When my ugly husband lost face in bathroom beauty product raid
- Hoping to improve his looks, the writer’s husband sneaks into the bathroom to copy her facial skincare routine
- To her delight, he tries one of her facial scrubs that tears his skin off
It’s day four of our staycation and in an effort to feel less fat and ugly, Daddy has decided that he only has two options:
1. To stop eating confectionery, go back on the weights, go running, cut down on calories, and drink three litres of diet water a day.
2. To fake a Zoom conference, lock himself in the bathroom for an hour, and steal some of my beauty creams and potions.
So, once the bathroom door is securely locked, Daddy sits on the toilet, finishes off his cupcake, sneaks over to the mirror cabinet on my side of the sink and does his best to noiselessly open it with the concentration of a bomb disposal expert. A bottle of TCP falls out and smashes on the bathroom floor, immediately alerting me to his subterfuge. I creep to the other side of the bathroom door, just in time to hear Daddy wince as he steps barefoot on a shard of broken glass. He limps back to the cabinet.
The horror – and humour – of my husband’s huge ugly feet
There before him twinkle 1,000 bottles and 1,000 promises. Daddy is under no illusion there are also several hundred grotesque exaggerations, and a couple of outright lies. Daddy just needs to find something that will make his complexion look less like a bucket of smashed crabs.
“OK, the internet says you need scrub first, then toner, then moisturiser, then eye cream,” Daddy gives himself a talking to.
“Hang on! Toner? Isn’t that’s something you put into photocopiers and printers? Forget the toner! You need a scrub and then a moisturiser. The best moisturisers will be huge on the outside but when you remove the lid you will see that the vast majority of the product is just packaging,” Daddy wisely counsels himself.
Rifling through my various tubs, tubes, lotions and potions, Daddy spots an exfoliating scrub. It looks innocent enough in its soft and chubby tube. A little picture of an apricot, or a peach, or one of Donald Trump’s jowls, is plastered on the front.
‘LOOK VISIBLY YOUNGER!’ promises the scrub. Daddy double checks the bathroom door is securely locked before whipping off the top. He wets his face and splurges a decent handful into his palm. Vigorously, he rubs this precious youth paste into his craggy face before realising, “HOLY SH*TBISCUITS! IT’S LIQUID SANDPAPER!”
Within seconds, this evil hummus has foamed up, flayed the skin from Daddy’s face and embedded itself, like grout, into his eyes. Blinded, Daddy staggers around the bathroom groping for taps.
“You’ve used too much!” Daddy derides his measurements. “Aargghhhh! It burns!”
“Are you OK?” I purr on the other side of the door, my voice a practised cliché of wifely concern. We’ve been married for seven years. And yet Daddy still thinks he has a mind of his own – and that I have no idea he uses my beauty products.
“Yes! Aargghhhh! Yes! I’m fine! I just – aargghhhh – stubbed my toe!” Daddy fibs.
“Are you sure?” I murmur, oozing empathy.
“Yes, yes, quite sure. You just put your feet up, Mummy!” And miss the bathroom cabaret? Not likely.
“Aaaaarghhhh!” Daddy repeats.
“Then why do you sound like a pirate, Daddy?”
“No, no, everything’s peachy!”
By ‘peachy’, Daddy is specifically referring to the rock hard stone part of the peach, which has been smashed into razor shards with a sledgehammer and then boiled with acid.
“You’re not using my beauty products again, are you, Daddy?”
“What beauty products? I don’t need them! I mean ... you don’t need them. Look, just don’t come in! Aaaaarggh!”
“OK, ’fess up, Pugwash! What have you used this time?”
“The beige muck that burns your face off?”
“That doesn’t really narrow it down.”
“The duck pate with the shards of gravel in it? Aaaaaarggh!”
“Can I come in?”
“Look, I’ve accidentally used liquid cheese grater on my face, but I’m fine!” Through the keyhole, I see Daddy open one eye a crack and squint at his reflection in the mirror. He looks like the end of a specialist porn film. “Don’t come in! It’s best you don’t see me like this! Ever!”
“OK, if you’re sure. I’ll be in the living room in case you need me!” I promise, clomping away, before scurrying back soundlessly.
In the bathroom, I hear Daddy exhale in relief. “Right, I need expensive moisturiser. That should help cool the lava down!” Daddy reaffirms his quest. “So find the heaviest, most expensive piece of glass you can see!”
He sees it almost immediately, shining like the statue in Indiana Jones. My Precious: a tiny capsule of white cream nestled in packaging the size of a pub ashtray. “This is what I’ve been searching for!” Daddy cackles maniacally. “The elixir of youth! Time-machine cream! My very own DeLorean!” The tube makes a loud fart noise as Daddy grabs a greedy handful. It stinks of cucumber and daisies.
He’s about to apply it over the scrub when I unlock the door from the other side and catch him standing there, red-faced.
“Got you!”
“‘LOOK VISIBLY YOUNGER’ the scrub promised!” Daddy howls.
“Confused? Naked? Bawling and covered in gunk? You have to concede, Daddy, you do look a bit like a newborn.”
