Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/235251
THrive muse "laugh lines are a sure sign the terrorists have won." Beauty Wise The lotions, potions and emotions of looking your best By Laura Gallagher 30 brava magazine | JANUARY 2014 It's not easy being a woman in her 40s. First, there's health and family issues, dying friends, and the realization that you aren't going to be the wicked awesome movie star-ballerina-private detective you thought you'd be. Then, there's the minutia you've been dealing with for at least 20 years with no break in sight. Woodman's is great for spotting that sudden comprehension— down every aisle there are people with glazed looks that say, "I've bought Cool Ranch Doritos, spaghetti sauce and a bag of frozen chicken breasts twice a month for the last 22 years, and don't foresee that ending any time. Stab me now." But all that pales in comparison to what is apparently our biggest concern: our looks. The lack of "glow," elasticity, eye lashes, and even skin tone; and the humiliating existence of brown spots, fine lines, eye bags and perhaps uneven nostrils. Luckily, there are creamsgelslotionsunguentsemoillientsmasks for all those problems, which need your attention immediately because laugh lines are a sure sign the terrorists have won. Seriously, how much…stuff…are we supposed to put on? And in what order? How do I reclaim my youthful glow without having so much goop on my face that your finger would be buried to the second knuckle if you poked me in the cheek? And that's before we even get to makeup—the burnt sugar coating on the crème brulee that is our faces. First, makeup needs primer because you can't just put on foundation anymore (what are we, animals?). Then you'll need an hour and a half to achieve something called the "smoky eye"—eye shadow in six shades of dark grey, eyeliner, mascara, eyebrow pencil, an eyelash curler, and a preternatural ability to resist hand cramps as you coax your face into looking like you've been hit in the eyes with the charred end of a log. And oh man, that mouth of yours. Whiten your teeth until the glare from them could be used to signal planes, which is going to be tough because we all know how much you love your coffee 'cuz you're a woman. Your lips will need primer and lipstick, of course, in any color but natural. You might consider collagen if you're not naturally blessed with lips that look like a sectional sofa. Don't even get me started on hair. According to some blonde I should probably recognize but don't, all this time I've been "wooking at the wrong end of hair." I can't even parse that sentence— Working? Looking? Wookies? At the "wrong" end of whose hair? Mine? Hair in general? Now, I say all this as a woman who, this very morning, used color-correcting moisturizer, lip gloss, and plucked a stray eyebrow hair or two. And there's nothing—nothing—wrong with looking your best. But you have to be comfortable with who you are. Because what you look like could change at any moment. Which was a very hard, but very valuable, lesson to learn. And it took me until my 40s to figure that out. It ain't all bad.