Chemistry 101

Last night, I came home from the gym, and, after blogging about it, went to go take a shower, during which I finished a container of face scrub.

So, I had to go find a new thing of face scrub -- which I knew I had in the apartment.

Let me back up -- for some unknown reason, I have a ton of cosmetic-type stuff. I buy stuff, I use it a couple of times, and then I find something else I like better. Then it goes into a cabinet until I'm in desparate need of it, in which case I have to dig it out. One place where I store a ton of stuff is in a very thick heavy-duty plastic container (with a locking lid) under my sink. Most of my facial cleansing products are there. (Hair care products, soaps, lotions, and perfumes each have a slightly different location.)

Anyway, so last night, after my shower, I went to find a facial scrub in this plastic container. When I opened it, I found that pretty much the entire thing was covered in a sticky yellowish goo. A mystery container had leaked.

What was worse was that now the goo was on me, and I had just gotten out of the shower. Not to mention that it was on my bath mat and towels.

In other words, the goo had taken over my bathroom.

As for my evening, ultimately it wound up with a second shower and a load of laundry. But before that, I spent an hour or so cleaning my bathroom. And the container. And each and every item that was in the stupid container.

Of course, that's how I figured out what had leaked.

A couple of months ago, I had bought some very fancy and very expensive serum -- compete with a eyedrop-type disbursal apparatus -- that was supposed to make my skin look younger and firmer and more wrinkle-free while treating breakouts of adult acne. It was a total and complete waste of money, since I do not have wrinkles or particularly old looking skin, and I certainly don't have acne. (The occasional stress or hormone-related breakout, maybe -- but not acne.) But the ad was so convincing. . . .

The serum wound up in the plastic storage container -- where it had tipped over and had eaten its way through the rubber part of its cap. (Melted might be a better description, since when I touched it, the rubber was, essentially, liquid -- and next to impossible to get off my skin!) The serum had also eaten through part of another container which contained facial cleanser -- the mystery yellow goo. So now, I'm wondering exactly just what the hell kind of chemical compound I was putting on my face. If it could eat through plastic . . . .

From now on, I'm only buying stuff from the drugstore.