Ozzy Osbourne - Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy

I’ve always been blessed with good hair. I don’t wear a rug. I don’t wear extensions. And I don’t use spray paint to touch-up bald spots. The only thing I do to my hair is dye it. In fact, I’ve always promised myself that if I ever start getting threadbare on top, I’ll shave it all off rather than getting an Irish (Irish jig = wig) or spending half the day trying to arrange my last three strands into a greasy comb-over. I mean, whenever I see these guys with crazy rugs, or the ones who wear cowboy hats all the time, I just wanna say to them, “Fuck off, we all know you ain’t got any hair.” And while it’s possible to buy some very good wigs these days if you’ve got the time, the dough, and the patience, most of ’em are ludicrous. I remember one time, I sat down at a bar in New York next to a bloke with the worst wig I’d seen in my life. It was ginger, and made him look like a cat had died on his head… I mean, buying a wig is one thing. But a ginger one? In the end I reached up, pulled it off, and used it to mop up my spilled beer. The guy went fucking mental. But if it taught him to be bald and proud, I did him a favour.

♦ If you’ve got bad skin, try using a three-inch-deep layer of white powder foundation to cover it. Then add some smudged eye-liner and fake blood. It won’t get you laid, but it’ll get you out of babysitting duties for the rest of your life.

♦ They say that putting a cold tea bag on a bruise will make it go away faster. If a doctor ever asks if you’re up for a bit of “tea-bagging,” though, it’s best to say “no.” He might mean something else.

♦ If a bird craps on your head while you’re standing under a tree, wave and say thanks—in Japan, that’s considered a $150-a-pop facial treatment. (The stuff they use is a powder made from nightingale shit.)

♦ In the Philippines, mothers have been known to cut their baby’s eyelashes ’cos they think it makes them grow back longer and darker when they’re older. Personally, I wouldn’t trust anyone to hold a pair of sharp scissors anywhere near a baby’s eyeballs. The kid ain’t gonna thank you for his long eyelashes if he needs a white fucking stick to cross the road.

♦ If you think rinsing your mouth out with Listerine tastes bad, you should have been around in Ancient Roman times: in those days, dental hygiene meant gargling with piss (as long as it came from someone Portuguese).

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’m thinking of getting some cosmetic surgery done, but I feel very self-conscious about anyone seeing me with bandages over my face during the recovery period—and I’m also concerned about the stares I’m going to get when I show up in the office with a completely different face. What’s the best way to handle all this?

What exactly are you planning to do when your face is all bandaged up—go clubbing for a week in Cancun? The fact is, you’re gonna have to stay indoors and rest after the operation, so you won’t need to see anyone unless you want to. Over in California, they put you up in a special hotel where there’s a whole floor for recovering patients. If it’s a cheapo job, then obviously you ain’t gonna get that kind of service, but in that case I’d recommend that you wait until you can afford a better surgeon. As for the last part of your question: I don’t understand why you’re changing your appearance in the first place if you’re worried about people noticing your change of appearance. It sounds to me like you haven’t thought this through. If I were you, I’d put everything on hold until you’ve had a long talk with a therapist and sorted this out in your head.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

I’m a man of very limited stature (5ft). Should I buy platform shoes, or will that make me look sillier?

Depends on the shoes. I ain’t short, but I used to wear these silver, glittery platform things in the 1970s, and I thought they looked the dog’s bollocks. Mind you, I was doing a lot of acid at the time. My advice to you is not to worry so much about what other people think. If you don’t mind being short, be short. And if you want to look like you’re in ABBA, go for it.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

How can I get my skin to be as flawless as yours?

All I do is use a good natural cream—nothing fancy, not the two-grand-a-bottle bullshit—every morning and every night. What you’ve got to remember is that your face is out in the elements all the time, which means it has to deal with sun, dust, grime, and all other kinds of other crap. Also, as skin ages, it gets drier, so you need to blast it with as much moisture as possible. Personally I don’t bother with facials, unless Sharon has someone over the house and ropes me into it. She’s got skin creams up the fucking yin-yang—which I suppose is alright if you’re a woman. But speaking as the owner of a pair of testicles, I like to keep my daily grooming time down to the bare minimum.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I was looking at some holiday pictures recently and realised—with horror—that I have a quadruple chin. I look like a cross between my grandma and a concertina. Help!

I used to have more chins than a Chinese phone book. It’s a genetic thing with my family—we all have this balloon of fat under our jaws. When I complained to my GP about it, he told me to grow a beard, but I didn’t want a beard. So in the end I fixed it with liposuction. They stick a needle into the blubber, suck it out, and send you away with a bandage around your face, like you’ve just had the worst dentist’s appointment of your life. Luckily, I didn’t notice the pain, ’cos I was still blasted all the time in those days. It’s like I always say, if something bothers you every time you look in the mirror, and if the technology exists to sort it out—and you’ve got the dough—then do it.

It changed my life.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

Plucking my eyebrows makes me sneeze—why do you think this is, and how can I stop it happening?

I have exactly the same problem. Putting on eye make-up before a gig always sends the snot flying in all directions—my green room is literally a green room. The reason it happens (so I believe) is your sinuses, which go all the way up your face to your eyebrow area. When you pluck your eyebrows you’re basically tickling them. The bad news is that the only way to stop it happening is to stop plucking. So you either have to put up with the occasional sneezing fit, or get ready to start looking like a walking hedgerow.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

I was born with a pale complexion but would love to get a suntan—people with brown skin look so much healthier. What the best way to do this without resorting to tin foil?

Whatever you do, don’t go to an old-fashioned tanning salon. I went to one of those joints once, turned the machine straight up to level ten-and-a-half, and passed out on the bed. Then I woke up a few hours later looking like I’d been hit by an atomic bomb. I was furious with myself for months, ’cos I could hardly walk—never mind smile, or bend over, or do anything that involved creasing even the tiniest part of my skin. I might as well have paid someone to throw me in a bath of acid, it probably would have been less painful. It ages you by decades, too. A few doses of the hard stuff and you’ll end up with a face like an 18th century football. I urge you to avoid anything to do with UV rays—far too dangerous for my liking—and get one of those quickie spray-on jobs instead. It won’t last long, and you might smell a bit funny the day after, but it won’t give you third-degree burns and it won’t give you cancer, which is enough for me.