One thing about being a woman over 30 is that I’m now doing all
kinds of unreasonable things that I normally wouldn’t do at any
other age. For instance, I’ve started a new collection. Now, by
this I don’t mean stamps or coins or anything like that. I mean
a
”
beauty lotion
”
collection. And not just any lotions, mind you, expensive ones
with complicated names that promise to erase years from my
skin.
One thing about being a woman over 30 is that I’m now doing all kinds of unreasonable things that I normally wouldn’t do at any other age. For instance, I’ve started a new collection. Now, by this I don’t mean stamps or coins or anything like that. I mean a “beauty lotion” collection. And not just any lotions, mind you, expensive ones with complicated names that promise to erase years from my skin.
Now, while this may not be particularly shocking to you, I must say, I’ve never been what you’d call a lotion kind of girl. In fact, I’ve always preferred free moisturizers like, say, water. That is, until my friend Sue, a home cosmetics dealer, gave me a bottle of Super Energizing Hydrolyzing Cream.
“Use a little three times a day,” she whispered in my ear. “After all, at our age we need to moisturize.”
“Moisturize? I have two kids and I’m lucky to get dressed and brush my teeth in the same day.”
Following her advice seemed especially ridiculous since, having children, my skin has never had a problem being moist, whether from giving babies baths to handing my kids juice boxes to recently walking around the corner of the house, unaware that my preteen son was chasing his sister and armed with a hose.
However, she told me that if I didn’t start moisturizing this very minute, very bad things would happen. Like, for instance, she promised that one day I’d wake up and find my face cracked into a bazillion tiny pieces, as if while I slept, it had fallen underneath a jackhammer. And then, she assured me, I’d really be sorry.
Now I ask you, how can you argue with logic like that? Besides, life being what it is when you’re over 30, a little extra moisture in my life certainly couldn’t hurt anything.
So I tried it. And, mind you, it would’ve stopped at that except the next time I saw Sue she slipped me a tube of conditioning balm to plump up my lips. And if that wasn’t enough, she also gave me a dual retinol facial treatment, a line eliminator complex for wrinkles and instant eye smoother for the bags under my eyes.
“Believe me,” she said matter-of-factly, “someday when you’re pushing your grandchild in a swing at the park and someone asks if you’re the mother, you’ll thank me for this.”
Somehow I couldn’t see this someday happening without the use of magic, but I was too busy following my new daily skin regimen to think about it.
Needless to say, this is not as easy as you’d think because, ironically enough, the directions on bottles of anti-aging creams are too small for most people over 30 to read without the use of binoculars. So now while doing my daily regimen, I live with the constant fear that one day I’ll accidentally dab the Vertical Lifting Eye Complex on my nose. Or the Triple Energizing Chin Toner underneath my eyes. Or, for goshsakes, the Super Hydrolyzing Lip Enhancer on, say, my thighs.
“Why are you wasting so much time and money on this stuff?” my husband once asked. “You don’t really think it works, do you?”
“Of course it does,” I said. “My skin feels just like a teenager’s again.” I rubbed my cheeks for emphasis.
“That’s because you’ve broken out,” he said.
“Very funny.”
But, deep down I knew he was right. Truth be told, I didn’t look much different than before placental eyelid extract came into my life.
Naturally it’s because we all know that no lotion can really erase the results of years’ worth of laughing and smiling and frowning – no matter how expensive it is. But that’s OK because we’ve earned them. Besides, no educated woman over 30 (OK, over 35) is spending $29.99 for lotion. No-sir-ee, we’re spending our money on something much more important: a chance to be young again.
And, frankly, if that’s all it costs, then, well, I say it’s worth it.
Debbie Farmer is a humorist and a mother holding down the fort in California, and the author of “Don’t Put Lipstick on the Cat.” You can reach her at fa********@oa***************.com.
