The purchase started out as a cost-saving measure. Our bathroom is not particularly well-lit and when I gently suggested to my honey that we install a series of modern puck lights in the ceiling to even out shadows and provide better overall lighting for makeup application (a time-consuming and onerous task at my age), his response was predictably male. He immediately detailed the tiresome list of potential problems that could arise. We’d have to completely tear up the ceiling and lord knows what horrors that would uncover. We’d have to hire an electrician and everybody knows how horrendously expensive they are, not to mention the actual cost of the light fixtures, switch and wiring. Let’s not even get into the mess it’ll create. And maybe we’ll even need a permit and have to include the work on our deed of property. You get the picture. Within thirty seconds of opening the discussion, I knew that new puck lights were not in my future.

So, at less cost and theoretically involving an easier installation process, I landed on the idea of buying one of those wall-mounted illuminated makeup mirrors that flips from regular to magnified. Emboldened by my obvious brilliance, I perused the selection on Amazon.ca and selected a little beauty by Danielle that would make my dreams come true. It flipped to ten-times magnification, had a circular light around the mirror and came with a price tag that was manageable. Problem solved.

Then, as inevitably happens with our home handymen, mine installed the new mirror so high I had to stand on my tiptoes and tilt the mirror down to even see myself. A certain amount of domestic discord followed, resulting in three open drilled holes in the wood that are still awaiting woodfiller. When the time is conducive and the mood safe, I may suggest the holes be repaired—or more likely, I’ll just attend to it myself.

Sadly, my new mirror came with an entirely new set of problems which became immediately apparent. Have you ever seen those photos of the moon showing its pocked surface with massive craters, debris fields and surface scars? Or perhaps a pot-holed, rutted dirt road somewhere in the countryside? Then, you’ll understand what my face looked like when I first glanced at it in my new ten-times magnification illuminated makeup mirror. The 10X magnification also meant that I had to be within two or three inches of the mirror and squint to see anything, and what I did see was not pretty. I could only scrutinize sections of my face at a time, not the entire picture at a glance. It’s perfect for weeding out those stray chin whiskers but useless for assessing overall makeup application at a glance. I have to scroll around and check out my reflection pixel by pixel.

I should have never ordered that damn mirror but my money’s already been spent, the packaging trashed and my self-image brutally assaulted. Those little blonde chin hairs have become towering birch trees on a forest floor of dry, cracked leaves. If you see me on the street, on my way to trauma counseling, and my eyebrows are lopsided and drawn half-way up my forehead or my blusher looks like a slash of blood, it’s not my fault. Ladies, unless you’re into S&M or other destructive past-times, never, ever buy a suicide-inducing 10X magnification mirror. Mirror mirror on the wall. Who’s the stupidest, vainest, ugliest Boomer of all? You’re lookin’ at ‘er.