In six months, I’ll be 40. I wish I could say I’ve never felt better. But my memory’s not that sharp anymore.
I’ve noticed I’m no longer as young as I think I am. This epiphany usually happens when I look in the mirror, a habit I’m trying to lose.
I don’t wear a lot of makeup, but recently I forked out $40 for a tube of concealer. I walked into the makeup store (you know, the one with lighting that makes it look like a bar on the Starship Enterprise).
I glanced around, a tourist trying to get my bearings.
A woman with dark cascading curls and airbrushed skin approached me. Her lab coat made me think of dissection.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
I stepped back in an attempt to avoid her eyelashes.
“I’m looking for something that will hide the dark circles under my eyes.”
She observed me, a specimen under her microscope. She paused, then turned on her red stilettos. “Follow me.”
“Try this,” she said, pulling out a tube the size of Crazy Glue. I took off my glasses. Using a Q-tip, she deposited a glob under one of my eyes. “Now dab it in.”
I started dabbing away like someone in need of a Xanax.
“Use your ring finger,” Professor Curls snapped.
I paused to look at my offending finger.
I started again with what I hoped was my ring finger. This process was taking a while.
“Now you’re rubbing. Dab…Like this.” She took over. “There, do you see how much better you look?”
I squinted into the mirror. I saw one partially-obscured semicircle. It reminded me of when my daughter draws a picture and tries to correct her mistake. She’s pressed the pencil so hard that even when she erases it, the original line is still visible, albeit slightly smudged and worn. Like me.
I put on my glasses. “I’ll take it,” I said.
“Can I interest you in anything else?” she asked, waving an acrylic nail around. “Perhaps some moisturizer? Anti-wrinkle serum?”
“Not today,” I muttered.
*
After I arrive home, I remove the product from its excess packaging.
Twenty minutes later, I finally have the tube in my hand. I push up my glasses and squint at the writing. The first thing I notice is that it’s made in France. This is a euphemism for “tack an extra $30 onto the price.”
The second thing I notice, in bifocals-only font, is the name of the cover up. It’s called, Extreme Camouflage Cream.
Apparently, the heavy-duty equipment’s been called out.
I’m going into battle.
*
How are the rest of you doing with aging? Any Xanax-inducing stories of makeup?
i only wear make-up to funerals and weddings anymore. It takes too much time and the kids don’t care if I look old and haggard. They’re used to it.
I hear ya. And unfortunately, I seem to be attending as many funerals as weddings these days…
I’m going to be 45 soon and have spent most of my life in the sun. Last year I became blind enough to need a magnifying mirror to put on makeup. Totally freaked me out when I looked in it. I bought smoothers, fillers, scrapers and camaflouge.
I noticed the more makeup I used the worse it looked so I changed to tinted moisturizer. The wrinkles and circles are still there but they don’t look like a paper mache’ collage anymore.
I love the “paper mache collage” image. Every time my daughter catches me putting on makeup, I feel guilty, like I’m teaching her not to love herself.
This is hilarious! I turned 40 in May and instead of climbing or jumping off of something monumental, I went for a professional bra fitting (a win-win for everyone in my life). The makeup remains minimal (i.e. chapstick), but the rack is awesome…
Ode to bras that fit! I’ve paid more for bras than I’ve ever paid for a pair of pants or shoes. Seriously.
I almost never wear makeup. When I do, no one recognizes me. Its bad for the self-image. I do like the apricot face scrub from St. Ives.
The last time I walked in Sephora, I almost had a heart attack at the choices of neck cream and walked out with lips on fire from “plumping-hotsauce”!
I’m curious as heck about the “plumping-hotsauce”! Sounds like a condiment in a Thai restaurant…
I’m only just-shy-of-thirty, but I’m already starting to feel it. My skin is just… Ack. And I suck at applying make-up. And the girls in MAC always make me feel like an idiot. *deep sigh*
True. Once I had kids, I realized how non-elastic my skin was. And then a woman doing a facial on me confirmed it.
I’m 47. This year, I decided that I am now old enough to do what I want, and have begun wearing glittery eyeshadow from Lit (a nice Calgary company). It’s bright and sparkly and sparkly (did I mention sparkly?) and comes in colors like “Farrah.” Its little glowy particles nestle in my eye bags, in my crows’ feet, and sometimes in those puppet-mouth thingies that happen around this time of life. It’s difficult to wash off. It draws attention to my droopy eyelids. It makes me look a bit like Bea Arthur. It is in fact the radical opposite of concealer. And it’s a hoot–it adds a little spring to my step, a little pizzazz to my frumpitudinous work-at-home life, and at the very least it’s a conversation piece. My mom thinks I’m insane, my sisters think I’m having a crisis, and I’ve heard the word “brave’ whispered more than once. But here’s the thing: I was never confident enough as a young woman to wear such warpaint. Now I am. And I shall wear glitter eyeshadow to the library and the foundation garment department of Sears because, as it turns out, that’s the way the nearly 50-year-old me rolls. Waddles. Whatever.
Bea Arthur reference = hilarious. I think you should copy your comment and paste it into your blog. Very very funny. Thanks for the laugh…
Oh my, I haven’t laughed so hard in such a long time! My chest is hurting me! I can hardly breath right!!! When you said the following, it totally cracked me up… “Its little glowy particles nestle in my eye bags, in my crows’ feet, and sometimes in those puppet-mouth thingies that happen around this time of life.” hahahaha! That was great!
Being an Avon Sales Rep. I see that all the time! You’re right, it does draw more attention to droopy eyelids. Here’s a little tip… put aside the sparkly shadow (the worst shadow to use for droopy eyelids) and swap it for a matt shadow instead. Use a light color under the brow bone, and a medium color on the lid. Then take a darker shade and apply it to the crease only (from the outer corner of your eye to almost the inner corner). The darker shade in the crease creates the illusion of a shadow and thus helps to hid the droopy skin! And then in the inner corner of the eye, sweep a very light color (gives your eye a more opened look). With this technic, you still can have a fresh, modern, bold look… without the sparkle build up! Finishing touch… mascara… opens up the eye too! But in the end, if your heart is still set on glitter, that’s A-O-K too!
So, all in all, thanks for the laughs! It made my day! 🙂
I just figure that if I wear bright enough lipstick and enough flippy hair that maybe nobody will notice the wrinkles & bags under my eyes. There’s a reason I slather my 8 year old daughter in sun screen!
Once I hit 40, my skin changed and make-up doesn’t look right on it. But with enough lipstick and a great haircut, plus monster sunglasses – I think I can camouflage for a while yet.
Must invest in some monster sunglasses. My only problem is that I wear prescription sunglasses. If I got sunglasses that big, the lenses would be as thick as a window pane.
On my 40th birthday Mother Nature generously offered me a present. A mustache. Gadzooks! I am so not into this new look.
But like you, the new dependence on glasses makes that easy. I just don’t put them on. Then I can’t see it.
The mustache! Mine is blond so far. Unless I kill my skin further my getting a dark tan, it’s hard to see. But who knows what will happen when I’m 40!
I turned 40 a few months ago. As a gift, a friend gave me a “make up lesson” at Quorra (fancy!). I called for my appointment and the girl told me to bring my make-up bag and she’d analyze it as part of the process. Mortified, I brought Cover-girl concealer and Maybelline mascara and a few other dried up sundries for her to examine. Anyway, the lesson was good, the girl was kind (bless her)and at the end of the lesson I said “I’ll take it all”. I left the store $300 later, feeling a little panicky but actually pretty good. Hey I’m 40. I deserve this, I figured. I probably won’t buy make-up again until I’m 50.
I too would have taken it all. And then watch it rot. Or wait till your children find the bag and paint themselves and the walls.
I really started to notice I was aging when I’d open my mouth and my own mother would jump out! Talk about scary stuff! Oiy!
My mom has a t-shirt that says, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall / I am my own mother after all.”
I was killing myself laughing reading this – and I as I am sitting on the tiled floor of an unfunished space outside the girls’ room while they’re sleeping,I was more snorting…… you are toooooooo funny!!!
Shukran, Sarah. Hope your shipment comes soon…
It’s been years since I bothered with make-up. Well 4 to be exact. You know pre-babies. I never spent much when I did bother with it, I’m not very adept with the stuff. So now, I just avoid mirrors. Fixes the whole problem!
I use mineral make-up I order from Canary Cosmetics on line. they last for a long time and are not made with the para-particles (whatever they are called, having a granny moment) that everyone is freaking out over, for health reasons, but what was I saying … oh yea, it covers great and feels good on my skin. I have very sensitive skin and many make-up products make me break out and inch like crazy. I wear that and mascara, sometime eye liner when I feel like a elder goth, but most times I wear little make-up. BUT I don’t have the scary wrinkles, you know the old ladies you see that you think they are mad! Yea I have laugh lines and crow feet from where I smile and laugh!!
I tease my girls to not make me get ugly scary wrinkles….
As you know I just turned 47 and I really struggle with the concept that yes I am now that old. Those dark circles under the eyes only appeared for me about two years ago but they are part of the aging process for some and unfortunately so for me. I don’t use expensive products but there comes a time when you need a little help so I use a standard cleanser, day, night and eye cream routine. I recently decided to switch brands and see if that would help and it did, quite dramatically so and the dark puffy circles are looking a lot better. So I would recommend trying a few different face and eye cream products to see which work for you and as for the concealer, any cheap brand will work just as well as all it does is as you describe it so well, attempt to cover over the issue. Not that I ever use one as make up is something I’ve never quite got to grips with and nowadays never seem to find the time to even think about 🙂