I sometimes wonder what ever possessed me, in the Twilight of my life, to get a tattoo. I, who had never even had my ears pierced, begged for laughing gas when I had my teeth cleaned, and spaced my children twelve years apart because, contrary to myth, I remembered every pang of labor with the first one.
There are those who would not consider having permanent lipstick a true tattoo. Those people are wrong. For someone with my low pain threshold, having my lips tattooed was easily as monumental a project as a battleship on a sailor’s chest. Something which I never considered, anyway, because at my age the ship would have slowly sunk below my horizon.
I decided to have my lips “done” when I saw how great my friend Tricia looked. She also has the permanent eyeliner, something I will never tackle, since nobody, but nobody, is getting near my eyes. My frustrated optometrist could testify to that.
Not only did the convenience of never having to worry about lipstick again appeal to me, but I would for the rest of my life be free of lipstick on my teeth, smeared coffee cups, and those nasty little lipstick lines bleeding up the wrinkles around my mouth, heading for my nose.
Friend Tricia assured me there would be very little pain during the process and even gave me some deadening ointment to apply to the lower part of my face a couple of hours before the appointment. That was an experience in itself, much like having novocaine all over my mouth.
Meeting the tattoo artist, i.e., technician, was awe-inspiring in itself. She was gorgeous, a stunning testimonial to her work. My first thought was, “Oh, please, please, make me look like you.” After a short indoctrination, she went to work mixing the right color for me, deadened my lips some more, and then gave me two rubber balls to squeeze if I felt pain, which may not have helped, but in any case left my hands too occupied to hit her.
I can’t say the pain was excruciating--my sigmoidoscopy was much worse--but I’ve had more pleasant experiences. And I suppose there are those who find a mouth massage with a Dremel tool downright soothing, but the experience was unsettling, to say the least.
Two hours later, as I examined the results, it was a bit of a shock. My mouth was a brilliant crimson, and I was a dead ringer for Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” On the drive home, as the numbness began to wear off, I kept sneaking glances in the rear view mirror, drawn by the specter of those red, red lips, which I had been assured would fade. I had been sent home with instructions on the care and feeding of my new lips, along with some ointment and warnings to wear sun blocker when I went outside. As if I planned to leave the house!
I was rather proud of my convalescing period, as I had no bad reactions and didn’t even have to ice my lips, which were tender, but not unbearable. I was pretty hard to look at for several days, however. The second day my Bette Davis mouth began to expand into Angelina Jolie’s. The third day I still looked like Angelina, but in her role as Angie the big lipped fish in “Shark Tale.” On the fourth day, I left the house, as the deep color began to blister and then flake off, leaving a fainter, more natural tinge of color.
A second treatment a month later resulted in a shade closer to what I wanted, but still a bit patchy. I found that some of the permanent color had found its way into my old age cracks, which the technician removed using, I feel sure, #2 sandpaper.
Now that’s it over, I’m happy with my new mouth. It’s wonderful to get out of bed in the morning and not have to face that old ghostly and ghastly face. It’s still ghastly, but at least not ghostly. I love not leaving lipstick on dinnerware or having to wonder if I have lipstick on my teeth. My grandchildren like not showing evidence of granny kisses. I feel sort of like a vampire. They don’t have reflections. I don’t have lip prints. And just think--when I die, and the funeral home makes me up for the viewing, I know my lips will be exactly the color they were in real life.
There are those who would not consider having permanent lipstick a true tattoo. Those people are wrong. For someone with my low pain threshold, having my lips tattooed was easily as monumental a project as a battleship on a sailor’s chest. Something which I never considered, anyway, because at my age the ship would have slowly sunk below my horizon.
I decided to have my lips “done” when I saw how great my friend Tricia looked. She also has the permanent eyeliner, something I will never tackle, since nobody, but nobody, is getting near my eyes. My frustrated optometrist could testify to that.
Not only did the convenience of never having to worry about lipstick again appeal to me, but I would for the rest of my life be free of lipstick on my teeth, smeared coffee cups, and those nasty little lipstick lines bleeding up the wrinkles around my mouth, heading for my nose.
Friend Tricia assured me there would be very little pain during the process and even gave me some deadening ointment to apply to the lower part of my face a couple of hours before the appointment. That was an experience in itself, much like having novocaine all over my mouth.
Meeting the tattoo artist, i.e., technician, was awe-inspiring in itself. She was gorgeous, a stunning testimonial to her work. My first thought was, “Oh, please, please, make me look like you.” After a short indoctrination, she went to work mixing the right color for me, deadened my lips some more, and then gave me two rubber balls to squeeze if I felt pain, which may not have helped, but in any case left my hands too occupied to hit her.
I can’t say the pain was excruciating--my sigmoidoscopy was much worse--but I’ve had more pleasant experiences. And I suppose there are those who find a mouth massage with a Dremel tool downright soothing, but the experience was unsettling, to say the least.
Two hours later, as I examined the results, it was a bit of a shock. My mouth was a brilliant crimson, and I was a dead ringer for Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” On the drive home, as the numbness began to wear off, I kept sneaking glances in the rear view mirror, drawn by the specter of those red, red lips, which I had been assured would fade. I had been sent home with instructions on the care and feeding of my new lips, along with some ointment and warnings to wear sun blocker when I went outside. As if I planned to leave the house!
I was rather proud of my convalescing period, as I had no bad reactions and didn’t even have to ice my lips, which were tender, but not unbearable. I was pretty hard to look at for several days, however. The second day my Bette Davis mouth began to expand into Angelina Jolie’s. The third day I still looked like Angelina, but in her role as Angie the big lipped fish in “Shark Tale.” On the fourth day, I left the house, as the deep color began to blister and then flake off, leaving a fainter, more natural tinge of color.
A second treatment a month later resulted in a shade closer to what I wanted, but still a bit patchy. I found that some of the permanent color had found its way into my old age cracks, which the technician removed using, I feel sure, #2 sandpaper.
Now that’s it over, I’m happy with my new mouth. It’s wonderful to get out of bed in the morning and not have to face that old ghostly and ghastly face. It’s still ghastly, but at least not ghostly. I love not leaving lipstick on dinnerware or having to wonder if I have lipstick on my teeth. My grandchildren like not showing evidence of granny kisses. I feel sort of like a vampire. They don’t have reflections. I don’t have lip prints. And just think--when I die, and the funeral home makes me up for the viewing, I know my lips will be exactly the color they were in real life.
No comments:
Post a Comment