Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall

by Kjerstin Gruys

  I decided to get comfortable downgrading in coverage from opaque to sheer products that I could apply mostly with my fingertips. Sheerness was essential: Opacity would make mistakes more noticeable, and mistakes were bound to happen. Neutral colors, rather than bright colors, were likewise important, as they would translate more fluently across a variety of occasions and outfits. Luckily, my vast makeup collection already contained several products that fit the bill.

  I replaced my powdered eye shadow with a neutral cream shadow that I could smudge on with my fingers. Hooray! I similarly replaced my usual lip gloss with a sheerer lip gloss. Less pigment meant that there would be a lower likelihood of my leaving the house looking like I’d been making out with a clown.

  My eyeliner, on the other hand, couldn’t be replaced, so it simply went away. It didn’t matter how many thousands of times I’d applied it since sixth grade; with fears vacillating between the unlikely (loss of an eye) and the very likely (arriving at work looking like a five-year-old’s art project), I didn’t trust myself to apply eyeliner without a mirror.

  This was not the case when it came to the idea of giving up mascara. As many natural blondes with invisible eyelashes may understand, mascara felt necessary. I’d long been convinced that my eyes actually disappeared without mascara. So, with a little practice (i.e., going cross-eyed while watching the wand slowly approach my face), I managed to master mascara sans mirror! It turned out that my trusty four-dollar waterproof Maybelline Great Lash mascara was mirror-optional.

  Finally, in my boldest move yet, I replaced my sunscreen, foundation, and concealer with one product: a tinted moisturizer with SPF. The great thing about tinted moisturizer is that, thanks to its sheerness, I could just squirt a blob into my hands and then smear it all over my face like I was applying regular face lotion. The not-so-great thing about tinted moisturizer is that it wasn’t going to do much for me in terms of hiding pimples or under-eye circles. I tried to reassure myself about this by remembering that people probably didn’t notice my flaws (or care about them) as much as I did. If my critical inner voice believed that a pimple or two might be the difference between being loved by my friends and being respected by my colleagues . . . well, this would be an important assumption to test! As Michel de Montaigne—Renaissance author and father of modern skepticism—once said, “Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.”

  I didn’t own a tinted moisturizer, and a quick trip to Sephora introduced me to another challenge: Sephora had forty-five different options available, and sheer as they were, I had to try on about twenty of them before I found an acceptable combo of sheer coverage + SPF + my perfect shade of pallor. When I informed the sales associate helping me that I would be applying the “luxury product” I’d chosen with my hands instead of the recommended fifty-eight-dollar brush, she looked at me as though I were planning to smear feces on my cheeks and call it rouge. Had this happened a few months earlier, I probably would have bought the brush. Instead, I reminded myself that my new body image motto was “Good enough is good enough!”

  Speaking of good enough, I decided to keep my regular powder blush, since it was already sheer enough to be mirror-optional. My new mirror-optional list of products and application methods cut my original makeup list in half.

  I began practicing my mirror-free application skills over the next few days and was pleased by my progress. I applied my makeup one step at a time, without looking at myself in the mirror. In between steps, I’d take a peek and make note of any blunders. After a few days I began skipping my peeks between each step until I’d completed the entire process sans mirror. Dare I say that I looked almost as put-together as before, but more “natural”? Good enough? Indeed!

  • • •

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER I FOUND MYSELF WATCHING TV ALONE after dinner on a Tuesday evening. Michael was in Palo Alto for the workweek, and I’d decided to spend the final days of my transition month really perfecting my mirror-free habits. I’d spent the entire day successfully avoiding mirrors and was pretty proud of myself, but completely exhausted. The amount of mental energy that I’d had to put into avoiding my reflection—combined with my regular workload of teaching, catching up on research projects, and a meeting that day with my therapist, Gia—had left me drained. Gia had given me her enthusiastic blessing to try my year without mirrors, so long as I promised to quit if the project triggered any disordered behaviors or thoughts. Gia reminded me that “one of the most powerful things you can do to challenge negative thoughts and behaviors is to test them out. You’ll learn whether or not the assumptions that you’re organizing your life around are based in reality or just in your mind. I’m optimistic!”

  I stole a still-allowed glance at myself in one of my living room mirrors. It was the first time I’d seen my reflection all day, and I felt pleased that my makeup looked decent and that I didn’t have any food on my shirt. I gave myself a minute to actively peer, noticing that this previously frequent and mundane act was beginning to feel precious. What was it that economists said? Increased scarcity predicts increased value? Or perhaps in simpler terms, the (anticipated) absence was making my heart grow fonder? Something along these lines was beginning to unfold, and it felt like a positive omen. My eyes looked tired and my hair was limp and scraggly thanks to my sweaty walk home, but I felt a surge of appreciation for the body that had carried me throughout my long day. I turned away from the mirror and returned my attention to the task at hand: relaxation.

  I poured myself a full glass of six-dollars-a-bottle merlot from Trader Joe’s, broke into a package of dark chocolate–covered marshmallows, and settled into my favorite chair with my two fluffy orange tabby cats, Dolce and Diesel. Surely wine, chocolate, and a few episodes of Law & Order: SVU would set things right. The day’s stressors began fading away. Suddenly I was jolted out of my relaxation by the blaring of a TV advertisement, projecting at a volume far exceeding that of my TV show.

  EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT, AND STILL LOSE WEIGHT!!

  THAT’S RIGHT!

  EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT, AND STILL LOSE WEIGHT!!

  Whaaaat?! Another lying crash-diet commercial. Great. My thoughts shifted to the About-Face media literacy workshop I’d given my UCLA students the day before, in which I’d encouraged them to consider three questions when considering advertisements: (1) What is being sold? For instance, a potentially dangerous and unregulated diet drug. (2) How is it being sold? By, say, comparing a smiling thin woman with washboard abs with a frowning chubbier version of her former self. And (3) How does the advertiser want you to feel? Like a grotesquely fat and unlovable loser, maybe.

  I shook my head, huffing and puffing, scaring Dolce right out of my lap. Diesel woke up from his nap, yawned in my direction, and went back to sleep.

  “Fuck you, Hydroxycut!” I slurrily shouted at my television, pointing my fingers at the screen for emphasis. “And you, too, you, you . . . airbrushed Hydroxyslut! You’re crap! You’re poison! FUCK. YOU.”

  I was home alone wearing a ratty bathrobe, surrounded by two nervous felines, a half-drunk bottle of wine, and multiple empty chocolate wrappers. I probably wasn’t my most composed self, and yet I’d never felt more empowered. The advertisement I’d just seen was evil, and I wanted to tell the world.

  I am going to start a fucking blog! Right. Now. I decided, determinedly.

  I stumbled into my bedroom to grab my laptop. Back in my living room, I poured another glass of wine and tapped “how to start a blog” into my online search engine. Five minutes and a few decisions later I’d built my blog, calling it Mirror, Mirror . . . OFF the Wall, just as Dave had suggested.

  I wrote my first post that night, narrating the story of my wedding dress insanity and how it had led to my decision to give up mirrors. I threw in a photo of myself in Dress #1 and another in Dress #4. These are the last images I’m going to see of myself for a year! I realized with a gulp (of merlot). Eyeballing the no
w empty wine bottle with a wince, my index finger hovered over my keyboard. I clicked “post,” and suddenly I was a blogger.

  Vaguely recalling what I’d learned about keeping resolutions (and feeling particularly brave, thanks to the wine!), I copied the link to my first blog post and forwarded it to all of my Facebook friends. I promised to post two to three times per week throughout the project and crossed my fingers for support rather than ridicule.

  Luckily, my virtual friends were as supportive as my in-person friends had been a few nights prior. I received a few dozen “likes” and several enthusiastic comments, ranging from, “Just subscribed! Very interesting project” to” “I’m following. What is Spanx?” and my favorite: “This will be good practice for if you ever become a vampire!” Indeed it would.

  Thanks to Facebook, my project—and my blog—were now, truly, official.

  • • •

  OF COURSE, NOT EVERYONE I SPOKE WITH WAS A HUGE FAN of the idea. I’d scheduled meetings with two more of my dissertation advisors for the following day, and the reactions I received were mixed.

  At my first meeting one of my advisors raised his eyebrows sky-high after I explained my project and decision to blog about it. He called the idea “interesting,” but then added, “It all seems a bit ironic to me. I mean, your goal is to be less vain and self-involved, but blogging about yourself is an inherently vain enterprise, wouldn’t you agree?” (Faculty mentors are known for ending abrasive statements with questions like “Wouldn’t you agree?” As in “Your research questions are unimportant and your methods are inappropriate, don’t you agree?” or “I assume that this is only your first draft, am I correct?”) I was used to dodging these types of questions when discussing my research, but wasn’t quite sure how to respond this time.

  “I realize that there’s some irony to the idea, but I also think that there’s an important difference between obsessing about my appearance and being introspective about my experiences. I guess they’re both technically self-involved, but I can’t imagine any self-improvement project that wouldn’t involve at least a little bit of self-reflection.” I cringed as the word “reflection” came out of my mouth. Pun not intended!

  “I imagine that you know autoethnography isn’t very well received by the discipline,” he continued.

  “This isn’t a formal research project,” I offered, weakly.

  “Well, at least you aren’t doing this at the same time that you’re on the job market, right?” he concluded, laughing.

  “Right!” I chirped, laughing along. I was pleased to have something we actually agreed about.

  But when I left his office I realized that I didn’t actually know what we’d just laughed about in agreement. I turned around and knocked on his door. He answered, and I asked, “When you said it was good that I wasn’t doing this project while I’m on the job market, did you say that because you don’t think people would take me seriously because of the project, or because you don’t want me to go on job interviews without looking at myself in the mirror first?”

  “I was thinking it would be bad to have lipstick on your teeth while giving a job talk,” he answered.

  “Oh. Okay, thanks for clarifying,” I said, sulking away.

  My next meeting went considerably better. Wary of receiving the same critiques, I prefaced my explanation by clarifying that I was embarking on a personal project. I felt okay saying this, since I’d occasionally babysat for this advisor and his wife; having wiped his two-year-old daughter’s bottom more than a few times, it seemed only fair that I could share a bit about my life outside of academia without reproach.

  “That sounds really interesting!” he said warmly. “It reminds me of one of the bedtime stories we read to our daughter. Have you heard of George and Martha?”

  “The first President of the United States and the first First Lady?” I suggested.

  “No, George and Martha are characters in a children’s book series. They’re hippopotami,” he explained.

  My brain snapped to an unexpected word association: “Split pea soup?” I blurted, immediately feeling like a complete ass.

  “Yes!” he exclaimed excitedly. “George hated Martha’s split pea soup, so he hid it in his loafers to avoid hurting her feelings.”

  Aha! I suddenly remembered these picture books from my own youth.

  The story—titled “The Mirror”—goes something like this:

  Martha was having a bit of a vanity crisis. She couldn’t stop looking at herself in the mirror! (Remind you of anybody we know?) Her good friend George was getting really annoyed by all of this, so he devised a plan to teach his friend a lesson. When Martha wasn’t looking, George taped a horrid drawing of her onto the mirror.

  Martha was horrified, as most of us would be upon seeing ourselves with green skin, wonky gold teeth, and eyes stacked on top of each other. She cried out, “What has happened to me?” Sly George was ready with an answer: “That’s what happens when you look at yourself in the mirror.” The tale ends with Martha’s enormously cool/brave/awesome decision to never look in the mirror again.

  It was clear that Ms. Martha and I had more than a few things in common. Martha truly enjoyed looking into the mirror (at least until George fooled her with his unflattering drawing), and at times I’d also admired myself in mirrors and felt pride and pleasure in my appearance. I’d felt beautiful or glamorous and, indeed, vain; very Martha-esque. Martha’s best friend was George, and mine was Michael.

  I’d also experienced the flip side of the mirror coin, in my crippling (indeed, disordered) body image throughout much of my high school and college years. Nobody ever drew an unflattering picture of me on my mirror (instead, Michael had recently helped me cover my mirrors), yet I managed to look upon myself with horror nonetheless.

  But Martha stopped looking into the mirror to protect her vanity. Indeed, she abandoned mirrors only when their use supposedly threatened her looks! I’d chosen a similar path with the hope that avoiding mirrors would reduce my vanity. I was actually proud of myself for embracing the fact that my appearance might suffer a bit during my project. After all, what better way to prove to myself that my happiness and looks were not quite so tightly intertwined?

  Reading an old children’s book about a pair of hippopotami was a surprising source of insight and clarification of my goals. I was grateful to the advisor who lent it to me; perhaps not everyone in “the academy” would be concerned about my plans, after all.

  • • •

  THE NEXT DAY, I RAN INTO MY MORE SKEPTICAL ADVISOR IN the hallway while waiting for my lunch to heat up in the department microwave. I hadn’t looked in a mirror all day and was feeling pretty good about my targeted expenditure of willpower.

  “Dang! So I guess that no-mirrors project is off to a rough start, eh?” he exclaimed.

  “Huh?” I responded, confused.

  “Oh, I’m just kidding!” he said with a laugh. “No, really, you look . . . normal.”

  “Ummm . . . thanks,” I answered, not sure what else to say.

  “Well, I’ll see you around!” he said, and then he was gone.

  It took all of the (will)power in my being to not run immediately to the ladies’ room for a peek in the mirror. I consoled myself by imagining that he wouldn’t have made fun of me if I had actually looked “rough.” Right? (That would have been mean; don’t you agree?)

  • • •

  THAT EVENING, WITH ONLY ONE WEEK REMAINING BEFORE I quit mirrors cold turkey, seemed like a good time for reflection (pun intended this time). I felt bolstered by all of the support I’d received from my friends and family, but I was wary of the critiques. Hearing one of my mentors describe my project as ironic had hit a nerve, and I didn’t want to flippantly dismiss his concerns.

  Was it, in fact, incredibly, ironically vain to spend a year focusing on—not to mention publicly writing about
—my experiences avoiding vanity? Was I blogging to share my experiences with others for their benefit, or for my own? Perhaps I was just a silly and self-absorbed narcissist who’d decided to swap her reflection for an audience? If so, which was worse?

  I didn’t yet know how to answer these questions, but I knew that they were important to ask. I vowed to be completely honest with myself as I came to the answers, and asked Michael to “tell it to me straight” if he started having concerns.

  “Sweetie, you know I will, but you’re overthinking this, as usual,” he pointed out. “Just dive in and trust yourself to figure it out along the way. It will be okay, I promise. You’re a good person.”

  I’m a good person. Maybe Michael was biased by positive illusions, but so what? It was soothing to hear this from somebody who had actually seen me at my worst and loved me anyway.

  Later that evening I created a poll on my blog, asking my readers to vote on how I ought to handle photographs during my year without mirrors. I wanted to be able to look at old photos, but I wasn’t sure how long I ought to wait before seeing new pictures of myself taken during the project. Should there be an exception for my wedding photos? I knew my sister’s opinion, and knew that Michael didn’t care, so I decided to leave it up to the masses (i.e., all of my thirty or so blog readers).