When it comes to beauty, never let it be said that I'm apprehensive about trying out new techniques. In fact, the goofier the gadget, the better I like it. Now that is not to say I'm taken in by the snake oil stuff. No-sirree-Bob. I am adamant that those big promises of achieving certified loveliness contain sound scientific evidence such as Victoria Principal doing an infomercial. Oh come on, admit it. You're tempted by stuff that looks too good to be true on TV, too.
So when an ad appeared for what resembled a large plastic goose egg my head swung toward the TV like a prized hunting dog picking up the scent of a downed duck. The ad showed an attractive young woman buffing her heels with this goose egg thing. Now mind you, her pretty pink feet looked freshly pedicured to me, which shows you how much I know. Because after a few seconds of buffing she opened up the egg and there inside on a small tray were enough heel filings to stuff a small sofa cushion. Yes, I was amazed and grossed out all at the same time.
Incredibly, I hesitated to order this groovy gadget. I mean, I'm the girl who bought the little pot you fill with saline solution and warm water then pour into one nostril while waiting for said solution to reappear a few seconds later out the other side. You know, like your brother's milk-through-the-nose-gross-out stunt that embarrassed you beyond measure in front of your boyfriend and then your parents not only didn't yell at him they barely gave him a second glance because as God is my witness that kid could do no wrong. Which is something I may need to address in some serious therapy or perhaps a six-month stint in rehab. But that's another column.
Even the nifty nose-flusher thingy didn't cause me to go all willy-nilly in seeking one out, either. First I wanted proof of its effectiveness, which came in the form of two very competent sources: my brother-in-law's friend's ex-wife and by Dr. Oz, Oprah's main medical man who points out that we are total cretins if we aren't cleaning our noses on a regular basis.
The revolutionary wonder egg, with its grating plate on one side, was supposedly effective enough to scour away tough calluses on the feet, but gentle enough to rub over a balloon with nary a pop. But didn't I have enough gadgets lying around the house collecting dust? Although it looked tempting I wasn't ready to fall for it. Yet.
And then I read something on the Internet. Yes, I know, you can't always trust what you read on the Internet, but this was different. This was not any old random thing. This year Daughter #2 began a blog and there on her blog was that crazy little egg and an accompanying article she'd written about the egg's effectiveness along with a zippy headline that she graciously allowed me to steal, er ... borrow for this column. Bam! I was sold.
Now I admit I get so excited about getting a new toy that sometimes I don't slow down to read the directions. So I may have missed the part about using the egg on dry feet only. And my feet were, well ... dry-ish, technically speaking, after my shower. I wasn't exactly leaving a trail of wet footprints all over the house for Pete's sake. But the overall results of the heel grating were a little, well...under-whelming. A few meager shavings showed up in the tray but nothing to write home about.
Well this wasn't good; I was due for a pedicure in a few days and I certainly couldn't go in with my feet in such a mess - one just doesn't waltz into a salon with a case of terminal calluses, you know. So I resorted to reading the egg's directions, which is where I learned about the dry feet part. So ok, I'd give this a whirl later.
The next day I grabbed the egg and went to town. Wow - this was more like it! This was ... startling! Major Alert: Pop in a hard rock CD or other eardrum fracturing disc because sanding your calluses with the egg sounds similar to sawing a large volume of lumber. Soon a trail of small children will show up outside your front door because there was a rumor in your neighborhood that someone inside your house is building birdhouses.
And the verdict post grating? OK, I didn't churn out the volume of callus filings that the girl in the ad produced, but hey! That's a good thing, right? So the egg was a keeper in the "Personal Hygiene is Fun" arsenal of home care products.
Breaking News Alert: I saw an ad today from - and I am not making this up - "America's Favorite Colon Cleanse!" (America has a favorite colon cleanse?). Providing "detoxifying agents to fight inner body bacteria buildup" this product sounds ... Oh, wait - there's more. Yep, it says we are likely to have "up to 20 pounds of excess weight and bad toxins built up" in our systems this very minute. This product sounds ... it sounds ... umm ... yucky. The home colon cleansing method. Yep. I'm definitely drawing the line.
Gale Hammond Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill 24 years. Reach her at GaleHammond@aol.com.
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