By BR Kellie
The other day I stuck my mascara wand in my eye. It hurt. Quite a lot. And of course the resulting eye watering ruined my left eye’s look as well as the foundation base beneath it. Makeup and its tools can be a dangerous object in the wrong hands. The amount of times I’ve caught the skin of my eyelid in my eyelash curlers? Enough to make me not use them anymore because the pain is real. As for hair tongs? Yeah, nah. I own them but the amount of owwies that have resulted from attempts to curl the unruly locks has resulted in them being tucked away to become a dust catcher. But what is one of the most dangerous beauty items of all? One that won’t just ruin your makeup or cause a bit of grief in your eye, it’ll potentially turn your life to ashes?
Did your first thought drift to hair straighteners and curling irons that have been left on? They’re certainly dangerous (and please, always double check that your styling tools are turned off, unplugged and on a non-burnable surface before you head out), however they’re not the most recent culprits of some potentially deadly situations. We’re talking about the humble desktop makeup mirror.
Recently one woman’s experience hit the news. When makeup lover, Kasey Ault, came home from work she smelt smoke. She set out to find where the smoke was coming from and what she found was a burnt iPad case among a few other charred products. After checking all possible sources she put the fire down to the sun hitting her magnified makeup mirror.
This isn’t the only reported incident of a makeup mirror going all Firestarter, earlyin 2015 the Daily Mail reported an incident where the mix of a makeup mirror and winter sun looked to be the cause of a fire that gutted a multi-million dollar home.
So how can you reduce the changes of this happening to you? Quite simply, keep your makeup mirror (or shaving mirror for that matter if you happen to have one) in a sunless spot after you’ve used it. After all, the quest for makeup application perfection is admirable but it’s hardly worth burning your whole makeup collection for.
Do tell… do you own a makeup mirror? Have you ever had a close call with one? Will you be careful about how you store it from now on? Have any other makeup tools caused you grief or damage? Share away…
Good article Kellie, it's things like this we never think of :)