Vanity is not beatiful...

Oh dear.. time flies or as the Romans said "Tempes Fugit"

I haven't been able to update this blog as much as I would like as despite living in a first world country the internet access up here in Port Douglas is not third world.. it's fourth world.

Intermittent, slow and unreliable.....

So what's been happening in Penny world...

Whilst working at the local paper I wanted to place an editorial in our beauty section for a local beauty company.

I was particularly intrigued about a new treatment they offer.  It was first bought to my attention in a magazine in a waiting room.  A photo showing a pregnant Kim Kardashian with a bloodied face and the announcement of a new beauty treatment that uses the plasma from your own blood to help plump out lines and those nasal labial fold lines.  It looked particularly dramatic and I did think literally 'bloody hell'.. whatever next!

Little did I know that a week later I would be lying on the treatment bed about to do an impersonation of an overly enthusiastic dart board.  Succumbing to the statement by the owner "you can't write about it if you don't experience it, I will give you the treatment for free" (We are talking a $400 treatment free!).

Despite people asking if I have had plastic surgery or anti-aging treatments I have always been  a firm believer in the beauty of spirit, soul and outlook to keep young (and the benefits of good genes helps).

I can't comprehend the pain and procedures that women go through in the pursuit of beauty. That women will put themselves through major surgeries just for a fad or for vanity.

So it was against my philosophy to be lying down enduring the pain as she searched around my arm with a syringe to try and hit the vein with words 'get me out of here' incessantly echoing through my brain.  After 15 mins of unlucky jabbing I suggested she move to the other arm. After finally filling up a test tube with my blood (and obviously spilling it over the table and over the floor as she dabbed it up with tissues)..  Now going through my brain was.. 'has she done this before?'.  My confidence wasn't boosted when she asked for a 3mm gauge syringe from her assistant and when advised that there was only 2mm said "well, that will have to do". 

After centrifuging my blood she then proceeded to fill up the syringe with the clear plasma.  This was then injected along my nasal labial fold.  At one point (literally!) I felt a pricking to my dimple (I only have one)  to which I said "that's my dimple! Can you leave that!'.  She was less than reassuring when she said that the plasma kept clotting and it was making it difficult to inject.  Another test tube of blood was taken for under the eyes. Yowzer! that's a sensitive area for sticking in syringes - now I was at the point where I was just trying to get through the procedure and trying to refrain from  running out the door.  I also could tell that she was injecting uneven amounts on both sides.  She started on my crows feet, but I said.. no, I call those laughter lines and I want to keep them.

Finally, she finished I looked in the mirror.  Looking back at me was a face that certainly looked a bit battered.. and bruised.  A blue bruise mark under the eye where one injection hadn't been so clean.  Instead of my caved in under the eyes the fluid now had gathered into two uneven sized liquid pouches - so now I looked more like two swollen eyes peering over the top of two water-filled balloons.

She immediately gave me a little drink of Arnica to help the bruising....

Mmmmm... the sentence I had used with her when I first went in and she asked if I had ever had a treatment went into my head "Oh no, I never have treatments, because I am sure karma would punish my vanity and make things go wrong".

I write this a week later and can only say that a few days after the swelling had gone down.. and despite an improvement for maybe a day or two (which was offset by the bruise under my eye)  I now consider I look the same now as I did before.

Luckily, any damage wasn't long lasting, but what an interesting lesson in so much pain (luckily no expense) and time (1 hour) being such a waste of............