I leave product everywhere.
I know that. The sink looks like a beauty counter after a sale and I am not going to stand here and pretend I am tidy. Still. If you use my mascara I will know. A shared flat is not a shared bloody face.
That is the whole point. Everything else is me circling it because I live with two friends and one bathroom and I have started talking to the mirror like it is the only person in this house who actually listens.
I am messy. I am not communal.
There is a difference and people love collapsing it. I leave the lid off. I leave a cotton pad on the side. I leave three lip products that all look the same in bad lighting. That is my chaos. It does not mean the tube with my fingerprints on it is now a house resource.
I have said this out loud in the kitchen and watched a face do that little half smile. The one that means you are being dramatic. The one that means it is only makeup.
Only makeup is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
I work early. Warehouse radio, rota, boots by the door. The bathroom is the five minutes where I put the day on. Not spiritually. Literally. Concealer. Mascara. A mouth that looks like I slept. If the face is sorted I can walk onto the floor like I own a bit of it. If the face is off I feel like I have turned up half dressed, even in a decent jacket.
So no. You cannot dip my wand in your eye because you are running late and mine was closer.
How I know
People think they are subtle. They are not.
The wand is wetter than I left it. The cap is on wrong. There is a smear on the sink that is not my shade. The compact is facing the other way. I put things down in a particular mess. It is still my mess. Someone else rummaging through it leaves a different kind of disorder, the kind that looks borrowed.
And mascara is intimate in a grim little way. That brush has been on my lashes. It has been near my eye. I do not fancy your Monday morning conjunctivitis as a flat warming gift. Ask me for a concealer and I might moan and still say yes. Help yourself to the tube that has been in my waterline and I will go quiet in a way that should worry you.
Quiet from me is not mysterious. Quiet from me is me deciding whether I am going to be funny about it or actually annoyed.
The bathroom is a corridor with a sink
Three of us. One lock that sticks. Someone always needs a wee when someone else is doing a full face. That is the deal. I accepted the deal when I signed the thing and put my name on the council tax.
What I did not accept is becoming the unofficial Boots at the end of the hall.
You can use the mirror. Obviously. That is why it is on the wall and not in my bedroom like I am a Victorian ghost. You can leave your toothbrush. You can leave your damp towel if you like living in a swamp, I have given up on that fight. What you cannot do is treat my shelf like a tester stand.
I have a system, even if it looks like I do not. Day stuff on the left. Night stuff in a bag I keep meaning to zip. The good lipstick lives in a pot so it does not roll into the plughole. When something has moved, my morning goes sideways before I have even had tea. That sounds precious. It is not precious. It is the only part of the day that belongs to me before the warehouse starts asking questions.
Ask. That is the entire rule.
I am not unreasonable. I am really not, even when I am being cocky about it.
Ask and I will probably say yes to the cheap stuff. Ask and I might even do your liner for you if we are going out and I am already in a good mood. Ask and I can tell you which mascara clumps if you pump the wand like you are trying to start a lawnmower.
Do not ask and I start doing maths. Not the useful kind from the degree. The petty kind. How much that tube cost. How many early shifts it took. How quickly it will run out now there are two faces on it. How I am supposed to look like I am after a promotion when my lashes are doing that sparse, shared, slightly grim thing.
Money is already tight enough without my bathroom turning into a subscription service I did not agree to.
And it is the principle, which I used to think was a boring sentence until I lived with people. The principle is: my things are my things until I offer them. Friendship does not come with a backstage pass to my makeup bag.
I look in the mirror too much. That is my business.
I know I clock every reflective surface. Shop windows. The kettle. The dark bit of my phone when it is locked. The bathroom mirror most of all. People have commented. I make a joke and keep doing it.
It is not vanity in the pretty way. It is checking the armour is on. If I look finished I can be Els. Smug. Fine. Ready. If I look like I have been dragged through a late shift I start feeling eight years old again and I do not have time for that before work.
So when someone else has been in my products, it is not just hygiene and it is not just cash. It is someone smudging the one bit of the morning I control. That is why I go from happy to sharp in about four seconds. Then I put another coat on anyway, because of course I do.
What I am doing about it, badly
I have started taking the good stuff back to my room. Which is annoying, because the point of a bathroom shelf is that the bathroom shelf exists. Now I am that person padding down the hall with a pouch like I am going through airport security.
I have also started labelling things, which feels unhinged for a thirty year old with a job and a council tax bill. Els. Do not. Thank you. Written on a bit of tape. If that makes me look territorial, good. I am territorial. This face is the one I take to work.
I have not done a big house meeting. We are friends. Friends pretend they can hint. Hints do not work on people who think mascara is like washing up liquid.
So this is the unhinted version.
Use the mirror. Use the light. Use the plug. Use your own wand. If you are stuck and you need something, knock on my door and use your words. I respond very well to words. I respond extremely poorly to finding my own lashes on a brush I did not put there.
Anyway
I will still leave product everywhere. That part is not changing. I get ready like I am already late even when I am not. There will be powder on the tap and a lid somewhere near the bin.
That mess is mine.
The face in the mirror is also mine.
Shared rent. Shared kettle. Shared bathroom queue at 6.40am. Not a shared identity you can smear on because you could not find yours.
If that sounds dramatic, you have never had to do a twelve hour shift on someone else’s leftovers and a half dead tube. Buy your own. Or ask. Those are the options. Everything else is just you hoping I will be too busy being the fun one to notice.
I notice.
