As the week went on, Laura and Sara started noticing that their faces were gradually getting paler, even though it was summertime and they should have been getting more tan. Sara restocked her supplies and was rapidly selling Cloe's Own brand to her friends. Laura had joined under Sara, but Laura had to purchase her starter box. "Sorry, I guess I got lucky." Sara told her when she learned that it wasn't free for the people she recruited. Everything seemed to be fine until Saturday night when Sara was washing her face and going to bed. She applied the makeup remover and rinsed her face off, but when she looked in the mirror, her red lipstick hadn't faded. She rubbed again, but it still wouldn't come off. "Hey Laura!" she called out. Laura walked in the room. She had been in the middle of washing her face too. "Laura, I seem be to having trouble getting my lipstick off, and I think my face has gotten paler too. Did you have any issu...." she trailed off. Laura was standing in front of her with a wet face and bright blue lips.
"I've been wearing more colorful looks to attract business," Laura said, but tonight my blue lipstick seems to be very attached to me." I'll wait until tomorrow and if I still can't get it off, then I'll start worrying about it.
Sunday night came and Sara washed her face again. She walked down to Laura's room. "Hey, so I wore pink lipstick today, but when I washed my face, my lips are still bright red! Also I feel like I'm even paler than yesterday! On top of that, I wore blue eyeshadow today and that won't come off either!"
"Well, I wore red lipstick today, and when I washed my face, my lips were still bright blue!" This doesn't make any sense! Laura shouted.
"Well I'm going to figure this out!" Sara exclaimed. She left the room, got her red lipstick, and came back. "This is the same color that you wore today that came off, but it's stuck on me!" She drew a red line on her arm, and then removed it with the cleanser. "That came off! So why is it stuck to my face?" She swiped a red line across her chin, applied remover, and wiped it off. "At this rate, I might as well just become a clown!" Sara yelled, exasperated. She took the lipstick and smeared it across her lips sloppily, going off her lips and drawing a smile over her mouth.
"Well, if you're going to be a clown, you have to go all in!" said Laura. She grabbed the lipstick before Sara knew what she was doing and she put a red dot on the tip of Sara's nose and drew two hasty circles on her cheeks.
"Hey now!" yelled Sara. She grabbed Laura's blue lipstick and gave Laura a blue nose and cheeks to match her lips. The makeup fight ensued and in minutes both girls faces were covered in colorful designs. It was done so quickly that neither of them really looked like clowns. It looked more like they'd let a two year old draw on their faces. Well, we should quit messing around and get to bed. I really need to call the company tomorrow about this problem." She applied makeup remover to her face and started scrubbing. Looking down at her washcloth she sighed in relief. She could see all the colors rubbing off on the cloth. They both finished wiping their faces off and looked at each other and froze.
"Why are you looking at me like that, what's wrong with my face?!" Laura stammered.
"I was gonna ask you the same question!" Sara snapped back. They both bolted to the mirror at the same time.
"YOU TURNED ME INTO A CLOWN!" they screamed at each other. Looking in the mirror, Sarah saw that some of the makeup had rubbed off, but only in certain places. The jagged blobs of red on her cheeks were now perfect circles, as though everything outside the circle had washed away. Her lips were painted in a exaggerated smile, she had a perfectly round red dot on her nose, and her eyeshadow had washed off leaving little triangles over her eyes. Also her face was so pale now that it looked like she was wearing whiteface. Laura was having the same problems.
"I think..... I think there's something very wrong with your 'amazing free makeup'." Laura stammered. Leaning down, she picked up a bag that the makeup had shipped in. The bag had been stepped on, and it was creased across the brand name. "Cloe's Own Makeup" was folded so that the "e_O" couldn't be seen. The bag now read "Clo wn Makeup".