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| Frosted Cranberry ... Vanilla Brûlée ... Glazed Apple |
This is kind of an embarrassing story, but I'm going to tell it anyways with the hope that it will preserve my lovely readers from the same folly. It goes like this:
It's a chill afternoon, and I'm just hanging out, moon-eyed over these vintage-inspired holiday shimmer poofs; I've never had a fragrance or powder with the pump balloon thing before (not "balloon thing", boudoir atomizer; I have since found out that it is an "atomizer"), and I am childishly impatient to give it a try. Of the three, I select the "Glazed Apple" scent because it has frosty white shimmer and will match today's winter wonderland theme. I wrench off the plastic cocoon around the balloon poof (atomizer, damn it), and then pause to regard the silicone insert in the blow hole. Was that on the testers at the Body Shop?? I mean, it has a little dimple in it... could be that the shimmer bursts through this filter thing. But it does have a tab on top... so what if I'm supposed to pull this off, too? But what if I ruin the whole thing by doing so? Best not to risk it; not my precious *Sparkler*. So I start pumping away at the poof. Nothing. Stupid thing. Maybe it's like a lotion pump, and I need to just keep going until something happens. I feel like pressure is building, though. I can hear the mechanism wheezing and by now I should have gotten one little twinkle, at least. I squint at the silicone stopper and figure, well, to hell with it. To hell with me, more like.
In that portentous moment when I started to pull away the insert, I can almost hear fate's wheel creak to a halt as the Norns pause while spinning time's thread to watch what is about to happen. I feel a thrill of foreboding, and dimly the thought occurs to me that maybe I shouldn't be pointing this tiny shimmer bomb directly at my face. But my fingers are already committed to the motion, and my brain is far, far to late to stop them as they pull away that tiny, silly, insignificant plastic tab... and my world goes white. No, like literally; everything is absolutely white, and I cannot see a thing beyond the blizzard of shimmer that is engulfing my head. As the glitter storm roils through seconds, tens of seconds, I am likewise engulfed in a tumult of emotions that I can only summarily describe as ecstatic terror. Part of me knows that being hugged by a shimmer cloud, albeit ferociously, is kind of the manifestation of all unicorn dreams ever conceived... and yet the fact is that every orifice in my face has been bedazzled, I cannot see nor breathe, and suddenly, the concept of "death by glitter" is thrown into sharp relief for what it really is: a terrible, terrible idea. These siren shimmers, so beautiful, so lethal, are going to be the end of me. Then gradually the onslaught, and my hyperbolic hysteria, lift in a haze of glistening powdered mist. After what was actually a surprisingly long, well-sustained shimmer attack (this stuff can float through the air for ages, like fairies, it's truly remarkable), I am able to perceive the fallout.
First of all, the shape of my head is roughly silhouetted on the armoire behind me. The carpet now appears to have been woven with magic, and my face, hair, and clothes are fair frosted with shimmer. I almost wish I'd had the presence of mind at this moment to take a picture, but as it is I set about reinstating my disguise as a normal human being, and try to sweep away the evidence of the glittering cloud (I'll never think of the Imogen Heap song the same). I mean, despite the process of becoming so, I rather like being dusted with blinding amounts of dazzling powder- wheee!! I'm a real fairy!!!- but I'm going to be entering the public realm soon and, well, I just don't think they're ready for this quite yet.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the rather pathetic tale of Marisa & *The Sparkler*.
