Getting Creamed

Before there were Nigerian princes who needed your help via email, before there was phishing and only fishing, before there was identity theft, just the regular kind, and the dark web was a spiderweb that was in the basement in a dark corner, there was women's face cream.  The original scam. And still going strong.

Don't get me wrong, I don't eschew moisturizers.  Far from it; growing up in arid Montana, I have been moisturizing every exposed part of me since before I could spell it. But it was only in the last few years where vanity got the better of me and I started spending more on facial moisturizers than I do on sports jerseys (and, those people who have seen my closet know that's a lot) and have fallen victim to some bad decisions in search of that miracle wrinkle reducer.

I would admittedly go for the Botox route, but it's hard to arrange to leave the house to run to Target, going to a movie is a major endeavor that takes coordinated planning and some guilt for leaving my husband alone with his mom, so leaving for recurring cosmetic treatments like that and spending that kind of money and time on things seems selfish, but there are days I look at myself in the mirror and think, "This is what I'm going to look like when I'm my mother-in-law's age." only to realize that's what I look like now. Or I'll smile at someone and see the wrinkles above my mouth or on my forehead light up instead of the smile. I mean, let's face it: women get judged by their looks more so than men.  Sorry if that sounds sexist, I just believe it is true.  I've never been known to get my way based on my looks, but aging isn't exactly leveling the playing field.  You might think that I wouldn't be worried about something I never really had, but alas, you'd be wrong.

I have forgotten all the times I've been strong armed into buying some magic moisturizer or cleanser that was promised to remove fine lines. The money I've wasted probably caused some of those fine lines, but it's the things I've actually sought out and suckered myself into buying that really make me cringe.

The worst one wasn't actually a face cream but a chin cream, if you will.  Let me explain. I've always had a bit of a double chin. Starting in high school, I began doing neck exercises to tighten the area. Hard to say if it worked really - I mean, it never went away but it could have been so much worse without them. As I got a bit older I read that cocoa butter was a good skin tightener for weak chinned folks, so I have used that as a night moisturizer for the last decade or so. But during the Pandemic I was able to lose some weight (more on that in a different post), but it actually made the weak double chin more pronounced, to the point where my husband actually said, "Yeah, you probably ought to do something about that." Seriously, he did. At about that time, a local cosmetic surgery place was running ads about a laser procedure to remove double chins. I actually looked into the procedure. And had reviews and articles been positive, I would have done it.  But they weren't. However, what I tripped across was some miracle cream with excellent reviews that was supposed to melt away double chins. Sound too good to be true? Yeah, well...

I mean, I think I'm a reasonably intelligent person but I fell for it hook, line and stinker sinker. I thought because I'd read an "independent review" replete with testimonials I was on to something legit. But the site was tricky to begin with and without realizing it I immediately was enrolled in repeat delivery for a $50 jar of less than an ounce. And did it work? Nope. It was a nightmare to get out of the recurring delivery; I ended up closing my Discover Penguins card and cutting it up in anger because they wouldn't support me in denying the charge for an order that I refused to accept. I finally got past it, but that was money trashed, and I miss my Penguins card. I could probably get another one, but then again, they definitely did not put the customer first and that still makes me mad.

Yet, expensive lessons are definite lessons learned, right?

Right?

Well...

One morning, I was in my mother-in-law's room to do her morning routine and she was watching the CBS Morning Show and they were hawking these products from Wrinkles Schminkles.  I figured to myself that if a news show was promoting it, it was safe right? And I ordered through CBS, making me feel even more secure. Sigh.  Maybe I didn't give them enough of a shot, but I ordered under eye patches that are supposed to be worn overnight. They were uncomfortable, fell off a lot - I would wake up with them stuck to my pillow instead of me, once it was IN my eye, not under my eye, or stuck to my collie. The wrinkles were the only thing sticking to me actually. On the other hand, I got a face mask from them that was like heaven. Not sure it did anything, but dang, I felt great!! So, silver lining...

The most recent example was I saw an article from InStyle claiming that Jane Fonda used a L'Oreal product. I ordered that from Amazon faster than you can say 80 For Brady.  Too soon to really make a judgment but at least it didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Bottom line is even if the left-side of our brain is telling us to be logical and realize that life leaves its stamp on us no matter what we do, and we really ought to be proud of our wrinkles because it means we've made it this far, the right-side of our brain is falling victim to wanting to look younger. Period. End of story. Because society has always told us that beauty is to be prized. The bank account is stuck somewhere in between.

Just some of the face treatments I have.

Can I overcome the right-brain's whispers and just treat my skin with common sense and sensibly priced moisturizers? I'd like to say yes, but if any of you comment that you've found a magic bullet for wrinkle reduction, there's little doubt I'll shoot myself with that bullet!

Vanity Fair

Allied Pictures

I love that I share a birthday with fellow Montanan Myrna Loy (well I wasn't born there, but I lived there longer, so...it counts, right?) I adore Myrna Loy, shared birthday or not. She was an amazing actress who could present as a haughty beauty or a cute-as-a-button girl next door. She can make me laugh, as she's done through all the Thin Man movies, or drive me to tears as she does consistently with each viewing of one of the best movies ever made, The Best Years of Our Lives. And if you don't know anything about her films, stop right here!  Go find one on Turner Classic Movies and get back to me. You can thank me later.

But off screen she was admirable as well, advocating for better roles and treatment of minority actors and was such an outspoken anti-Fascist that Hitler banned her films in Germany. She probably didn't change the world with her opinions, but in the context of the times, she was brave to speak up at all. And she was independent. Yes, she married several times, but she was her own career woman, and I loved that about her and my other favorites: Katherine Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman. But before I really knew who she was, I simply knew she was someone famous with whom I shared a birthday. One such day, as was typical, the paper ran a list of famous people who had birthdays and I saw her name. I was maybe eight or nine and was a little young to have seen any of the hard drinking Thin Man movies quite yet, so I wasn't putting a face to the name so as Mom and I drove downtown to run errands I asked about her, specifically I wanted to know if she was beautiful. My mother's response was somewhat wistful. Usually a biting critic of anything or anyone she didn't agree with, there was a wisp of sadness in her voice instead when she assured me that, yes, she was very beautiful but was also very vain and struggled with aging gracefully. At the time of that question, Myrna Loy was about the same age I am now.

RKO Pictures

I've never forgotten that as I watched Myrna Loy films, and I thought about it a lot as I read her autobiography. Of course even if she was totally self-aware, which I don't get the impression that she was, she wasn't going to cop to being vain in her book, but there are hints that support my mother's statement. She protested a bit too much about the slim age difference between herself and co-star Teresa Wright in The Best Years of Her Lives, for example. Myrna plays the mother to Teresa's adult daughter role. 

She did play mother roles and was the aunt to Doris Day's character in Midnight Lace the same year I was born, but it is true she was reticent to accept those roles and her career slowed as she aged as a result. I have to accept that, as flawless as I find her acting, she was like all of us and flawed in other ways. And for someone who had spent her life making a name for herself with her beauty, watching that outer beauty fade must have indeed been hard. But perhaps because my fellow Leo struggled so much against a fight none of us wins, I'm determined not to be that way.  Maybe in a way Myrna Loy is why I write this blog.

Of course, never having been someone who could make a living with my face or body, it's easier for me right? Maybe, but next up, I'll tell you all the ways I'm an absolute hypocrite when I make the statement  that I'm embracing my age.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this classic scene from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.

My gift to all of you.