My spouse doesn’t know how easy he’s got it. “Getting ready” in the morning consists of a shower and approximately two minutes with his blow dryer. Me, on the other hand? Well.
Yes, it’s getting harder to be cute these days. After taking a good look in the mirror recently, I realized a new beauty “regime” was overdue. You know, the regime for us girls with, um … “mature” skin.
The dilemma I’m experiencing is that the two sides of my face are aging at different rates. That’s IMPOSSIBLE, you say? Nope, my left side definitely looks older, which is the side I sleep on and gets the sun when I drive. My friend, Linda, SO hit the old nail on the head the other day: “Your left side probably came out first when you were born,” she reasoned. “So that side of your face is older.”
Now you understand why I keep good friends like Linda around. They sure have all the answers.
And I’ve tried all the creams and serums known to man.
“You’re treating your skin like a toxic waste dump,” my husband helpfully observed after witnessing more bottles and potions in my bathroom than a chemist could cram into a test lab.
That made me think back to what my mom used on her beautiful skin. And you know what? It was pretty much an 89-cent jar of cold cream that got her through her day. Took off her make-up with it. Moisturized her skin with it. Go figure.
Earlier this year a cosmetics company featured an ad showing a 90-year-old woman modeling make-up. Holy cow! I have entire DECADES to go before I’m 90! That’s right; at age 90, Iris Apfel became the “new face” of cosmetics, and with the launch of that promotion, the company’s make-up line swiftly sold out. Miss Iris looked quite sassy, too, sporting extra-large, black-rimmed glasses, glossy crimson fingernails and some pouty Naughty-Red lips.
Hmmm … maybe instead of worrying about my face aging at different intensities, I should just pick up a new shade of lipstick.
Now, when I was a young girl, I spent many a summer afternoon walking to the drugstore to check out the new shades of lipstick. Oh, the colors! I swooned over those yummy hues and their dream-inducing names: “Prom Pink.” “Tiki Tangerine.” “Orange Sherbet.” “Vixen Red.” “Rapture Rose.”
This was, of course, long before I was allowed to wear actual lipstick, but still. I kept my nose pressed against that display window for hours. And the neat thing about checking out the lipsticks at the old drugstore was afterward you could sidle up to the soda fountain and sit at the counter, scooping up something scrumptious like a tin roof sundae or ice cream soda without having to worry about all that goodness going straight to your hips.
These days with all the conflicting ideas of proper beauty routines, my head is spinning. By the time I cleanse, exfoliate, condition and hydrate my maturing mug, it’s all I can do to drag myself to bed and fall face first into my pillow. Yep, the same pillow that’s making me old before my time. On my left side. Maybe I should learn to sleep standing up.
So with the image of Iris Apfel fresh in my mind, I figured I’d start small and go for a new lipstick. After all, I’d been a “one-lipstick-works-for-every-occasion” kind of girl for years.
After a visit to the cosmetics counter, I came home with a handful of fresh tubes of luscious lip color. Soon I, too, would be the “new face” of mature beauty. I sat down in front of my mirror and uncapped a few colors.
“Perennial Peach.” “Constantly Coral.” “Faithful Fawn.” “Never-ending Nude.” Wait – this was sounding familiar. Suddenly I was a young girl back at the drugstore. I was delirious with color choices.
But, darn it; they weren’t looking all that great on me. Except for THIS one: “Bombshell Bronze.” Yes! This was it! Best. Color. Ever. This was … oops. This was my old lipstick.
Well. Maybe I’ll just search for the “new face of beauty” in an old jar of cold cream.
