No Place For Sissies

My husband frequently chirps "Gettin' old ain't for sissies!"  The original quote from Bette Davis was actually "Old age ain't no place for sissies." Regardless of the version you prefer, it's a profound truth.  He's usually referring to his arthritis, but for me?  Well, for me it's just that time keeps marching relentlessly on. My once glossily luxuriant hair is a bit thinner, duller and mostly grey, my once creamy smooth skin is age-spotty, my pores rival the craters of the moon, and apparently I'm semi-transparent, as half my capillaries and veins show through to no particular advantage. There are weird little bumps in weird places, like in my eyebrows. Speaking of which, whatever happened to those? The outer halves of them seemed to have disappeared and the rest of the hairs have become wiry and spontaneously wave in all different directions. It's past time for girding my loins and facing my future because it's already arrived.  And, honey, it just ain't pretty anymore.

No place for sissies is right, boy howdy! Now is the time to be brave. Very brave. Because it's too late to be smart.  As a teen, I remember all those hours spent at the pool or in the backyard basking under the sun on a big, ol' towel, listening to the Beach Boys singing 'Barbara Ann' or 'California Girls'. Mmm-hmmm.  You know what I'm talking about.  I also remember when my mom would tell me to "take care of your skin; it's the only skin you got."  Mom was right.  I should have listened.  She was right about other things, too, such as when she said, "Stop picking that!" I really should have stopped. Mom also liked to say in an annoying, singsongy voice, "It's painful to be beautiful."  She wasn't kidding. But it's sure not as painful as waking up to the fact that I'm no longer 25 years old and my collagen and elastin are shot like old, dried out rubber bands: nothing bounces back anymore. Anyway, I gotta be brave because all the good skin care I should have started in my youth but didn't is now evidenced in my gravity-ridden face. Like screaming banshees in my mirror, pointing fingers and laughing. And will every day for the rest of my life. Damn.

There's a well known skincare product out there called Hope in a Jar by Philosophy.  I'd be willing to try it, but I need one called:

Magical Miracle in a 5 Gallon Bucket 

Formulated with Fairydust Infused Unicorn Tears  

Will Erase FORTY Years Off Your Face in One Swipe! 

Guaranteed!  

(Wand Included) 

Value Priced
Available at Drugstores  

Think it's best I don't hold my breath on that one.  Knowing myself, if there was such a thing, I'd bathe in it and the next thing I'd know I'd be 13 years old, a la Max Tivoli, only with cystic acne and teen angst simmering away.

It's too late now to nurse all these regrets about what I should have done 'beauty-wise' all those years.   Damage Control is the new mantra. Retinol, collagen and placenta cream, Co-Q10 serum, hyaluronic acid serum, vitamin C serum, sunscreen. Morning and evening, I determinedly slap on a regimen of these unguents, hoping against hope I see some sort of improvement soon. In honesty, this has been going on for years now. I'm on my fifth or sixth game plan in the past decade. So far, nothing has been life-changing. I think to myself, "Ok, you must accept there is no fountain of youth.  But, I wonder, how bad would I look if I wasn't doing these things? Would I look 105 if I left off all this maintenance?" Don't go there, I think.

In an attempt to make the best of what I do have left, I discovered Beauty Gurus on YouTube.  A year and a half ago, I was searching online for 'makeup for mature women'.  I'm not the only makeup junkie in the world!  Holy Cow! There are literally hundreds of women who make videos about it!  I fell right into a mystical rabbit-hole full of makeup artists, makeup artist wannabes, makeup junkies and just nice people trying to connect with other people via a mutual love of cosmetics. Unbelievable.

I've followed all sorts since discovering this phenomenon: young, older, urban, rural, women, men, narcissistic, sociopathic, sweet, caring, boring, hyper, over-sharers, condescending, and just plain weird. My subscription feed is pared down to a select handful now, mostly women 40-ish to those in their 60s. There are a few I follow who are younger, yet are knowledgeable and/or interesting. I find all these people rather fascinating.  How brave to put yourself out there in the public eye! I admire them for it and I've found some of them are genuine and truly nice people. They make me feel as though if we actually knew each other, we would be friends. That's just how good they are.

A great many of these beauty-tubers wear false eyelashes. At least on camera. (Once I even won a giveaway done by the coolest makeup artist in England--she sent me 3 gorgeous pairs of fancy high-end eyelashes. (Which are hoarded away like a secret treasure. Along with her revered personal note. I'm kind of wacko like that sometimes...)

Understand, I tried to wear eyelashes in the late 70s. Gave up on it. I tried once again in the 80s. Gave up. And once more in the 90s before I wrote it all off as a bad job and just not for me.  Looked too fake, too hooker-ish, too hard, or too over-the-top.

But now here are these lovely ladies of YouTube fluttering those doggone lashes at us.  I crave lush fluttery lashes.  Alas, I'm doomed where that's concerned. Let me explain an extenuating circumstance.  In 2006, I was diagnosed with a rare eye cancer and the treatment was a type of radiation.  This treatment left me partially blind on the left and with a case of chronic dry eyes, both sides. When my lashes grew back, they just weren't the same anymore.  Dry, brittle and more colorless than ever. As well, my eyes are now very sensitive to mascara.  So I usually just skip that altogether and slap on some liquid liner.  Bald eyes with dark stripes at the lash line. Lovely. But those 'gurus' keep teasing me with those lashes-to-die-for. Mean Girls. Not really, but darn!

A few months ago at Target, I spotted some Eyelure Naturals #20 lashes. I'd never seen such fine, light, natural-looking lashes.  On clearance!  Woo Hoooo! I bought the last three pairs they had, resolving that at long last I'd master the false lash! Determined, I watched a couple of videos on how to apply these babies the proper way and gave it a go. There were a few things I hadn't thought about or counted on though. Such as my dimming eyesight...  Those lashes I'd bought were SO fine and thin, once I got them out of the package, I could barely see them! Peering intently in my 10X magnifying mirror, I finally got the right one on fine, just like the girl demonstrated. OK! Not too bad!  Looking in the mirror, I turned my head this way and that way. I was impressed. Verrrry natural looking.  I happily picked up the left lash, applied the glue, and started to attach it.  Uh-oh.  I couldn't see what I was doing now. My hand was in the way blocking the good vision in my right eye and my left eye can't see squat. So I couldn't actually SEE what was going on with that lash.  Realized I was going to have to do this by feel. I struggled.  Finally got it on, only to realize I'd glued the outer half to the middle of my eyelid, nowhere near the lash line. Poop! I tried to pull it off and re-stick it to my lash line but now the glue was too dry. Double Poop! I stared for a few moments dumbfounded at this travesty. Frustrated, I ripped it off, pulled away the dried glue and started over. The same thing happened! What?!  This time not only had I glued the tail of it to the outside center of the lid but it had somehow managed to create a tiny fold, an extra wrinkle in the lid! ARRGH! Blast!  Extra artificially created wrinkles absolutely not acceptable!  I thought about it. Did I really want to pull it off and start all over again? Patience is not one of my strong points, so I opted to pull it off halfway, try to dab a bit of glue right on the lash line, stick the lash to it and hope. Well, it worked! Ok, not perfect but not too noticeable once I dashed on more liquid liner to cover up the sloppiness.  OK!

I finished my makeup and wandered outside to where my husband sat reading in the shade.  I sat down and companionably picked up a book too. Kept glancing at him, waiting for him to say something.  He was 100% engrossed in his book.  Eventually, as I knew he would, he set his book aside and began to make conversation.  As I often do, I asked him "How does this makeup job look?  Too much?"  He peered at me (his eyesight is not all that great either) and said, "No, no. Not too much. Looks good."  I asked, "Notice anything different?" and batted my eyes at him.  He smiled in amusement and said "No, not really." "Are you sure?" I asked.  Bat, bat, bat. He looked puzzled and shook his head.  "I have on false eyelashes," said I. "Whaddaya think?"  He leaned forward and peered. I leaned toward him and batted some more. "Really?" he asked. "I couldn't tell. Well, they look pretty good."  My husband really is a kind man sometimes. And he has the patience of a saint. I've used the lashes maybe three times since. They really are such a lot of trouble to bother with when one is retired and lives out in the desert.  I mean who am I trying to impress? The tarantulas and rattlesnakes?

Then there is the whole highlighter thing.  I adore highlighters.  They are the magic pixie dust of cosmetics. It's possibly the most beautiful makeup ever invented. Tinkerbell didn't scatter fairy dust--she scattered highlighter!  The younger YouTube gals go all out with highlighter; now they do something called strobing (generous amounts of illuminator everywhere) and something else called holographic blush (multiple layers of sparkly duo-chrome pigment powders on top of powder blush on top of cream blush with a dash of highlighter thrown on top of the whole thing).  They look absolutely ethereal on camera.  I put on the tiniest (TINY I say) dab of highlighter and I look like either:
a.) I just ran up 3 flights of steps and am sweating like a buffalo
or
b.) a special spotlight is shining on me specially designed to bring out all the revolting texture and pores of my skin
or
c.) someone just sprayed my face with Pam, obviously mistaking my face for a skillet.

All this reality has not kept me from collecting umpteen different gorgeous illuminators in a variety of shades and tones.  I mostly just get them out from time to time, swatching them on the back of my hand and just staring at them.  Or, if I decide to actually wear them on my face, first I have to prep my cheekbones with a matte primer, top that with non-illuminating foundation, set that with mattifying powder, layer on some matte bronzer, matte blush and finally ice that cake with a miniscule amount of highlighter, topping the whole thing with one of those fine, colorless HD powders meant to matte and blur everything together.  It looks fabulous!  For about a half an hour.  Then it reverts to looking like I've obviously run up all those stairs again.

Winged eyeliner.  Whoever thought that a comparatively brief sixties fad would become such a huge thing today?  You should see these girls on YouTube do these incredible cat eyes! They do it so fast and it looks so easy! They transform from ordinary into extraordinary in such a flash. You watch and think, "Is that how you do it? I can do that!"  Out comes your eyeliner and the ubiquitous 10X magnifying mirror.  On goes the right eye and Flick! goes the tail of the wing.  Nice. Over to the left we go. Wait a minute...that eye is not shaped EXACTLY like the other one. Where does the flick go? This angle? Lower?  I give it a shot. I finish and look at the result. They do not match. No. No. Noooooo.  "You look ridiculous," I tell my 10X eye in the mirror.  Out come the makeup remover wipes.  Two months later, I try it again.  Shorter wing this time.  No. No. Nooooo. Makeup remover wipes again.  Three months later...NOOOOO!  Just forget it, ok, you silly old fool? It's just not you!

All my life I had pretty good eyebrows.  Never felt the need to enhance the color and only ever tweezed enough to keep me from looking like Teddy Roosevelt. I never even owned an eyebrow pencil till about a year ago.  That one came as an extra goodie in a QVC kit and was relegated to the miscellaneous makeup compartment in my cosmetics case, used for storing items that never got used. Along came YouTube. Suddenly, I felt wholly inadequate in the brow department.  As I mentioned above, I noticed I only had half brows composed of those wayward, renegade hairs. Now there is quite a selection of brow products in my makeup stash. Pencils of various colors, powders, waxes, pomades, you name it.  And every single time I apply any of it, no matter how lightly, I end up raking a stiff brush through my brows trying to tone that scary stuff down! It's a good thing I take daily care of my burgeoning mustache (Estrogen, where ARE you?). Otherwise, between that and the über eyebrows, I could just get a cigar, waggle said brows and make some Groucho comment like "Those are my principles and if you don't like them...well, I have others."

Darlings, I could go on and on, making self-deprecating anecdotes about what a ginormous pain in the neck it is to fight so desperately to cling on to the bit of beauty that's left. But the truth really is that the best thing to do is to try to accept ourselves just the way we are, wrinkles, crinkles and all. Just look past the physical and find the true beauty that lies within and shines out of our eyes from our golden girl hearts.  After all, that's why we aging beauties deserve to be called "Glam-ma".



Dedicated to my lovely YouTube friend, MaryEllen of MaryEllen After 60.
Please visit her great channel at:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQaM2bIPgPd9byjJ_DaZxEA


Till next time,

"The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides." --Audrey Hepburn