If I Die Before I Wake... It's Because of This Face Wash

L'Oreal could use the tagline
"I MAKE DEATH BUBBLES TO SUFFOCATE YOU",
but I don't think it would market well.

So, this year for Christmas, I got some new face wash in my stocking. Don't laugh, Santa is getting a lot better, I used to get ball-point pens in my stocking. This stuff was anti-aging and made by L'Oreal so I was pretty excited to try it. And don't get all judgy about my use of anti-aging products, this is the South and we practically bathe in Oil of Olay. Although I was excited to try it, I was never really impressed by it. It comes out of the tube a pure, opaque white, and then slowly expands, kind of like hair mousse. When you start washing your face, it becomes exponentially more foamy than you would have expected, think Palmolive on steroids. Also, it claims to be "exfoliating" but since the cream itself is completely smooth, I can only assume the exfoliants are chemical in nature, which freaks me out a bit.

No matter how much Noxzema I used I never
ended up looking like Rebecca Gayheart.

My standard modus operandi when washing my face is to do as the Noxzema girls did and splash water all over my face and then work up a good lather in my hands before scrubbing my pores. I generally end up completely swathed in face wash foam, so I have to keep my eyes and mouth tightly closed at first to avoid getting the soap in my eyes and becoming a screaming, flailing squid of pain. I've still got to breathe though, I'm not Michael Phelps, so after I get all foamy I usually open my mouth and gasp for air for a second and then continue scrubbing. (And no, I can't breathe through my nose or I end up snorting the face wash like some kind of awful, soapy nasal spray that burns my sinuses. IT BURNS!)


This particular brand makes these really inconvenient, enormous, indestructible bubbles, and last night when I opened my mouth to inhale, it created a soap film that covered my entire mouth. I was, unfortunately, unaware of this, so when I tried to breathe, I inhaled a massive chemical face wash bubble. It coated the inside of my mouth and I swear to you I felt it pop on the back of my throat. I have probably never been so assaulted by the chemical nature of a product I use as when I got this nasty slop in my mouth. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the inside of your mouth really doesn't need exfoliants. I was spitting and gagging and coughing and just generally sounding like I was dying, so much so that I woke my husband up from sleep and he, being ever so concerned, popped his sleepy head in, eyes half open and demanded "What are you DOING?" Oh, nothing, don't mind me, I'm just choking on my face wash.

This is my favorite, it hasn't tried to kill me once.

I have never had a more harrowing experience with a personal hygiene product. Suffice it to say I won't be buying this one again, and will be giving Santa very explicit instructions next Christmas. I normally use Olay Pro-X cleanser, it has a gentler exfoliant and doesn't make giant death bubbles on my face to suffocate me. I could probably write a sonnet about how much I now hate this L'Oreal product, except I have no desire to study the rules of iambic pentameter again.