Why You Should Keep Your Makeup in a Lockbox

It was a normal weekend day in our household. Our family was all home, doing whatever we were doing. There was probably some wrestling going on the couch upstairs, and some YouTube playing in the living room. You know the ones, where they open up toy packages and kids can't get enough of watching what will be in the next blind bag (why is that so fascinating?!). I'm sure I was tinkering on my laptop, writing or browsing Facebook (where my friends live).

Apparently the littlest girls — then one and three years old — did get tired of watching blind bags being opened because, while I thought they were fine and dandy, their silence was actually dangerous. Dangerous for my makeup and beauty products, that is! My husband was the one to find them in their happy thrill of a mess in my master bathroom. He met me at the door, held his hands gently on my shoulders, and said, “Before you go in there... remember it can be cleaned and it can all be replaced. Take a deep breath.”

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If he had not forewarned me, I certainly would have had the cartoon-like steam bellowing out of my ears. I stood in shock for a moment, absorbing the mess before me. My garden tub was filled with every single makeup and beauty product I owned, floating in water. Every foundation squirted to empty, along with my lotions and eye creams. Hair gel containers filled with water, powders broken up and swirled into the muddy water; even cotton pads and Q-tips succumbed to the watery mess, surely to clog the drain. As my daughter’s final touch, she “signed” her masterpiece with drawings along the tub wall with my eyeliner pencil. While I don't tend to splurge on makeup, most of my other beauty supplies aren't cheap, since I like to buy natural products when possible. My head was tallying the damage in my head, it was well near $200 to replace all this! My bank account already was crying along with me.

When I asked my (now) four-year-old why she thought this was a good idea, she responded, “But I just wanted to make mud!” Fair enough, but next time can we make mud with, ya know, dirt? And it be outside?

It's a good thing she is honest and cute. She truly didn't know she was doing anything wrong, so I held on to that perspective as I took a deep breath once more and set to work. I grabbed a trash can and told her to help clean up her mess. This was a great time to practice that patience and self-control I'm always aiming to work on as a mother of nearly five kids (the fifth one still baking). I hid my frustration well as, piece by piece, I chunked away items that shouldn't have such value in my life. I reminded myself of that. as I scrubbed (and scrubbed...) the oily “mud” residue of eyeliner, foundation, and lotion stuck to the walls of my off-white tub. Amongst my scrubbing, I decided this was a good chance to undo the makeup mask I had allowed to build over the real me, seeing how I wasn't going to run to the store to buy makeup that day or could afford to replace all these supplies at once.

You'd think I’d know by now, four children into this motherhood thing, to always be aware of silence because it usually means something messy is happening. So, mommas, this is why you should keep your makeup in a lockbox. You just never know when your little people will want to make mud.

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