Has a pet or child ever destroyed your makeup?

I don’t think Mellan has ever destroyed makeup! I’m not recalling it, though he has become mythical and legendary with nary a bad memory in this household 😉

— Christine

53 Comments

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Swoozy Avatar

My kids never did it to me, but oh, I remember drawing on my grandmother’s wall with a red lipstick and messing around with my mother’s eye shadow duo from Clinique. A (male) friend’s mom once accused me of messing around in her makeup (we were 7 or so) and she didn’t believe me when I told her it was her son, but it was him 🙂

Swoozy Avatar

Lol. That’s awesome. My grandmother was firm that she could neither afford more lipsticks or to repaint the walls again, so I never tried again!

Hannah Avatar

My nephew destroyed my $129 Natasha Denona sunset palette that I got as a graduation present. He could have chosen one of the dozen Colourpop palettes in the same drawer but apparently he has expensive taste. I gave up on getting another one since I’m a broke college student, but my sweet best friend got me the Colourpop yes please palette as a replacement. I don’t think I’ll ever spend nearly that much on a palette ever again; I’ve learned my lesson.

Hannah Avatar

They offered to pay me what they could but they have two kids and had just bought a house so I didn’t ask them to. It bummed me out but the Colourpop palette worked just fine as a replacement. I just had to accept the fact that three year olds are gonna get into stuff; it’s inevitable. I was just glad he didn’t break something sentimental that couldn’t be replaced. We can laugh about it now! I still have the picture of him with gold sparkles all over his face.

Jane Avatar

No, thank God. Cats may be less prone to that. And my children were older and just never thought to touch my makeup. Lots of other things, but never my makeup (and I hope it stays that way). 😉

Jane Avatar

Oops, sorry, some how my post went in a reply. As for the nephew though I didn’t have a comment too. It’s great that you seem not too materialistic. I’m sure it hurt when it happened and like you I probably would have not wanted to repurchase the palette.

Anne Avatar

Hmm. Well my cat now is a bad boy and had a penchant for brushes when he was a kitten as well as beauty blenders. He’s just over 1 now but has destroyed 1 fairly new beauty blender so I’ve since now housed them in that travel case for protection lol. And as for my brushes i got an acrylic cover made to protect them before he could chew on my precious brushes

ElKay Avatar

Mine work as a team. The cat pushes my beauty blenders off the sink and the dog thinks they are toys and chews them up. So far the team owes me $80.

Ginny Avatar

Hilarious 🤣. One of my cats likes to “groom” the brushes (licks them) and the other one will swipe anything and run around with it. Once she knocked the cap off an eyeliner and literally drew all over the walls with it. Now I keep everything in the cabinet.

Anne Avatar

Hahaha. Yes that’s what my cat was doing. He was licking them i assume before he decides to pull them out of the cup. I don’t know what’s with cats and beauty blenders either. Had decluttered some lip products and put them on top of the lip tower and he kept knocking them off.

Debbie Avatar

I did have a purple handled powder brush that my dog got a hold of and destroyed, but she was a puppy at the time, and I did leave it at easy reach, so I couldn’t hate her, even if it was my favorite brush that was bought back in the day when Bonwit Teller existed, and it was purple.

Swoozy Avatar

Oh Bonwit Teller! I remember going with my mom before it closed in NYC. Sniff. SO many fabulous department stores long gone 🙁 I feel for your lost brush!

Debbie Avatar

I worked there from 1987 until the end in 1990…best job I ever had. It was such a beautiful store. And we got a great discount on our purchases, especially around the holidays. I met some famous people there, too.

Lizzi Avatar

I have two female huskies. The older one chewed up around 10 MAC lipsticks once. But the younger husky was awful as a puppy. She would swipe makeup brushes and chew up the handles.

Julie Avatar

When my dog was a puppy she gnawed on a couple mascara tubes, but I think that’s about it. (I don’t think they were really damaged, either – just some tooth marks.)

The most expensive beauty tool she got into was my flat iron – she chewed the entire electrical plug off. Don’t worry, it wasn’t plugged in! Luckily my dad was able to replace the cord so I didn’t have to replace it.

She also got my cell phone once, and has the distinction of doing the most damage by a dog the salespeople at the Verizon store had ever seen.

Luckily she outgrew it and now she’s twelve and the loveliest dog. The only thing she can’t be trusted around is food.

Ana Maria Avatar

My cat used to attempt to chew some cables during her first year; I was so concerned she would get electrocuted. Luckily that phase ended then, with minimal damage (some USB cables). But I’m still getting concerned when she starts scratching herself against the cables out of my router. 😅

Anne Avatar

Omgosh lol. My boy cat is terrible with wires. He has chewed up now two of my laptop chargers, to the point where I’m afraid to get an iMac and not have a proper cover for him to not chew through. I’ve gotten into the habit of putting the wires away after something is charged and for the most part the iPhone charger is the material one so he hasn’t bothered with it as much lol. But boy if I’m working and not giving him attention, any wire in site is fair game.

Euleta H. Avatar

Yes, and it was hilarious to see my toddler covered in glitter! I started locking my makeup and skincare in a cabinet after that, but I occasionally forget and leave something out. My little guy just wants to look pretty.

Lizzie - IsolatedColor Avatar

My husband and I are happily childfree for life, so no kid has ever come near my makeup desk. We’ve also never had any pets and will probably keep it that way unless a stray cat decides it wants to adopt us. 😛
What has damaged my makeup in the past is an earthquake! I live in SoCal and back in 2019, we had two pretty significant earthquakes. Lots of stuff fell over and my desk was an absolute mess, but only one palette got a little messed up. My Infinity War palette from Hot Topic fell off a display shelf onto the carpet and the cardboard got a bit beat up. There were one or two shades that took a little hit but they’re that squishy sort of foiled shimmer so I just poked them back into place. I’m shocked that was the only actual issue when so many things had been knocked over! Phew!

Helena Avatar

I think my answer might have been yes when this question came up a few years ago, but it’s been so long since I had a dog getting into things that I’ve forgotten! (If anything, maybe Kaya got into some lip balm?)
Nowadays, sometimes the younger of my two cats will knock things over if I leave them out, but so far everything survives the fall 😂

AJ Avatar

My late corgi Maggie (littermate to our Daisy) once chewed up a lipstick. I think it was Smashbox brand? Luckily she only chewed up the case and didn’t get to the bullet itself, so she didn’t get sick or make a mess. I think despite having 4 pets at once for years, that was the only makeup thing that ever got destroyed — I was pretty good at keeping things away from them. It helped that the corgis were shorties and one of the cats didn’t like to jump up onto counters (he was very big and strong but didn’t realize he could jump vertically, only horizontally, lol). So I really only had to worry about the other cat, who definitely would have knocked things over if I’d left them where she could reach them.

Jenn Avatar

My younger cat is a terror and I really need to never leave makeup out anymore. This is what he’s broken so far:

Natasha Denona countour powder
Colourpop Orange You Glad palette
Anastasia Moonchild Glow Kit

Mariella Avatar

My daughter (now in her mid-30’s) got into an Estee Lauder cream blush – waterproof, I think – in a bright fuchsia pink and plastered it all over her face, including all around her eyes -when she was about 3. It was so hard to get it off, especially around the eye area, because it was so “resistant” and she was a squirmy 3 year old.

Nancy T Avatar

Children? Oh yeah! They both did. Kyle DRANK an entire bottle of foundation when he was around 2 y.o. We had to call Poison Control on that one because we weren’t sure if that was a poison or not. Our daughter went to town on my lipsticks and eyeshadows at roughly 18-20 mos. old, destroying a couple lipsticks. But at least she didn’t eat them!
Pets? My now gone kitty, Scunci, once jumped up on my bathroom sink vanity partially into 3 shades in my UD Vice 2 Palette. Thankfully, all he left in it was his pawprints. I did have to sanitize it, but nothing got permanently destroyed or severely damaged.

Lulle Avatar

Back in the day, I used to collect the cardboard palettes from Too Faced called Quickie Chronicles (oh how the brand has changed…). They contained little pans of eyeshadow, blush and gloss. Back then, my cat Ernesto was a kitten that I would describe as hyperactive. He managed to jump on the table while I was doing my makeup, stepped on the open palette called Sex Kitten, and pushed it off the table. Of course that was my favorite in the collection, with purple shadows paired with a lime green, a flattering neutral pink blush and plummy glosses.
The incident only lasted a second, but it left Sex Kitten with one broken eyeshadow, and a perfect little paw print in one of the glosses…

Kristin Avatar

My yorkie/chihuahua mix, Micky, an unapologetic kleptomaniac, took: a limited edition color Dior eyeliner (I got that one away from him ASAP!), a MAC cream eyeshadow stick (ruined) and an Elizabeth Arden lipliner (ruined). Oh, and he also swallowed a makeup sponge…and threw it up a few days later.

Those were just the *makeup* items he took. Otherwise, there were my glasses, an ink cartridge, tax returns, etc…He died almost 11 years ago but he is still infamous at our house!
My current yorkie, Sunny, does not have any thieving tendencies, luckily.

brendacr1 Avatar

You have to have eyes in the back of your head when my daughter Kristin brings her mini Schnauzer over as he unzips bags and sneaks out socks, money and important papers and chews them and eats them and then you find pieces all over the house and wonder what the heck these things are! The lovable little monkey! He will also flaunt items so that you will chase him.

Eileen Avatar

I’ve never left makeup or tools out and easily reached by my children (all adults now) or the furry members of the family. Since some makeup products and tools could potentially pose a choking or poisoning hazard, I’ve always kept them put away when not actually using them.

Agona Avatar

Does it count if I was the child? I used to go through my mom’s makeup bag under the bathroom sink all the time. Usually I wouldn’t touch but one time, I think I was 6? I couldn’t resist. It was the 80s and she had a Clinique quad with a bright blue, a bright green, and I can’t remember what else. I swiped the blue and the green all over my eyes. I don’t even think I was trying to be good at it. Just large swaths of color!! Heck yeah—rocking!! Then I got called to dinner, sat down like everything was ordinarily, and my older brother kept trying to be like “what’s on your face??” …and I just pretended like he was crazy and imagining things. My mom actually didn’t say anything. But she did move her makeup bag…!

Aspasia Avatar

Between me, my son, and my cats, I think I damaged more cosmetics than they did. My mom likes to tell the story of Christmas morning when I was two, my parents were napping and I was not…I dumped out her brand new bottle of White Shoulders perfume on the floor. I drew on the walls and her books with marker (I’m now a librarian, ironically), and I was always trying on her makeup when she wasn’t home. She had a vanity table with that magnifying mirror with about 3-4 different types of lighting.

My son never bothered with my makeup but he did carry on the tradition of marking the walls, lol.

I tried using a sponge blender once. I left it on the counter to try since I had dampened it and when I came home from work that night, it had been knocked off the counter and chewed up. I have a tuxie that likes to stick her head in the bottom compartment of my Caboodles and take a deep sniff. If I leave a makeup brush on the counter to air dry after cleaning, she likes to rub up against it. We used to have an orange tabby named Rusty that chewed on everything: computer mice cords, flips flops, and even shirts!

brendacr1 Avatar

Aww wasn’t Mellan a saint or something? My son took my new bottle of expensive perfume and poured it out in his room when he was little, I think he just wanted his room to smell like his mommy but I was devastated because money was tight and there wasn’t money for luxuries and I used it very sparingly.

Christine Avatar

We’ve since learned that we had a pretty easy, very trainable puppy and that puppy raising was… very easy relative to how challenging it can me! I think he had less than half a dozen accidents inside during housebreaking, and I don’t think we ever lost anything from chewing or had anything get destroyed until he was about a year old (then he ate a wooden camel figurine, lol). I want to say he tripped on an electrical cord and made a side table lamp fall!

Genevieve Avatar

No, a real live pet has never destroyed my makeup, but a real live little boy (my eldest son at about three) found my lipstick bag and liberally applied it to his legs, as his mum (me) was getting ready to go out to playgroup with him. He hid in our laundry basket afterwards and I was getting frantic searching for him. I wasn’t cross with him, because it is a thing that little kids do. But it did take me awhile to get the lipstick marks off his legs without hurting his skin. The three lipsticks were ruined…

Keila Leslie Avatar

Pet, No she just sits underneath my vanity on her pillow. I have been known to drop a few things and she only bats at it then lays back down.
I only give products that I don’t care if they get messed up to my nieces. They have there own make up area in my “Sephora” 🙂 (what my brother calls my makeup room)

Caroline Avatar

When my cat Bonnie was a kitten, she managed to knock my makeup bag off the top of the wardrobe. My favourite purple nail polish was inside, and unfortunately it didn’t survive the drop 🙁

Amanda Avatar

I’ve never had a pet or small child destroy my makeup, but my MIL’s cat loves to watch me put on makeup the same way my little cousin used to when he was 2 or 3. I do remember my cousin sticking his little fingers in a potted concealer and wiping it off on the freshly cleaned white interior of his grandma’s car however. That’s when we figured out he had learned to open jars.

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