And whatever little hair was left on her scalp, had turned frizzy.   

 
A friend of mine is a real pushover, who gets easily charmed by advertisement  gimmicks; especially those of beauty/fitness products. Once she saw an ad on hair-care product that promised luscious locks within days of application. Bowled over by the ad’s catchy lines, she bounded to a nearby beauty store to buy bottles of it. But within days of using, she found that her already scanty hair had become more scanty. And whatever little hair was left on her scalp, had turned unspeakably and unmanageably frizzy.  

 In fact, she looked so scary that she could have scared off even the scare-crows, had she stood with them in a  spread-eagled posture in a paddy field. Another time, she had fallen hook, line and sinker for some gymming equipment, which niftily advertised of being sold at a knockdown price, if bought within 24 hours. The already rickety equipment, which groaned under her corpulent weight, within a few days, started dismantling all by itself beyond repair.

 Yet another time, some diet pellets had captivated my friend’s fancy. The advertisement claimed that these pills would drastically increase metabolic rate, by which one could whittle off all the surplus waist fat. After consuming a pill, my friend had already started feeling woozy, as she headed to her terrace to hang washed clothes. Over there, she started feeling dizzy.

To avoid a blackout, she clutched on to the balustrade, and in the process knocked down a plant. This in turn fell on her domestic maid, who was sweeping the driveway, making her have a blackout instead.

Fortunately, it was tiny plastic pot; else, my friend would have been cooling her heels in prison, for plotting against her maid’s life.

 Next, an ad on some facial cream that supposedly proffered glowing skin had elicited my friend’s attention.

When she tried it, she developed some blister-like spots all over her face overnight, owing to her over-sensitive skin. Next day, she got scared when she  saw herself in the mirror. Indeed, she did look like a doll that was possessed , like the ones you see in blood-curdling horror films. 

 Yet another time, she saw pictures of prepossessing fashion jewellery in a television advertisement, and immediately purchased them. But on acquiring them, she found that they looked like tackily made gimcrack jewels, which are now being used for decking up her dolls, displayed during Dasara.

 Recently, she tried eye makeup that was said to enhance the beauty of her eyes. Instead, she got lacklustre eyes. For, due to some reaction, her eyes had turned reddish, making her look as though she was suffering from a severe case of conjunctivitis. I hope this eye make-up incident will serve as an eye-opener to her.