New Year’s Resolution: Stop Aging

There are all sorts of ways around the aging process when you’re 40 soon to be 41 as I am.

You have the serious financially heavy cosmetic options: botox, restalin, laser, injections, peels, etc. Botox, me? I considered it last year when I turned 40. The valley between my eyebrows has settled in. The wrinkles forever there and formed, making me appear pissed off all the time. I look at my father’s own creases between his eyes and see the genetic influence. My father looks handsome with his grays and wrinkles. This is the age old issue for women. Men age well with their rugged faces drooping. Think Paul Newman. Handsome with those gorgeous blue eyes until he died.

Okay, but enough of the complaining. What is the solution? They’re everywhere. Even foundation–according to a recent Vogue article “Face Value” on the miracle of covering up–is now infused with collagen like L’Oreal Visible Lift Smooth Absolute and Revlon Age Defying Foundation with DNA Advantage. Foundation you say, for a feminist? Come on, are you really trying to suggest that a feminist can’t be vain? So let’s move on from that conversation, okay? Okay. We’re all vain. We’re all tired of those spots.

So I started using Clinique’s Spot Corrector. Heard of this? The woman at the counter told me if I use it twice a day for 30 days that my spots will disappear. Dark slashes on my chin. Freckles that have gotten larger in the past two years. (I use the word “freckle” because it’s preferable to “age spots”.) And then there was the sweet ethestician who told me during my last facial that I have sun damage all around my eye. “This was done when you were much younger,” she said. “And it’s pretty bad.” Thanks for letting me know, hon. Nothing I could do about that when I was 17 holding up a tin-foil like sun visor to my face in the back yard with baby oil plastered all over my skin. What did I know about sun damage then?

So what do I use on my face besides the spot corrector? I go for the drug store variety because–why not, it’s cheaper. (Though I do go through phases of the natural Whole Foods variety.) For $20, my Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream is supposed to “firm sagging prone areas.” So I schmear it on my jaw line and  over that great gorge of creases that sits between my brows and I have no idea if it works. At night I use RoC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Night Cream because a long time ago when I briefly worked for a skin care magazine and my job was to research day and night about how to keep your face from falling off the floor, and I laughed and laughed because I was 28 and wow skin sagging doesn’t even apply to me, ha ha ha you old bitches look at my perfect skin… Well, I now that I’m an old saggy bitch, I remembered the tip about retinol being the only thing that will replace collagen in your skin. Aren’t you glad I remembered?

Lancome has also come out with a new serum in which they swear does it all: Lancome’s Visionnaire Advanced Skin Corrector ”fights wrinkles, large pores and uneven texture as effectively as retinol but without redness,” but at $84 I’m not sure if I’m willing to test it. Anyone willing to give it a try and report back?

Eyes shall we? I rotate between Clinique All About Eyes and RoC Retinol Correxion Eye Cream. It’s supposed to ward off dark circles, but seriously folks, I think I need a doctor to rub those circles out.

When I remember to scrub my face I use Acure Brightening Facial Scrub with sea kelp and chlorella I guess I’m sloughing off dead skin cells. And for a face wash… I love love love Dr. Hauschka’s Cleansing Milk. And my favorite blogger (besides Miri, of course) Rebecca Woolf of Girls Gone Child swears by Josie Maran’s Argan Cleansing Oil which I’ve been meaning to get. Rebecca says she’s been using this for years and appears to have gorgeous skin, but Rebecca is youngggg. She’s got 4 kids, but she doesn’t know what it means to have droopy jowls.

So we’re stocked up with all the products. What’s next from my packed drawer of the fountain of youth? Glowing skin. Ha! Maybe I should follow the Goop Goddess herself Gwyneth Paltrow and we’ll forever be younger together? Right.

As much as I might stock up on all of these goops and creams and potions, my skin is changing. That is a New Year’s Resolution that I can’t stop, change or make alterations to. Kind of like my Mummy Tummy, I just need to be okay with it.

What are your products?