‘Mustache Lady’ — by Jasmine Botter

It was the first day of third grade. I had some brand new pink sneakers on my feet, big, obnoxious flower clips in my dark-brown pigtailed hair, and a sun-kissed tan from the summer I had spent on Lake Simcoe with my little brother and loving parents. I loved school, and entered the classroom to sit on the carpet with excitement and anticipation for everything that was to come. A boy whom I recognized from last year started telling me about his summer, and I responded by sharing a story about mine. A smile started to form on his face, but nothing I had said was particularly funny. Confused, I stopped in the middle of my story to ask, “What?” His smiled then widened into an open grin as he blurted out the words, “You have a mustache!”

A bunch of kids turned to stare in our direction. I thought I must have had a smear of dirt from the playground or that perhaps some milk from my breakfast stuck to my upper lip. Embarrassed, I raised my hand to wipe whatever it was off, but when I looked back at my hand, nothing was there, and everyone was still staring. I was saved from the awkwardness of the moment by the teacher taking a seat in a rocking chair at the head of the carpet, and excused myself later to go to the bathroom so I could take a closer look. When I got to the bathroom, however, my upper lip was bare.

Over the next couple years, comments on my mustache from other school children were few and far between. Being the confident, carefree young girl I was I would shrug the comments off and move on with the day. Besides, every time I went to check my reflection, there was no said “mustache” visible, so I figured it was only strange coincidence.

It wasn’t until sixth grade that the issue turned legitimate. As any other little girl, I had a harmless, but quite apparent crush on a boy in my class. It was a cliché adolescent love story – we spent recesses annoying each other for just a sliver of the other’s attention in the most ridiculous of ways. After one recess, I entered our classroom, full of kids putting their indoor shoes back on, and saw him sitting at his desk smiling quite mischievously at me. I smiled back, wondering what annoying stunt he was going to pull this time. He looked to the boy in the desk next to him, and they counted to three on their fingers before loudly blurting out the words, “JASMINE HAS A MUSTACHE! JASMINE HAS A MUSTACHE! JASMINE HAS A MUSTACHE!” in that taunting “na na na na boo boo” tune. My face twisted from playful annoyance to utter horror as one-by-one the rest of the class joined in on the chanting until the room was filled with screaming and laughing. Then our teacher, who was quite taken aback burst out of his desk chair.

“Next person to speak gets detention for a week!” he shouted over the chanting, which then came to an abrupt stop. “How incredibly immature of you guys… and I thought so highly of you all…” I remember sinking down into my seat, my face red and feeling just about ready to burst into flames. This boy and I were used to making fun of each other, but this time he crossed a line which within the next few months led to the worst bullying I’d ever experienced.

I was so relieved when I finally got home from school that day – all I wanted to do was take any steps necessary to get rid of this mustache everyone was taunting me about. My mom could tell something was wrong right when I stepped in the door, she could always read my brother and I like a book. Despite her persistent questioning I managed to put on my happiest face and told her nothing was wrong – I’ve always preferred to deal with personal issues on my own… some sort of stubborn curse granted upon me, I guess. I then excused myself for a shower and locked myself in the bathroom, running the water so she wouldn’t suspect anything was the matter. “Where to start… where to start…” I thought to myself rummaging through the bathroom vanity’s drawers. I grabbed some nail clippers with a vague idea as to how I’d use them and looked at myself closer in the mirror. I hadn’t paid any attention to the issue since the last time someone mentioned it, but sure enough, there it was. A line of dark peach fuzz curved over my upper lip like a furry rainbow. I can remember stepping back from the mirror and looking into my eyes, ashamed. I was quite the girly-girl, having idolized the likes of princesses and dolls my entire life. I had never been more ashamed, feeling that this hair, which I had no control over, would have been quite frowned upon by my princess and doll friends. I stared into the mirror for a while, wiping tears away and shifting my gaze from my distressed eyes to my upper lip. I felt my confidence dwindling as I realized I would never grow up to be as “beautiful” as I hoped. Above all, I felt like I never wanted to face the world again, let alone the kids at school. But then I looked at the nail clippers in my hand and remembered I could fix the issue I was facing. I was fully aware that nail clippers were probably not the best tool, but in my desperate moment of self-judgment it was the best solution I could think of. I dried the tears from my face for the last time and inched closer to the mirror, clamping the clippers down on a couple hairs at a time to pull them out. It was quite painful, but I persevered thinking that nothing could be worse than the horror I had faced in the classroom that day. After a couple minutes of pulling hair out and attempting to numb the pain with cold tap water I felt the clippers dig into my skin. Blood began to surface from a tiny spot on my left upper lip. Frustration finally overcame my need to be independent, and I went out to find my mom for help. She was shocked at first, almost angry, but after I explained the whole situation through my tears she softened. Kissing my forehead she told me we’d go out after my wound had healed and buy something to deal with it. 

The kids at school had started calling me “mustache lady” after almost everything I said. It’s quite sad to think how my previous free-spirited character was slowly crushed as I tried to stay silent and unnoticed by my peers. All I wanted was to again be able to hang out with the other kids without my mustache standing in the way. So then, as my mother promised, the procedures began. All were quite painful and strange to me, especially at my young age. We started with bleaching, but my skin was far too sensitive and the product irritated it to the point of redness. I remember kids laughing that “my mustache had turned red” which was almost more humiliating than them bullying me just for having a normal mustache. Then we tried home-waxing, but it never really seemed to do the job – leaving lots of hair behind for kids to make fun of. Then my mother finally showed me how to pluck – but this time instead of nail clippers it was with tweezers. The procedure was painful, but again I persevered, thinking nothing was more painful than having all my classmates make fun of me.

And so, plucking seemed to finally do the trick. I quickly adjusted to tolerate the pain, and kids stopped making fun of me. I can’t vouch, exactly, that my confidence ever really returned back to what it was before the bullying. I know that my story doesn’t represent the worst case of bullying out there, but that still now, at the age of 20, I get a little bit self-conscious watching someone’s gaze shift from my eyes to my lips, regardless of my (some may say, obsessive) daily plucking. I am able to gracefully accept a compliment on my looks, while still wondering whether or not they can see my mustache. And don’t even get me started on the topic of kissing – having someone that close to my face is more than enough to get me nervous, to say the least. Although the incident is far behind me, I feel as if the bullying of my adolescence will follow me in some way everywhere I go. It’s important to remember, however, that although lots of bad came from the experience, lots of good follows me now as well.

I don’t think I’d be quite the compassionate, empathetic person I am today without once being the bullied little girl I was. I find that helping people through dealing with negative self-image is quite a bit easier, since I have gone through it and overcome it (for the most part, anyway) myself. To anyone who is experiencing it right now, always know there’s at least one person in the world that loves you enough to help you through these tough times, and they’re probably right under your nose.

On a separate note, we’re all dealing with self-image struggles, and for this reason should learn to embrace them amongst each other rather than shame them. My mustache may have presented a challenge once upon a time, but I can’t complain about my gorgeous dark, long locks of hair that came with it! In a world where everyone is trying to be the same, any imperfections you have that you perceive as negative actually add greatly needed (and in a lot of cases, appreciated) diversity to this world. So get out there and embrace them! You may inspire someone else to do the same.