I’ll start.
This isn’t about the time I was locked in a room without my tube of lip balm and swiped a pat of salted butter on my lips. Nor is it about the time that Taylor Swift used a Sharpie as eyeliner in an airplane bathroom. That’s her story to tell, not mine.
My story starts with a bottle of custom shampoo from one of those companies with really good targeted ads. The bottle I had was petering out, and its replacement wasn’t due to arrive for another week. Daily, I feared I would reach the last drop. When it finally happened I panicked.
What other cleansing agents did I have within arm’s reach? There was a Dove bar—but aren’t those things, like, a quarter moisturizer? I could use my Summer Fridays face wash, but I swore to only use tiny, chase amounts in an attempt to ration it. There was one other facial cleanser I thought might do the trick, and I had no emotional connection to it. Pulling it into my filth chamber with me, I examined the ingredient list. The first ingredient was sweet almond oil. What the hell! Why do I have so much crap, and why can none of it approximate shampoo? You’d think someone in the beauty-adjacent population would have vaults full of that stuff just showing up at my door.
I peeked under the bathroom sink, initially to see if my tub of Oxiclean had any warnings against using it to wash hair. That’s when I saw it—Orson’s dog shampoo. Burt’s Bees for Dogs Oatmeal Shampoo, to be exact. “Well, if it’s good enough for him…” I trailed off, lying. Experientially, it wasn’t all that different from human shampoo. Or even horse shampoo, given my history with Mane ‘n Tail. Maybe we’re more alike than we think? [Note: Orson is doing fine, by the way! He says, “BORK!”]
I lathered and rinsed. A few hours later, after my hair had air dried, I caught a glimpse of myself the mirror. All two inches of it were matted like a monkey, and it was somehow greasier than before? I looked for a can of dry shampoo. No luck, of course. I searched the rest of my apartment. Among the things I considered:
Flour
Cornstarch
The sediment at the bottom of the quinoa jar
The sediment at the bottom of the Shredded Wheat bag
I eventually decided upon hand sanitizer. It dries my hands out, so why not my hair? I parted my hair and sprayed it on the roots. It stung. Dear reader, if you take one thing away from this story, let it be that a quick spray of rubbing alcohol on greasy hair is a great life hack when you want hair that is both brittle and oily.
I went to bed with a bandana tied on my head, like Hulk Hogan, to protect my pillowcases from myself. The next morning, my errands went like this: feed the dog, walk the dog, buy human shampoo. Those are my inner demons. Now, it’s your turn to share yours.
—Or Gotham
Photo via ITG