Davina McCall Threatened My Face

I spent my evening at a house party last night, trying my best not to let the fact that I was expecting to turn into the Elephant Man at any given second show. Not exactly how I thought it was going to pan out.

Yesterday afternoon, I decided that it was high time that I covered the badger stripe of brown roots running along the middle of my head, and bought a brand I hadn't used before for a change. And because the Live dye I usually buy is making my hair whiter with each use. Time to tone the colour down a bit lest I start glowing in the dark. Which would be pretty cool, but still...

The fact that the brand is advertised by my new arch nemesis Davina McCall (see older post "Davina McCall Took My Legs") should've set off alarm bells from the beginning. Once I secured my dye, I marched on home and proceeded to chuck the whole lot over my head willy-nilly without doing the advised patch test for allergies. Because I've never had an allergic reaction to dye before, and because I'm a fucking maverick. Thirty mins later, I hopped in the shower to rinse the lovely horse piss smell that blonde hairdye emits off of my head. I conditioned, sang some songs loudly and out of tune and hopped back out to dry my new mane. All good in the hood.

Then I called my mother dearest for one of our lovely chats.

"What you up to then, mum?"

"Not much, waiting for the boiler to be fixed etc etc...(not a direct quote, I'll be honest). You?"

"Just dyed my hair. Lips feel a bit weird, though. Sort of numb."

*audible gasp from other end of line*

"Nah, it's okay. I went running in the cold earlier, so they're probably just dry or something."

"Oh my God, go to a doctor! Are you alone? Is your face swelling? You could go into anaphylactic shock, you could die! People DIE dying their hair!!...etc etc" I laughed it all off and assured her I'd live, and then went about my business. And by business, I mean that I went foraging for snacks that I could drop all over my pyjamas at four in the afternoon. That's just how I roll.

THEN I chanced to glimpse my face side-on in the little portable mirror that lives in my living room. My hand flew up to my mouth, and I felt my pulse quicken. With sweating palms, I inspected my features further. There was definitely a small but noticeable amount of swelling over each of my eyes. Especially the right one. Well, that was it, then. Mum was right. I'm was going to die.

My reaction was the same as that of any internet-loving serial hypochondriac's - I googled the fuck out of my symptoms. Obviously no good can come of this. I was treated to pages upon pages of horror stories about people's faces ballooning overnight to the size of footballs. All of them included graphic pictures of faces that resembled giant potatoes with creases for eyes, but no solution as to what you should do when you think you're going to experience an explosion of the face. A facesplosion, if you will. So, I lay in the dark in bed at five pm because I'd decided that if I was going to have to accept my fate as the wearer of a giant, pus-leaking head, I'd rather be napping through some of it.

After an hour or so, A returned from work to find me lying in the fetal position under the covers, still wide awake and freaking out.

"Don't look at meee!"

Anyway, you don't need to know every single detail of the night that followed, but as you've already read, I went to the house party. I'm not blogging from a hospital bed either, so all is well and normally proportioned on the face front. Instead of looking like the Elephant Man, my deformation only got as far as Crap Extra From Star Trek. Most of what little swelling I had stayed hidden under my fringe like a good allergic reaction, and my face didn't eat my eyes.

Lessons:

- Always patch test for hair dye, even if you dye your hair as often as I do and haven't reacted before.
- If you do experience a reaction, do NOT turn to Google or your mum for advice.
- Davina McCall is the antichrist and can't be trusted.

Happy Sunday, all!