It's not easy being green

Wasn't it Kermit that said that? Well, turns out he was wrong, the lying toad frog, as I discovered a few days ago.

One of the presents I bought Sparky Ma for Christmas, y'see, was a box of stuff from Lush (I know, you don't need to say it: I buy great presents), and as I hinted at waaaaaay back HERE, I got some freebies when I bought it. The freebies were a little bit of soap, some little sample pots of stuff, and a Santa-shaped bath bomb, and I kept them for myself because, well, I wanted them.

Anyway, one of the little sample pot thingys was a face mask. Now, I've never tried a face mask before, but all this cold weather has been wreaking havoc with my money-maker, and I'm up for trying most things once, so I thought I'd give it a whirl in the privacy of Sparky Towers. 

My hour-and-a-bit of man-pampering kicked off after I got in from a quality, coffee-fueled run Tuesday evening. I began by filling the bath, then standing back and hoofing the Santa bath bomb in like a grenade. Rather than explode and take out the tub and part of the wall, it just fizzed a bit, then turned the water an unexpected and somewhat alarming shade of yellow. It was a bit like a bath-sized Berocca, I s'pose.

Here's the little fella before detonation.

Look at that! How yellow is that?! It looks like someone had a massive bladder malfunction in my bath.

After glancing suspiciously at the yellow water I was about to climb into (but intrigued by the hints of cinnamon and chocolate it gave off), I picked up the little pot of green face mask gunk, looked at that a bit suspiciously as well, then shrugged my shoulders and rubbed it all over my face. Two minutes later I looked, quite frankly, a tad ridiculous, and very, very vibrantly green. Then I got in the bath, trying desperately to ignore the fact that I was reclining in warm yellow water and looked like one of the Poddington Peas.

So, anyway, half an hour later I'm lying there and I realise my face has gone rigid. I poke my eyebrow and it's all solid and crusty. I feel like I've been transformed into a monster or the Hulk or something. As a boy, I find the prospect of being transformed into a monster or the Hulk very exciting - certainly more so than being one of the Poddington Peas. 

Intrigued by my transformation and troubled by the fact that I was by this time sitting in luke-warm yellow water, I lifted myself out of the bath and looked in the mirror. I was awesomely green. I stood there staring at my greenness for a good few minutes, then decided that unless I was going to head out onto the streets of West London to scare some chavs and hoodies, I'd have to take it off sometime. Taking it off was, however, a little bit more troublesome than putting it on - mainly because washing crusty green stuff off my face was a new experience for me (unless you count the cleanup operation after that epic sneezing fit I had when I was seven).

Splashing water on my face didn't really do too much, aside from making me look a bit less like the Hulk, and a bit more like this, which is, y'know, pretty cool:

This of course led to another 10 minutes or so of me leering into the mirror and saying things like "kill … the Bat-man" Joker-stylee. Because, y'know, I'm a boy and that's what we do.

Eventually, however, I did manage to wash all the green stuff off. Well, most of the green stuff; I figure there's still some in my ears and up my nose, but I expect it's doing some good stuff in there. Because it totally did good stuff to the outside - my face is all smooth and clean and fresh! I'm not kidding - it's *amazing*! I'm totally gonna do it again if I get the chance (i.e. more freebies, I don't think I'd have the man-guts to go buy some), although I'd go for a less vibrant colour next time - maybe something in white so I could really go for that Joker look.

Anyway, I guess you're wondering if I took a picture fully Hulked-up. The answer is yes, but having reviewed it, there is no way I'm going to publish it on the interwebs. Mainly because I have a reasonably gormless look on my face as a result of my towel falling down at the very moment I took it. Seriously, I like to think that I'm an educated guy, but somewhere along the line I failed to learn how to wrap a towel around my waist so it doesn't fall down. Either that or Hollywood has lied to me; I'm pretty sure if I was in a movie where I just walked out of the shower with a towel wrapped round my waist and the scene called for me to walk up behind Kristen Kreuk or Autumn Reeser, kiss her on the cheek while she made me breakfast, and exchange some meaningful dialogue I wouldn't be able to do it without getting an erection my towel falling down. 

Where was I? Oh yeah, but to prove that I did Hulk-up, here's a tease.

Don't even try to argue - that's all you're getting.