I'm Lucie Fink and and this week is Five Days of No Mirror.
This is officially the most requested video topic in the two plus years that this series
has been on YouTube.
So give this video a thumbs up because it's finally here.
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so that you never miss another five day challenge
ever, ever again.
Alright, this is it.
No mirror.
I kind of shied away from this episode when it was first suggested and that's because
to be completely honest with you guys, I did not know what kind of story this would tell
or what you guys would possibly learn from me doing this challenge.
Whenever I'm working on a new episode I want to make sure that I'm teaching you guys something
and that the topic can enrich your lives in some way.
And I just couldn't figure out how no mirror was going to do that.
But if I had just started the challenge a little bit earlier I would have realized how
difficult it actually is and also how much of a story there is to tell.
Firstly, just know that I'm vlogging this episode on my normal camera.
But the flip screen that I normally have flipped up is flipped down.
So I'm just looking into the lens and I cannot see myself.
And secondly I know this is not a new challenge.
There have been so many others that have done this at this point.
But I have been getting the suggestion since 2015 and I truly do believe that every single
person that tries this is gonna have a unique self reflective experience here.
You see what I did there?
Reflective.
So that I could dive right into the experiment today I spent a lot of yesterday preparing
the apartment by covering the mirrors.
I covered the bathroom mirror with a giant blanket and I put a little sticker on it that
says, "Don't worry you look great."
Then I covered the hallway mirror with a pillowcase.
That's the mirror that I always look in just before I run out the door to make sure everything's
looking okay.
So I wrote on it, "There is nothing in your teeth!"
And I really hope there's nothing in my teeth when I look in that mirror.
Then I covered the big mirror in my bedroom with a blanket
and I wrote on it, "Good morning, beautiful."
I woke up this morning and I put on this outfit.
This butterfly tank top on top of a white T-shirt, black jeans, and this pink headband.
Normally I would have looked at myself in the mirror to make sure it looked okay, but
I didn't have that luxury.
So I just kind of looked down at myself and took a guess.
I was anxious pretty much all night in bed thinking about how I was going to wash up
in the morning with that blue blanket over the mirror.
My entire morning routine takes place in the bathroom and I'm typically looking at my reflection
the entire time.
A lot of the time it's just to see how I look, like if I want to check for emerging pimples
on my face, or to see how my bangs are falling on my head.
But other times I look at myself in the mirror because it's necessary for my own safety such
as when I put contact lenses in my eyes or when I apply eye makeup.
So when I got out of bed this morning I went to the bathroom and I began my whole morning
routine without a mirror.
Putting in my contact lenses
without a mirror was kind of weird.
Normally I'm looking right at my eye and I'm seeing exactly where the contact goes.
Without the mirror I felt like I couldn't find my eyeball.
I couldn't tell if the contact lens had made it safely or if it had crumpled out.
And it took a few tries, it was really difficult but eventually I got it.
I can see.
When it came to my makeup routine this morning I didn't want to make my life easier or cut
corners at all.
I was in the mood for a challenge.
So even without my mirror I went for a full face of makeup.
First, eyeliner.
And I have no idea how it came out.
But I went really slowly and I did it just based on feel.
So I kind of touched the pen to my eyelid first and then dragged it along the line.
Put that right in my eye.
Next, bronzer and blush, which I went a little lighter on than normal just to be safe.
My bronzer container actually had a little surprise mirror in it so I angled it away
from me, and then I tried filling in and brushing my brows.
Then I added mascara, which is extremely terrifying without a mirror.
It's like putting a black wand of death near your eye.
And lastly, lipstick.
Not bad.
Then it was time to style my bangs with a blow dryer, which is not that easy to do when
you can't see yourself.
And by the time I was done with all this it was about 30 minutes later than normal.
So I rushed off to work and I was a little late.
I think I'm finally ready to digest how I feel from yesterday.
First and foremost, until you try this challenge you don't realize just how many surfaces in
the world are reflective.
The stainless steel on the sink, the microwave, the toaster oven, your computer monitor, your
phone screen, even my engagement ring is slightly reflective if I look at it close enough.
I read somewhere that women check their reflection on average eight times per day.
So I spent a good portion of the day yesterday just dodging my reflection when I would accidentally
encounter it.
And I actually had to block off some reflections at work.
So first and foremost, my computer monitor on my desk is basically just a giant mirror.
So sitting at my desk and trying to do work on my laptop, it's a little distracting.
So I reached under my desk and actually pulled off the top of the bin under there, and I
used it to block off the screen.
And secondly, I kept accidentally opening selfie mode on my iPhone, and I decided this
is going to keep happening throughout the week.
I just need to protect myself.
So I cut off a little piece
of a sticky note and I covered the front facing camera so that now whenever I open it, I just
see blue.
Going back to yesterday and my full face of makeup, I've actually read a ton of testimonials
from people who have done makeup without looking in the mirror, and they seem to feel a little
bit less secure because they don't know what their face looks like.
I have to say, I had the exact opposite experience yesterday.
Normally when I'm putting makeup on, I'm a really harsh critic of myself and I look at
the eyeliner line and I keep redoing it until it's perfect.
But yesterday
that didn't happen.
I had a one shot deal.
I did it really slowly, really carefully.
And then that confidence from the inside seeped out.
And you know, I don't know what my face looked like yesterday.
For all I know the lines were completely uneven.
Maybe I had lipstick on my teeth.
Who knows.
I just have to say that I felt like I looked pretty awesome.
But this morning as I was getting ready for work I did not have the same amount of time
to kill.
So I decided to cut down drastically on the makeup.
I just did a little brow brush, a little blush and bronzer, and finished it off with mascara.
I also wanted to try curling my hair today so I plugged in the curling iron which was
a grave error on my part.
Ha ah!
I didn't realize that normally when you curl your hair, you're seeing your reflection and
you're actually doing things backwards from what you think you're doing.
It's really hard to explain but if you try curling your hair without a mirror, it is
confusing.
And after a few burns and a couple scares.
Ah, I'm gonna burn my hair!
Woo, that was scary.
I decided I'm not gonna do this anymore.
I'm just gonna leave my hair with a couple of curls and a couple straight pieces.
And it's gonna have to do.
What do I look like under here?
Okay you guys, normally when I shoot my web cams, I have the little flip up screen on
my webcam camera flipped up so that I can see myself.
And the reason I do that is so that every so often I can look up at the screen and I
can check to make sure I am centered in the frame, and I can make sure that it doesn't
look like my paintings are off kilter.
Or sometimes I just want to check my hair and make sure it's not flying all over my
face.
The reason I'm telling you about the flip screen is that I did not have the screen opened
today and I just recorded, about 20 minutes ago, a webcam of myself where I'm telling
you about something that happened today.
As I was turning my camera off, I caught a glimpse of the video.
And accidentally this lens was zoomed in so far that you can just see one of my eyes and
half my mouth.
So I just did an entire webcam that looks like this.
There are so many mirrors that it's hard to not stop and look at yourself.
All I can say is thankfully I caught that so that you guys didn't have to watch an entire
vlog of just one eye.
I still don't know if I'm centered in the screen but this time I did set up my camera
and go around behind it to see what it sees before I sat in the frame.
So I think this is a good frame but I don't know.
The truth is though, it kind of feels like I'm starting to forget what I look like.
And I don't mean what I actually look like when I see a picture of myself, because I
haven't stopped myself from looking at photos of myself this week.
It's more so that I forget what it looks like to make eye contact with myself in a mirror.
It's just very weird.
I feel like I'm losing an idea of what I look like in the face.
I just feel like I need to touch it and remember.
Anyway, tonight I went to the gym and it is so underrated how many mirrors are everywhere
in a gym.
It's almost like the point of a gym is not only to exercise but to watch yourself exercise.
And you don't think about it too much until you're at the gym avoiding mirrors.
And you realize that everywhere you turn, your reflection is staring back at you.
But I went about my workout and it was actually really, really nice to not look at myself
and to not think about how I look while I'm working out.
Or to look at my body and to try to figure out which muscles are being activated.
Instead I just did the workout, I was in the moment.
But all I know is that forcing myself not to look in the mirror not only made me feel
better and to feel more confident about the workout, but it also saved me so much time
in the gym today.
It's day four without seeing my reflection and I have a couple of fun facts to share
with you.
Number one, I find that because I don't know what my face looks like, I guess I want to
protect it in some way.
So I find myself wearing sunglasses a lot more often.
Both outdoors, but also indoors.
Number two, after every single meal I've had this week, I've felt like there's food in
my teeth.
You actually did have a little something.
I do?
Here?
Oh god.
Yeah, you're good.
I don't even have a mirror.
And even when I feel around with my tongue and I don't feel anything in there, I still feel
like it's there.
And number three, I now know why the science fiction show about the unexpected consequences
of technology is called Black Mirror.
So yeah I can't look at my phone until the screen is already lit up.
Today we had a pretty important meeting in the middle of the day and I have to say, I
finally started to understand those feelings of insecurity
that a lot of people that cut out mirrors experience.
Normally by midday at work I'm not looking so hot.
You know, my makeup's maybe starting to smudge on my face, I could have something in my teeth
from lunch.
I'm generally feeling a little drab and dreary, and it's always a good idea for me to go into
the mirror, touch up my makeup, and just brighten up my look.
But because I couldn't tell how it looks, I went into this meeting feeling like I looked
like crap, which probably changed my whole demeanor and made me look more like crap than
I had to.
If you have a job
where you need to look presentable and well groomed, it's understandable why you would
check yourself in the mirror so many times throughout the day.
But what I'm really learning here is that a mirror is a double edged sword.
On the one hand, we need them to feel better about ourselves to confirm that we don't look
like the crap we think we look like.
But on the other hand, I read that nine out of ten women hate looking at their reflection.
And that could be a totally incorrect statistic — I found it on the Internet.
So it's probably true, probably not, I don't know.
But do you see what I'm saying here?
A mirror can be so good and so helpful, but it can also be crushing and disheartening.
Comment below let us know how you generally feel when you see your reflection.
And then maybe we'll make our own statistic with this new data set.
It's officially been five days and this has got to be one of the strangest experiments
I've tried in my entire life.
The experiment that I thought would have no story turns out being the most interesting
weird thing I've ever done.
This week I've felt all sorts of things.
I felt powerful and confident just by letting how I feel on the inside shine out.
I also felt the complete opposite of that, very self-conscious and uncomfortable not
knowing how I looked or how I was presenting myself.
Clearly this experiment has the ability to both bring out your inner confidence but also
to mess with your head a bit and make you feel raw and exposed and uncertain about yourself.
And now it's the moment of truth.
I'm about to look at myself in the mirror.
I brought this little pocket mirror and I'm going to look at myself.
Ready?
Here goes.
One, two, three.
Whoa, hi!
Wow, I look just as I always remembered.
How've you been?
Oh my god, my skin's really dry.
I didn't know.
How you doin'?
Oh, lipstick on the teeth.
I did a pretty good job of my eyeliner.
Not bad.
I missed you.
It's like seeing an old friend.
Hey YouTube, thanks for watching five days of no mirror.
Click here for another video on Refinery29, here to subscribe to our YouTube channel,
and right here for my personal YouTube channel.
See ya!