I'm Shameless

Lately I find myself handing out business cards for the blog wherever I go.  It's shameless, really.  Of course, I blame childbirth for my shamelessness.  Or at least my lack of modesty.  Delivering a child from my near-naked body in front of a veritable crowd of hospital employees kind of does that.

It's amazing what shamelessness and lack of modesty can do for your income.  One of the cash-earning activities I've done over the last few years is known in the scientific world as "noninvasive objective skin measurement."  In the mommy world it's known as "whoring out your body in very small increments."

You know how you buy beauty products that say "not tested on animals"?  They've been tested on me.  It's all good: makeup companies stop spraying lip gloss onto bunnies, and I make extra cash.  This is done at a place called the Center for Scientific Study of Mommy Skin or something like that.

Specifically, small dabs of your favorite moisturizer, eye shadow, and facial cleanser have been taped to my back for days on end.  If that sounds like it might be incredibly irritating, that's because it is, in fact, incredibly irritating.  Depending on the test, you have to stop into their suburban office every other day for about four weeks.  Each time, a nurse rips the tape off, measures how red your skin is, and then applies fresh goo and tape.  This is pretty much the most sane test they offer.

Other tests are a bit more complicated.  One involved putting one kind of acne gel on one side of my face, and another on the other side of my face.  This test was incredibly awesome for one side of my face.  That side looked like an ad for some sort of magical new Cover Girl foundation.  It was totally worth the intense burning slight tingling sensation.  On the other side?  Let's just say it was slightly less successful. 

My favorite one was a leg study.  I was asked to do a study that paid particularly well because they were having a hard time finding enough participants. Would I mind only shaving my legs only once a week? Uh, no problem. In fact, I would be more than happy to just skip it all together if they'd like. I was delighted that finally my slovenliness was paying off. For my husband, the Absent-Minded Professor, it was a double win: extra money plus I had to shave my legs once a week.

Another test involved checking the rate of coverage of a spray sunblock.  Wearing a black bikini, I had to spray sunblock on myself and then stand on a platform under ultraviolet lights while having my torso photographed.  This was in the presence of two men who claim to be scientists but might just have a fetish for suburban middle-aged moms.   In Philly there are nightclubs where bikini-clad "shot girls" slink around under the black lights hawking expensive, colorful test-tubes of booze.  So it was kind of like that, except instead of hot girls selling lemon drops, we were a bunch of moms handing off Capri Suns to our kids to keep them from asking questions like "Mommy, why are you so jiggly?"

Another time I allowed them to basically super-glue a glass microscope slide to the side of my nose because they promised me it would be "just like a Biore strip."  It was not.

More humiliating than the bikini event and the not-really-a-Biore-strip incident were the evaluations to qualify for the tests in the first place.  In their front office, they'll hang a sign that says "Dry Legs? See Janine" or "Do you have Crow's Feet? Please see Dr. Steve."  I would get all excited, because I have dry legs or crow's feet or hideous stretch marks or intensely chapped eyelids or whatever they're looking for. Because I need the money have lots of skin issues.  So I would see Janine or Dr. Steve and be told that my stretch marks were only slightly hideous and my eyelids were only mildly chapped and I'd be disappointed.  Yeah, because that makes sense. 

Another evaluation required them to peer at my pores under a special light that makes skin bacteria glow.  That special light also makes your sun damage readily apparent.  The whole thing made me feel like I really needed to see a dermatologist as soon as possible very special.  Most pathetic?  I was sad that I didn't have enough skin bacteria to qualify for the study.

The best part of the Center for Scientific Study of Mommy Skin is hanging out with other moms.  Nothing encourages bonding like sitting next to someone while you wait for the super glue on your nose to dry.  It becomes as normal as sitting in a doctor's waiting room, assuming your doctor has you glue stuff to your nose.  Because moms of multiples tend to need to get the hell out of the house extra cash, a lot of the twin, triplet, and quad mommies would end up there.  We could have held board meetings for my mothers of multiples club there whenever there was a really good face wash study going on.

The truly bizarre thing about all this is how normal it became and how many of my friends were involved.  I can see how crime rings of suburban moms could form this way.  One minute you're huffing super glue and the next minute you're letting strange men photograph you in a bikini.  It's a slippery slope.  Pretty soon you're selling pot brownies at the PTA and before you know it Alanis Morrisette is your ob/gyn and people are getting killed with croquet mallets.  It can get out of control, I tell you.  Shameless.