Alright, friends. The time has come.

You can release the horses you’ve been holding, salvage teeth enamel from the bits you’ve been chomping, and abandon your seat’s edge to use the whole of it to sit, because yes. The makeup glasses were delivered.

For those of you who were spared the suffocation that comes with seven days of bated breath, I’ll recap. Last week I discussed my very limited vision and how it hinders eye makeup application. If I want to eyeline or mass-scare (the act of applying mascara)(or I suppose scaring the masses) I have to have my contacts in. Without corrective lenses of some kind I have to squish my face against the mirror which is not conducive to using any sort of normal length makeup brush/eyeliner.

Evidently I am not alone in this grievance because my internet search of “makeup tips for gals with glasses” unearthed models of glasses specifically designed for the fashionably four-eyed.

Enter: The Makeup Readers by Aloha Eyeware

The braid that enhances the elderly librarian look was purely serendipitous.

There are several different strengths you can order ranging from +1.25 to +4.00.

I chose +4.00 because, again, binge reading + optically challenged genetics = functional blindness.

What I neglected to realize was that these, and reading glasses in general, only magnify. Uhm, duh. But, I didn’t know! I’ve been relegated to prescription strength since age 7!

And magnify they did…

Serving a viable alternate use as a nose grooming aid.

Like, we’re talking nutty professor magnify:

Sorry, world. I’m happily married.

I took these photos the day Amazon delivered them which happened to be a day I was wearing contacts and had already applied eyeliner and mascara earlier in the day. As such, I was able to play with and explore the Makeup Readers and enjoy its main feature:

World’s most horrifying game of peek-a-boo?

The hinged lens! This is the crux of the genius of these glasses. When you need to work on your right eye, just hinge the lens down and voila! You have your left eye all magnified and functional!

At least… that’s the idea.

And for people who experience presbyopia (difficulty focusing due to loss of eyeball stretchiness… tends to happen to folks over the age of 45yrs) it might be enough. Alas, the next morning when I took these puppies for an inaugural spin I realized the fatal flaw. There is no accommodation for my hot dog shaped eyeballs. They are no match for my astigmatism.

AHH, VISION!!!

FOILED AGAIN!!!

So, the saga continues.

I doubt any optician would bother to put in an actual prescription in these guys. I mean, my prescription strength results in lenses that are so thick they run into my cheek if they’re not made of the extra special titanium flex blah-bity compression plastic, or whatever. Which basically translates to dolla dolla bills that should go towards my mortgage, not my vanity.

It’s okay.

Beauty is all about confidence, anyway.

Has anyone seen my makeups?

Nancy Novak, MD