I slunk as far down into my seat as I could go.
To this day, I have no idea if she was astutely trying frame me, or if she really thought that was what you did with lip
balm - eat it with a boggy pin while watching a sad movie. I was so awash in
abject humiliation that I don't even remember leaving the theater that night,
or if Meghan tattled on me. I do know that the Romeo and Juliet incident didn't even put a dent in my habit, it
simply continued.
My boyfriend took this story in stride, and, in fact, I was
under the mistaken impression that he'd forgotten all about it, until a year
later. We were at a seafood restaurant with some friends and he was ordering
oysters, trying to get me to indulge
along with him.
"NO WAY!" I proclaimed, wrinkling my nose in
distaste.
"Come on," he cajoled, "Oysters are an
aphrodisiac!"
"Oysters are like snot!" I cried. "The only
reason they're considered an aphrodisiac is because if you eat them, you'd eat anything!"
For a moment, he regarded me harshly, then said,
"Oh
yeah, you won't eat oysters, but you'll eat lip balm and hand lotion and hair
wax!"
He went on to regale
the entire table with a list of all the beauty products I've consumed. Needless
to say, the burning shame I felt in the darkened movie theater visited itself
upon me once again.
Well, by now, I guess you could say that I've come to terms
with my addiction. I try not to eat every cream, massage oil, or facial
emollient I come into contact with. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
But even if I try just a little dollop, I still don't wolf down the whole jar,
and I don't beat myself up about it. I talk about my problem, it's no longer a
dark secret I keep to myself.
I just take it one day at a time, you know?
##
The story you’ve just
read is from my book, Escape from Houdini Mountain.
Purchase it here on Kindle:
My latest book, Showgirl Confidential: My Life Onstage,
Backstage And On The Road is available here:
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