Alright, here's the deal: Bell-sleeves can be really pretty. I wore a top with them the other week that got me tons of compliments—that felt nice! But with the style so prevalent nowadays—like, you really can't go to an online store or in person without seeing at least five of the designs—you'd think more people would be talking about what an absolute nightmare it is to do basically any daily task while wearing it.
Scroll down for a list of all the things that I straight up could NOT do the day I wore bell sleeves.
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Brushing my effing teeth.
Wow, let me tell you, the day was a struggle practically the moment I stepped out of bed. While tending to my pearly whites, I held back my hair with one hand, as I normally do while I brush, then quickly realized my unwieldy sleeves were in the danger zone of accidental spit-drippage at nearly every angle I tried. Letting go of my hair and grabbing onto a sleeve only helped a little bit, since there was still a bell on the loose. Plus, now my hair was also in the danger zone.
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Style my hair.
This, at least, didn't bear the threat of foamy toothpaste, but rest assured it was still super annoying. My sleeves hit me in the face at least seven times while I ran my brush through my hair. I felt defeated, and it was only 8 a.m..
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Go to the bathroom.
Gotta level with you—using the restroom with these things on is just deflating. I won't get into it, but you have to kinda hold both sleeves with one hand to see what's going on—it's all very humiliating. I'm going to move on now because I don't really want to dwell here.
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Wash my hands.
You can't hold back the sleeves with your hands while you wash them, because they're obviously the focus of the task. I awkwardly had to pin mine back at my sides with my elbows, looking like some kind of fashion-conscious T-Rex, and hunch over the sink to get a good lather. Every. Time.
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Type on the computer.
Even if you let the bottom half of your bell sleeves droop below your desk, the top halves are still free to spread willy-nilly across your keyboard, hiding letters from you and causing you to hit unintentional keys from time to time. As a writer whose, like, whole thing is typing on them QWERTYS—that's annoying.
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Get my hands into a jacket.
Okay, we've arrived. This is my biggest beef with these damn sleeves. Everyone knows the struggle of getting into a jacket with a chunky sweater: Either you clamp the bottom of the sleeve between your palm and fingers as you slide the whole thing through, or, you forget to do that and end up with a huge lump somewhere near your elbow that just sits there uncomfortably until you're willing to admit your mistake and try again.
FYI, IT'S WAY WORSE WITH BELL SLEEVES. That's because the whole clamping method only works for one side of the sleeve. The rest is bunched up by your elbow and even up by your armpit unless you jam your other hand into the coat and patiently stretch the rest of the thing down where it belongs. This, truly, is what Hell must be like.CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓watch now -
Eat.
When will it end? Eating was a horror show. If I wasn't dragging a sleeve through my sandwich and knocking off the top piece of bread, I was just intermixing the sleeves with the crumbs on the table.
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Make any subtle gesture.
Anything you do with your hands all day long while wearing bell sleeves automatically becomes 1,000 times more dramatic. That's because you're basically wearing capes on your forearms, and there's only so much you can do while emphasizing any point to tone down the flourish and movement that comes naturally to them.
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Stay warm.
The one thing sleeves do, historically, is cover you up so you're nice and toasty. These sleeves? Notsomuch. Unless you're the kind of person who never uses their hands and keeps their arms directly down at their sides at all times, then you're really only wearing a three-quarter length sleeve. From your elbow on down, you're totally exposed. So, these sleeves aren't even really sleeves—they're liars!
In conclusion:
Do I hate bell sleeves? Nah. I still think they're super cute and fun-looking and can certainly add drama to your outfit. But if I'm ever going to wear them again, it's gotta be worth going through Hell.
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This article originally appeared on Cosmopolitan.com. Minor edits have been made by the Cosmo.ph editors.