She sprayed her hair with WHAT?

 

HALLIE EPHRON: As I was looking for upbeat news among the many hapless events that filled the news feeds last week, my attention snagged on a CNN headline: “Gorilla Glue Girl.” Irresistible! I clicked.

Apparently a young woman in Louisiana sprayed her hair with Gorilla Glue and it turned her hair into an impenetrable helmet. Shampooed it numerous times to no avail. Paid a visit to her local emergency room and they weren’t able to loosen its grip. She went (where else?) online with her plight and found a sympathetic audience, raising $13K in a GoFundMe campaign.

Oh the suspense! Finally, according to the New York Times, a Los Angeles plastic surgeon concocted a solvent that got the job done. 

Let’s not weigh in on how this could have happened (don’t we all keep our super adhesives alongside our hair products?) And to be fair, the online ads for Gorilla Glue describe it as a “spray adhesive” with the virtue of being “incredibly strong.” Isn’t that there very definition of hair spray? Nowhere does it say DO NOT SPRAY YOUR HEAD.

Before you pass judgment, how many friends do you have who picked up what they thought was their contact lens solution and it turned out to be… something else. Worst case: nail polish remover or the omnipresent alcohol wash.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that tried to answer my remote control when my cell phone rang.

Reminded me of the time I went out to the yard to cut some flowers and it wasn’t until I was standing over the phlox that I realized I’d picked up a wine bottle opener instead of a garden clipper.

Or, perhaps like one of the contestants on The Great British Baking Show, you inadvertently put a half-cup of salt into a recipe instead of a half-cup of sugar.

So I thought today we could be generous and commiserate with Gorilla Glue Girl, sharing our own less-than-ept moments.

JENN McKINLAY: There was that horrible day that I grabbed scented body oil instead of hairspray and managed to oil my head. It smelled great but I looked like a seagull rescued from the Exxon Valdez disaster.

I feel for Glue Girl, I do. In my defense they were both non aerosol pump bottles that looked exactly the same. When my eyebrows went rogue, I thought using the same razor I use on my legs would be less painful than tweezers. It was. However the shape they took after the razor, well, let’s just say I spent a month with a constant look of surprise on my face!

LUCY BURDETTE: These things do happen, but Gorilla Glue?? Anyway, I’ve done the opposite of Jenn--applied conditioner to hands and legs instead of hand cream. And used other tubes of ointments in the wrong places (won’t say more on that subject.)

But back to glue, in our pod like any good older sibling, T-Bone is known to knock things off the counter that Lottie puppy can’t get at. Then the dog runs off with them and shreds the item in question. A few weeks ago, we were missing the tube of Superglue. Yep, we found it in Lottie’s stash with bite marks all over it. Luckily she didn’t glue her mouth shut!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, yikes, Lucy! That would have been awful! It's always the things you don't expect, like the time Kayti's dog got into the jeweler's rouge in Rick's tools. Hint: jeweler's rouge is made from iron and is very poisonous when ingested!

I feel for glue girl, I really do. I mean, anyone could mix up two aerosol cans, right? But why was the super glue next to the hair spray? That's sort of like keeping toilet cleaner next to your olive oil and picking up the wrong one. (And no, haven't personally done that. Yet.) I have used hair conditioner instead of shampoo, and vice versa, picked up what I thought were kitchen scissor and wondered why I had the garden secateurs in my hand. I'm always reaching in the kitchen drawer for the can opener and pulling out the utility knife. But I can't possibly top Jenn's hairspray/body oil. Or the eyebrows. Ouch!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, how about the hideous baking powder/baking soda dilemma?

And I am still baffled about why the warning label on my hair dryer says “keep away from water.” I mean…

But I have almost used eyeliner as lipliner, and lipliner as eyeliner. Neither would have been successful. And certainly the “things in tubes” dilemma--toothpaste or face goo.

Yes, I have definitely answered my remote, and tried to turn off the tv with my phone.

And recently, I put the “white revive” stuff into the colored batch of the laundry. I gave it the old covid “whatever” response, and I have to say, it didn’t matter.

Gorilla Glue person was probably working on the copyedits of one book, trying to write another book, and trying to think of a pitch for her next one, and trying to keep up with Insta, Twitter and facebook, and figuring out what’s for dinner. Just a thought.

RHYS BOWEN: I can’t imagine anyone being clueless enough not to know what Gorilla Glue is. Having stuck a million objects together with Gorilla Glue and seen the ads on TV when the gorilla leaps out to save the day I know it’s for sticking things but not spraying hair.

However, I have been guilty of putting salt into my coffee in a fancy restaurant (how was I to know the silver dish contained salt, not sugar?) AND grabbing the wrong bottle in the hotel shower while I was on book tour and putting body lotion on my hair instead of conditioner. That also took a long time to remove. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Honestly, I can commiserate with Gorilla Glue Girl because I think back to my teens and early twenties and recall the dumb things I put on my hair and skin deliberately. Like baby oil in the sun - boy, am I paying for that now. Or pouring lemon juice and hydrogen peroxide on my scalp to lighten my hair. Or in the eighties, when I was trying to get my 'do WAY up (you remember 80s hair...) and thought if a little mousse lifts it a little, then a lot of mousse... turns it into an impenetrable thicket of stiffened keratin and chemicals.

I don't even want to think about the "fun, do-it-yourself" fake nails that would NOT come off. I had to go to the local nail place, super embarrassed, of course, because I had obviously been trying to cheap out and do it myself, and paid $$$ to get them off. And my nails were a shredded mess for months afterwards!

So my sympathy's with you, Gorilla Glue Girl. It was bad enough with Cosmo Magazine's "Why Don't You Try" column; I can just imagine the mischief I would have gotten into if I had been able to read "Five Fun Beauty Hacks" on someone's Instagram back in the day.

HALLIE: So in the spirit that confession is good for the soul, it's time to share oopses.