My Greatest Fear #16

Fall is a time for face paint.

Every week, thousands of college football fans paint their faces with their teams’ colors. NFL fans do the same. And in a few days, men and women around the country will smear on face and body paint. They’ll walk around looking creepy when they smile from the contrast with that sticky, slimy substance lacquered on their faces.

Fall is a time for face paint–just not on my face.

I’ve always been finicky about any foreign substance on my skin. I was not one of those kids who wrote reminders in pen on their arms. I will never get a tattoo. I don’t like the idea of makeup and equally dislike when women wear makeup (because it might get on me).

And face paint…face paint is the worst. Not only is it a foreign substance, but it’s so synthetic. I don’t want that type of a substance seeping into my skin.

I know it’s weird, but even just looking at someone wearing face paint gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can’t ever look at the band K.I.S.S. because of that. A paranoid part of me thinks that the face paint is going to jump over to my face. Even when I watch Braveheart, I think, “This movie is awesome–but couldn’t they have left out the face paint?”

I’m pretty sure this is a fear that no one else shares–am I right?

Daily Quickie: While I was urinating in my bathroom today, I filled a glass of water with my free hand and drank it while I peed. There was something oddly gratifying about drinking the water and immediately seeing it come out the other end.

14 thoughts on “My Greatest Fear #16”

  1. I don’t the problem with the synthetic face paint when you put something equally synthetic in your hair to make it spiky. Is your skin more important than your hair?

    Reply
  2. This is a special fear. So, you’ve never had anyone prank you while you were asleep with drawing on your face?

    Congrats on the multi-tasking this morning.

    Reply
    • Nope. My friends know that I would genuinely not be happy with that prank.

      And thank you. I’m trying to run an efficient ship around here.

      Reply
  3. Funny that you put this fear in with this quickie… one of my biggest “faux pas’s” – probably related to some fear I’m unaware of – is bringing a glass of water (or coffee mug, etc) into the bathroom with me. There’s something unhygenic about it. I don’t know why or where it comes from, but I refuse to do it, unless I’m specifically bringing it in there to wash/rinse it out. Its probably related to the fear people have of water fountains springing to life once someone in a nearby bathroom flushes.

    Reply
    • Interesting. I’ve thought about that, as I know there are plenty of germs going from the toilet into the air in my bathroom, but I’ve had a cup in the bathroom for so long that I don’t think twice about it. I wonder if there’s a hygienic way to keep a cup in the bathroom but not have to worry about the germs as much. Maybe the obvious answer is to put the lid down when I flush?

      Reply
  4. One of the anthropologic beginings of face paint, including it’s association with halloween, is intentionally designed to scare people. Though different cultures recognize different features, all cultures use facial recognition as a primary way to to identify one person from another (see the BBC miniseries “Faces” [But don’t see the whole thing. It gets incredibly boring]). Hence the distortion of the face is supposed to convince the viewer to interpret the painted person as something supernatural. Hence the War Paint that you have posted in your picture, or tribal tattoos, etc.

    The other anthropological begining of face paint is to camoflague the wearer. The hybrid of these is makeup to make someone more attractive, or appear to be someone else.

    I should show you the picts of me in ICP facepaint from my late high-school/early college days. Boy, was I off my rocker!

    But I’m with Gabby, the skin/hair distinction as it covers chemicals is pretty flimsy.

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  5. I am TERRIFIED of KISS…..I can’t look at them….a very irrational fear, I know HOWEVER……

    MINI-KISS – a “little people” cover band for KISS – scares me even more!! They opened once for Hairbanger’s Ball at Joe’s in Chicago and I had to go in the other room – talk about heebie jeebies!!!

    My skin crawls now just thinking about it!!

    Reply
  6. I share the same fear, it’s horrible when my parents force me to go to fetes or open the door on halloween. I can’t go near face paint, or near anyone with face paint on.

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    • Thank you, Jenna! I still get creeped out by it. There was a guy on Shark Tank a few months ago promoting some type of peel-off skin paint, and it made me really uncomfortable.

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  7. Waiiiiitt I have a similar fear! although, it doesn’t relate to facepaint specifically. I am afraid of all those things you listed mildly, but I am mostly afraid of having food on my face or seeing it on other people’s faces. I don’t know why I have this fear but I think it may branch from my insecurity with how others perceive me
    It is especially bad with ice cream though. People eat icecream and bits of cream get all over their face. I can’t even look at them when that happens, I just want to run and get super anxious. Worse thing is that I told my family and now they eat icecream and then rub it all over their face. Great family
    I keep searching online to see if this is an actual phobia but apparently not? o.o

    Reply

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