I was just driving home from the shops when I caught myself doing another mirror check. That’s at least three times now, obsessive compulsion is setting in. However, it reminded me of a beard story and seeing as I have a few minutes before I’m due to look in the mirror again I thought I’d write about it.

Many moons ago I had a full beard, a great big thing that looked ridiculous and made me feel dirty. I only grew it to see if I could, and when I knew I could I decided to shave it off. It was around Christmas time and we’d been invited to a fancy dress party on New Years Eve. I had the brilliant idea of going to the party as Black Beard. I could colour the beard black and then shave it off the following day. I bought the hair dye (blue black) and in no time was sporting the blackest beard you’d ever seen.

The following day I shaved it off. BUT the one thing I had completely forgotten about was that hair dye stains skin. To my credit, when I’d put the colour on I hadn’t missed a spot, because as I shaved the hair fell into the basin but where the hair had been I had the perfect shape left on my face in black dye. I tried soap, shampoo, Stain Devil’s and even a Brillo pad. That baby was going nowhere. It took two weeks for it to fade, and several months for me to live it down at work.