ArcaMax

I'm a pretty loyal consumer. Once I find something that works for me, whether it's ketchup or toothpaste, I usually stick with it unless something truly horrible happens, like they change the formula and go all New Coke on me. At those times, I question my very existence and wonder if I can continue to live on a planet where someone will change the essence of a beloved product willy-nilly without considering the mental health effects this will have on their consumers.

Clearly, I take all this quite seriously. So, typically, I will turn a deaf ear to a friend who touts the amazing benefits of some new product they have discovered.

My feeling is, if ain't broke, don't lead the horse to water ... or something like that.

But then one day I met a friend for lunch, and she looked terrific. I mean, really, aged-backwards-like-Benjamin-Button terrific.

"You had work done, right?" I prompted her.

"Nope," she said.

"A little filler? Some Botox? Snake venom in your lip lines?"

"No. No. And no way."

"OK then, fess up. What are you doing differently?"

"I got new soap," she said, smirking.

"Soap?" I said incredulously. "Your face looks so fresh in that rested, before-you-had-kids kind of way, and it's because of soap?"

She nodded. Then she proceeded to tell me about this new face soap her dermatologist recommended that cleaned, removed makeup and moisturized all in one. I asked if it also picked up her dry cleaning, but she said no.

Although, as mentioned, I am not a big product experimenter, I decided that just this once, I would give this new soap a try.

I purchased the new soap -- which cost about as much as getting an actual facelift -- and took it into the shower with me the next morning.

I had worked up a good lather and could feel all the miraculousness happening as I imagined turning back the clock on my wrinkles and dry skin. But then something bad happened. Something really, really bad.

The soap got in my eye.

And that's when I discovered that the secret ingredient they put in the soap to make it so miraculous must be battery acid.

"OWWW!" I screamed. "Ow, ow, ow, holy cow, mother plucker, OWW!"

I pelted my face with water from the shower head, trying to rinse the soap out, but I was pretty sure I had already been blinded by the light, cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night ... or something like that.

There had been a point in my life when I'd thought there was nothing more painful than childbirth. Then I thought there was nothing more painful than the hemorrhoids that came after childbirth. But now I discovered that nothing really compares to the blazing pain of battery acid disguised as soap in my eye.

OK, so it probably wasn't battery acid, but whatever it was, it hurt like the blazes, and I was pretty sure if I came out of this relatively unscathed, my eyes would be colored tomato red for the rest of my life.

I came out of the shower rubbing my eyes and looked in the mirror. It was as bad as I'd thought. But even still, I decided I could live with vampire eyes.

... As long as my skin looked younger.

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Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, "Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble," available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com.

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