My relationship with beauty products and overall vanity has been that of a love and hate one; strained and complex, I love it and want it, but hate to understand how it is applied and have failed many a times in my attempts to get it right.

Luckily for me, I had my sister, who came to my rescue, she would purchase everything right from face washes, moisturizers, all make up products and diligently learned how to apply it and did so for me too whenever the need arose. This made me lazy and I slowly drifted to live in a zone of ignorance is bliss. I thought that the lesser I knew of these products the better it is, it would save me from the unnecessary desire of splurging money. But, I have paid and have being paying the price of this ignorance.

Like they say Vanity can easily take over your wisdom and at times your judgement of common sense, well it did that to me as well, not once but twice.

The first time around it was the time of my marriage, if you are wondering, I was a bridezilla let loose, driving my family members insane; well! that was not the case. It was in fact the quiet opposite; I was completely clueless of the latest trends, color palettes, products, treatments etc. So I did what I knew best, courtesy all the leadership lessons, delegated it. This added a lot of pressure on my mother, who had to find an appropriate parlor for the pre-bridal skin treatments and make-up. And on my sister, who had to make all the purchases, in Jalandhar, a place that we had no clue of.

I would spend my days at work; running operations and simultaneously look for an appropriate resource to take over; and my mother would spend her days, going around the small lanes of Gujral Nagar and neighboring areas looking for saloons that could get me ready for my big day. She checked all of them and finally narrowed down to two salons. It was followed up with my visit, yes to my dismay, I had to finally show up so that they can evaluate my skin, recommend treatments, hair style etc. it was annoying, however, I enjoyed seeing Maa take charge of things; she was in the driver’s seat; negotiating like a pro and finalized the one she found to be the most competent and rational. She did all the hard work and my contribution to all this was to show up and comply with what all they planned to do to my face.

It was not as if I was not excited being a bride, I was over the moon, but I had no clue of any of the vanity business; did not understand the big fuss around face polishing, skin lightening, body polishing, etc. At the start, there were some remarkable results, I looked nice and clean, not that I was dirty in anyways. It’s just that my facial pores were finally clean, rid of all the Jalandhar-Kapurthala dust. But seeing the results, we went quite overboard, lost our common sense I guess. A night before my wedding my face was red with rashes and had an allergic reaction; my face resembled that of an Uakari monkey. Google it you will get what I mean. I was terrified of the way I looked and more terrified of the way she would make me look after the bridal make-up. I had no option but to beg my sister to be by my side and monitor her each brush stroke so that I don’t end up looking like an alien from outer space, scaring the groom away. Maa was concerned and so was my God mother. But my God mother looked at me and asked me just one question; if I was Happy, to which I responded “Yes” with a big smile and twinkle in my eyes. She said that is all that matters.

Next morning, my face was not any better but the magical strokes of various layers of foundation, primer and God knows what all hid the blemishes; under the watch full eyes of my sister. It took more than three hours and during that time I felt like a building undergoing a paint job. It was painstakingly slow and boring, but, when Maa saw me dressed up and hugged me with moist eyes and my husband who could not take his eyes off me. I felt yes, finally something may have gone right with the paint job; it was worth it at the end!  

All my life, I barely used any products, coz I never felt the need and did not know how to use them. During my professional career, I learnt the tricks of the trade from some lovely ladies in my aviation company. They taught me the so called office look, party look, evening party look and traditional function look. But earlier this year I was in trouble; I had to attend a wedding of a very close family friend, in other words, I was the groom’s sister. My worries of vanity drove me insane; and this time, I did not have my sister or mother by my side; I had to take matters in my control now.

I faced time Maa, who told me some of her most trusted home remedy beauty secrets and a close friend helped put together a list of must have products that I should immediately buy. In all the excitement; I lost my sense of fair judgement and started following the advice of all the innumerable beauty influencers on YouTube. Picked up their products, started a morning and night skin routine; thinking it would make my 40 year old skin shine and make me look if I was in my 20s ok I know that is too much of an ask, yeah my 30s.      

And as a result, I again had a super allergic reaction and acne all over my face. With the wedding just a few days away and I still had no clue what to do, I had no other option but to stop all self-medicated beauty treatments and start praying.

All the introspection made me realise how foolish I was behaving in my insane urge to look younger and beautiful. I looked beautiful in the eyes of the people, who mattered to me the most; no skin product or routine could change that. Finally, I put a stop to all the madness.

Guess what, God sent someone to my rescue, my family realised my hopelessness with beauty and arranged for professional help, my close friend and now a professional make-up artist bhawnaaggarwalmua (Insta ID) ensured we all look fabulous. And I wore my best accessory, my smile along, with a heart filled with gratitude for being around the people that I’m blessed to call my family.