The second I heard the bathroom door shut behind Greg Sunday, I knew I was going to hear something about the blue bottle I had left on the countertop.

&uot;You paid $16.50 for hair gel?&uot; he rather loudly asked. &uot;Have you lost your mind?&uot;

Darn. I knew I should have pried the price tag off the top of the bottle, but the glue on it was just too stubborn.

It was time to go to spin mode.

&uot;Well, actually, I bought that a while ago because I wanted to try it and yes, it was pricey, but it was supposed to be really good and you know how my hair drives me crazy and you always say I should hurry up and get ready and I thought that would make things move faster and…&uot;

He stopped me midsentence.

&uot;For $16.50, it should do your hair for you,&uot; he said. &uot;I hope it was worth it.&uot;

&uot;Um,&uot; I replied, &uot;actually, I don’t like it. It’s too thick and it makes my hair feel dirty. You can take it home with you if you want it.&uot;

He just rolled his eyes and started to walk away.

&uot;It’s just expensive to be female,&uot; I blurted out.

And that’s the truth.

Everywhere you look, there’s some other product, potion or lotion guaranteed to make you look, smell and feel your best.

While each product guarantees miraculous results, you sometimes get stuck with ones that just don’t deliver.

Case in point: the expensive lip gloss I bought in a moment of weakness after seeing how pretty it looked on Cindy Crawford.

I paid way more than I should have for the little tube of goo and at first, I loved the color.

Then, I noticed my lips were practically stuck together, as if someone had applied Elmer’s glue instead of Tea Rose Pink to my smacker.

Or, there’s that pretty bottle of green bath gel that was purchased as much for its designer name as any promises of softer, cleaner skin. In the store, the scent was fine but when I got home, the aroma seemed to turn more medicinal than magnolias. Still, it was expensive and the bottle is pretty, so it found a place in my bathroom’s basket of pretty things that are never used.

I just clean the dust off it every so often and make sure the cap is on tight so that horrible smell doesn’t fill the room.

The green bath gel sits next to the bottle of hair thickening shampoo ($10); the apricot/oatmeal exfoliant ($9.50) and the special edition Year 2000 glitter body spray ($19 but in my defense it did come with Year 2000 glitter body lotion that I did use.)

And now, I guess I need to find room for the $16.50 hair gel in that same basket. After all, you just can’t throw away something that expensive.

That would be wasteful