I’m not averse to powdering my nose, keeping my nails trim and polished or getting a boost from a bright, new lipstick, but I’m darned if I’m going to spend all kinds of time and money to fight the inevitable by investing in serum corrector for dark spots, new-skin foundation, $300-a-jar wrinkle-smoothing cream made from sea kelp, eyelash-grower gel, diet pills, teeth whiteners, spray-on suntans, bust enhancers, fanny definers, or any of the other 101 “necessities” the beauty industry can think up.
I started reflectively obsessing on the trillion-dollar industry that beauty products represent while cleaning out a collection of really old magazines and came to the realization that “hope in a jar” has been around a long time, and actually the number of products has not only multiplied, but now have been designed to entrap the male sex, as well.
Every year, for the past 20 years, Estee Lauder and Lancome have introduced, “scientific breakthroughs,” Revlon has come out with “new and improved” and Cover Girl has a new face and a new makeup marvel.
And we keep buying into the fantasy. The lipstick will make my lips look full and inviting and last all day, the eye makeup will not leave me looking raccoon-like if I cry, the rouge will give me the natural glow of a 20-year-old; and if I use the night cream regularly, the crow’s feet will have flown the coop in two weeks.
The male sex is being sold machines to increase their abs and biceps and god knows what else, decrease their tummy flab and tighten their buns. There are, in addition to hair transplants, “libido enhancers” and other newly minted products for the stronger sex. More men are going for plastic surgery procedures than ever before.
Not so long ago, the only cosmetic-type gift you could give a man at Christmas was Mennen’s skin bracer. Now there is a complete array of designer skin creams and colognes with which to gift the guy in your life.
Weight-loss products almost deserve a column of their own. Hundreds of articles and books have been written on numerous diets, some saying eat proteins, others espousing carbs only, and there are the vegetarian and organic-food-only devotees, as well as the eat everything, but in small quantities contingent.
Each season, a new weight-loss product is introduced, none of which has proven long-lasting, clinical results and the side effects of which are enough to make your hair stand on end (just in case that should become fashionable). I ask you, if something were really successful, why would they keep coming out with other diets or products? We would already all be sylph-like, and Macy’s could reduce its inventory to size 6 only.
The thought occurs to me that we could have already licked cancer, AIDS and arthritis if as much effort and research had gone into the cure for the aforementioned as has gone into developing a formula for longer eyelashes, or any of the other “vain unnecessaries.”
“Keep on living as though you expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest, wrinkles the soul.” — Unknown
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