Monday, July 02, 2007

Skinned alive

Rootedness, is what those struck with acne, ever achieve in these allegedly wondrous post-adolescence years. Youth slips, acne sticks; like one of those signs they put up on hair-pin-bends to tickle bored drivers. Damn pimples; what a perfectly hideous ailment! All it does is keep vanity in check, and what use is that?! I don't remember when my own pimples first sprang up on me. *Thought bubble*: School, yes, 8Th standard perhaps.

Before that was idyllic boarding school, pink cheeks, and healthy hill-air making skin glow etc. Circa 1998, Happy new year, and ka-boom! Enter hormones with a flourish. Then on, life became one big red blotch, further brightened with colourful antibiotics and gallons of a foul syrup called Safi: they advertise it as a blood purifier, but put lead (!) in it, or so my grandmother cautions. Then came homeopathy. (Face packs don't count; they're the new birth marks.) I must have dissolved a few hundred thousand of those sweet, round pills on my tongue till date. And counting of course, always and counting.

I thought I had seen the end of these damn red pustules by the time my 10Th boards were over and surprisingly well done with. It really was smooth sailing for about four years thereafter, excluding the -- pun intended -- periodic eruption, that I'd liken to the odd green, monocled worm popping out of one of those perfect, nearly snow white apples. Which is where the pretty picture just about stops being one. I've exhausted my kitchen of all possible "home remedies". All fruits, vegetables, seeds and oils have been crushed, pulped, mashed and slapped on to my face. Why, yesterday, I reached a new culinary milestone: garlic. Ow..ow..ow.. Shiver Me Timbers, as those pirates would bellow from their stomach pits. it may have worked a little, rubbing stingy cloves of the silver substance, but now my face is charred, and I think I'll go into hiding if the Aloe Vera doesn't work. Or ice cubes...maybe toothpaste..honey with cinnamon..something? anything?! *howls, agonised*...

7 comments:

Unknown said...

innocent bystander: fatal to comment on the contents of this post, but it has been written so well that i feel part of the phases/transitions. may the skin not be a leveler and let the vanity fly like an eagle.

Nimpipi said...

Oh my dawg, look who left a comment! :), one ending with potent imagery at that!
You're the sweetest Sammy. Love you plenty XOXO!

Anonymous said...

Hee hee. Toothpaste is good too. Dries up pimples overnight! I read that in some gossip mag.

I used to battle with pimples too. There was this antibiotic cream called Erythromycin that did the trick. Prevention and cure.

At some point these things have to stop, right? "Adults" dont get them, no?

Nimpipi said...

Erithromycin, aah, another old flame. Except, um, it had this paint-thinner like quality, and, well, lets just say, the nostalgia wafting through my nostrils gives me goosepimples even now. They had to wean me off it. Toothpaste is benign still. :)

Anonymous said...

There was an erythromycin cream too.

Hee hee. I had no idea its was like Erase-x.

Anonymous said...

hello! its me, your fellow pimple suffering chickadoo. doe eyes directed me here. i think i may just have found a cure! its this thingy called lotus acne gel. and its good stuff! erythromycin is a farce. haha. YAY van-i-teeeee!!! smoochie smoochas to you my lowe.

Nimpipi said...

pixiekins! :)hullloo ballooo! lotus huh, yea their matte sunscreen works well for me as a foundation. Day time applique of course. I whacked that blue garnier zit zap pen off a friend. Active zinc molecules in it not quite living up to their advertised promise.