I Put Bum Cream on My Face.

I’m about to talk about something ridiculous

Did you get a chance to check out yesterday’s column?

It’s free to you now (Life In The Grey) and hopefully it ran, but…

If it weren’t for you supportive Word Nerds here, I probably wouldn’t be able to justify writing every single weekday.

A lot of people write once or twice a month on Substack for paying subscribers, so my neurotic self is over-doing the best-that-I-can as perpetual thanks to you but:

I take your support and presence to heart!

So, I hope to keep going: archiving away (and repeating these intros, which you can skip and go right to the writing below the line if you’d like!)

This week has been a rough one, so I hope skies are looking up soon.

Until then…

I’m about to talk about something ridiculous.

I put bum cream on my face.

How’s that for an opener?

I’ll take a dab of pure diaper cream (bright white) that’s like 1/4th of a penny and a dab of my Ponds and mix together on my forehead after all my sunscreen, bronzer, everything.

Basically, that is my new key (if rubbed in super gently) to make your own expressive-face-parts look like a Paris filter. I add a bit of tint to it so it can blend with my skin tone, if it’s during the day and I care about such things.

Often I’ll do the Zinc move after SPF, then add some bronzing blur powder on the top of my forehead, then finish with my new favorite product EVER (and it’s so affordable) for this proudly expressive face. It’s called Wet n Wild 5 In 1 Essence Primer and Finish Powder. (I could write a thesis on why I have fallen in deep lurve with this bright light of a dark horse.)

I also used to LOVE using a mask at night from Skin 1004 - an all around Grade A brand by the way - called Pumpkin Mask. They also make the Zombie Mask I’ve been writing about for years now, but I haven’t had the funds to be able to get it for years too. It’s probably been at least 2 to 3 years. I think the fact it’s smelly and intense makes it even better, because it harkens to the Gran advice of using eggs to make homemade masks in certain cultures. (They right.)

A friend and I tried the Pumpkin Mask at the same time and found that each little packet could be stretched to last for a few nights (instead of using all at once), which makes the affordability even more dreamy. Despite that, I have frugalphobia. (Wait. No. The opposite of that. I can’t spend on things that aren’t electricity and water right now, if that… so it’s like… phobia of not being frugal? Make a name for it!)

Anyways, I keep those masks in my Amazon cart for years now just for comfort and optimism that I will get them one day (the same with gel nail Polish since even my teen - who steals and uses all my products up, grrr- refuses to touch the Fern Gully villain sludge that is any of my dark colored polishes). Amazon cart-comfort has to also be a syndrome someone else relates to?

Over Black Friday, I found a deal on 2 containers of something called Freeman Plumping Gel Mask and it was two 2 full oz things of it, for basically dollars. I’m not sure the price now (assuming not a lot even without the sale) but it’s a good makeshift of the Skin 1004 for poorly poor-bees who still cute.

The downside is it feels like actual honey. I mix it with the Ponds and the zinc at night to downplay how much I’ll stick to my pillow at night.

I do see a benefit, even though I’ll be frank and say the Pumpkin mask has similar benefits but sinks in like a proper sleeping mask so you stay shiny but do not create a pillowcase glue trap.

I’m a side sleeper and don’t F with the whole “train yourself to sleep on your back” thing when sleep is already so hard to do on this planet.

If we have to be deprived of that too, I will have imprints on my face for other reasons*.

*For b*tch slapping myself by not enjoying precious sleep.

QUESTION: “What is your number one nighttime product right now?”

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