Buyer beware
I had heard about this salon that was world famous for its special facials. I am a total beauty buff and couldn’t wait to try it out. The only problem was, world-famous facials come at no small cost and, as I was a college student at the time, I had to save up for quite a while before I could go. Finally, however, I had enough set aside to get my facial, but, of course, they were totally booked. So, making an appointment for a month or so later, I waited eagerly for my time to come. As the date drew nearer, I got really excited and couldn’t help but boast to my friends. (They must have been really sick of hearing about the ‘fabulously expensive’ facial I was going to have.) The day arrived and I went to the salon. The facial was amazing and so relaxing. Everything seemed to be absolutely perfect until I got home. My mother took one look at my face and started to freak out. My otherwise clear skin had broken out into pimples! There were at least four on each cheek, a red spot on my forehead, many on my chin and a really shiny one on my nose! To this day, I don’t know what went wrong, but one thing’s for certain; I’m never trusting a place that charges that much for a facial again! Oh, did I mention the fact that my friends ragged me for weeks when they saw what my ‘fabulously expensive’ facial had done to me?

~ Malini Shah

Mad angles
I have really thick, frizzy hair, which gets even worse in a humid climate. I didn’t want to get all my hair straightened — I’ve seen how bad it sometimes looks when not done properly, and that half-Medusa look just isn’t for me — so I decided to settle for straightening only my bangs. I didn’t consider one thing, though. My hair was really short at the time and, far from falling in a cool, nonchalant way, my bangs stuck out at weird angles as if they had a life of their own! My mother even used to say that one could teach the laws of geometry using the mad angles in my hair!

~ Kevin Thomas