I tried to make nose strips with Elmer’s glue and charcoal

While perusing the internet last week, I began watching do-it-yourself videos on YouTube for various beauty regimens because I am both cheap and vain.

One in particular that caught my eye was the DIY charcoal blackhead peel, comprised of two ingredients: charcoal (which comes in activated charcoal tablets) and plain white school glue. I guess this is an effort to emulate those fancy schmancy Bioré charcoal face products.

I glanced sorrowfully at the field of blackheads around my nose, and valiantly accepted the challenge. I consulted this very reliable Google search result for the recipe.

This is where I ran into my first little conundrum: where the hell do you find charcoal tablets? I bussed to two different Walgreens and one Target Express, none of which stocked them – although, from the pitiful look the Walgreens employee gave me when I asked for charcoal tablets, I ascertained that they are typically used to treat gas and indigestion.

The closest thing I could find was this $20 bottle of “Charco Caps”… they were a little out of my budget.

There are activated charcoal tablets available on Amazon for about six to eight bucks, but since I am a mere peasant, I don’t have Amazon Prime and I wasn’t about to wait for a two-week shipping process.

I ended up seeking the help of a friend who owns a hookah and picked up a couple charcoal coals from him. I could just grind these up and they’d be practically same thing as charcoal tablets, right?

Don’t answer that.

Coco Nara coconut shell hookah charcoals, apparently made from 100% natural coconut shell charcoal. Seems legit, I’ll smear that on my face

In lieu of a mortar and pestle, I used a plastic bowl and a hammer, because college.

I hammered away for about ten minutes. Once I had sufficiently irritated all of my housemates with the ruckus, and gotten over the shock that I’d even found a hammer, I figured I had enough dust to constitute the equivalent of a charcoal tablet.

Science!

I poured about a tablespoon or so of glue into the bowl and swirled it around with a Q-tip until it reached a sticky, oozing consistency.

I am fairly certain that this mixture would rival that of the LaBrea tar pits.

More science!

Once I felt that I had procrastinated sufficiently, I bit the bullet and began to delicately apply the mixture to my nasal region, where the majority of my blackheads seem to congregate.

Time to get those little bastards out of there

My housemate Remi saw what I was up to and asked to be a part of the experiment, so we slathered some of the terrifying goo on her face as well.

‘I regret everything’ – Remi, probably

After fifteen or twenty minutes, my luxurious nose strip had hardened into a black crust on my face. I peeled it off with the trepidation you’d expect while diffusing a bomb, wincing only slightly when it plucked out a nose hair, and then examined the strip to see how many pores had been cleared out.

The dried up nose shell monster

Um, yeah. You can see that some of my blackheads were stripped out, but the “nose strip” didn’t seem much more effective to me than those store-bought ones. I’m not entirely sure what all the hype is about this thing – although, granted, I obtained my charcoal in a more alternative manner than the instructions called for.

Remi peeled off her nose strip and promptly rolled it into a ball before I could take any pictures of it. I no longer speak to her.

The traitorous barbarian herself

So there you have it. My noble efforts at getting my face to be blackhead-free were thwarted, and now I have one-and-a-half hookah coals and a mostly-full Elmer’s glue bottle sitting in the corner of my room, mocking me as I try to decide what to do with them.

I send my regards to those DIY gods and goddesses who have more patience than I do for this nonsense.

For sale: Elmer’s glue, Coco Nara coals, my pride

@TheTab