Last night, while I was watching a Golden Eagle on the telly, my fingers instinctively reached up to my chin. I didn’t need to scratch, nor was I suddenly aware of a bit of errant tomato landed there; my digits found a warm, pulsating shiny-feeling lump under the dermis; a burgeoning zit.
How did my fingers know that? No matter how, they’d led me to he motherlode. And I went through all the stages of spot-grief; denial (it may be a bite?), anger (oh for God’s sake, why, you bloody thing?) To acceptance (I’ll put something on it in a bit).
At 36, it is not befitting to get spots and it’s even more excruciating if you spend your day surrounded by teenagers, scrutinsing every inch of you in favour of actually listening to what you have to say about Wilfred Owen or complex sentence formation. In utopia, spots would bring us together, but they rarely do. You spend the whole day thinking that the blushing beacon on your face is the subject of every adolescent quip and aside. It’s a jungle. So here’s how I deal.
Firstly, don’t use the ironically named concealer. I know all the stuff about ‘leaving the area to breathe’, but ultimately, foundation or base just gathers around the base of a zit, clustered like druids around a monument, highlighting the big white head that forms stealthily at the centre. Don’t try and make it a beauty spot using eyepencil either, for the very same reason. Instead, adopt a series of increasingly mannered facial contortions and use your eyebrows animatedly to try and draw off face-perverts. If anyone appears to be looking too closely or too long at a particular hot zone, redouble your efforts. The thought of the spot on your face will soon be replaced with our about your sanity. And that is far easier to manage than spot fixation.
So far today, this technique has proved effective, but I fear that I may have merely angered the ‘red one’ and must now face its retribution. It’s getting bigger. So I’ll have to go with strategy number two: the polo or turtle neck. This is a risky game to play, as inevitably at some points tomorrow, the zit will get caught in the fibres of the jumper, which has the same effect as tickling a lion. There will be blood!
Perhaps I should just take the day off. Teenagers can be so so cruel and i am such an idiot.
Stefanie Moore 