The other I day I read (and I can’t remember where) the average woman spends $100 a month on beauty products.
Whaaaat?
How did I not get this memo? You’ve all been shopping without me. It’s no wonder I look so pale and forlorn, and here I thought it was the arctic weather and lack of Vitamin D.
I’m roughly $1,100 dollars behind and my husband doesn’t think it’s prudent for me to catch up.
What’s a woman with old lipstick and no more face brightener to do?
I’m like the ugly duckling who needs over a thousand dollars worth of beauty potions and a Clarisonic before she can turn into a swan.
Quack, quack, quack.
Maybe this why my husband is drawn to duck hunting. They remind him of me.
I was looking in the review mirror the other day and I thought I could use a touch of wrinkle cream. How close to the $1,100 dollar mark will a bottle of youth put me these days?
Just a few weeks ago, I was in Target and totally splurged. I blew $22 whole dollars on a giant bottle of Cetaphil face wash and a tub of cream to go with it. The stuff is ugly to look at, but it’s like a good rain on the desert that is my face. Extremely moisturizing and cheap.
Now, suddenly, my splurge seems under-complicated for this modern woman. You know, I will be thirty-nine in another month. Shhhh…don’t tell my kids. My daughter still thinks I might be twenty-nine-ish. She’s catching on though.
I went to the dermatologist the other day. It was my second time in a year. Either that makes me a hypochondriac or spotty, because dermatologists do seem to love spotty people.
Two years ago I developed quite the “rash” of sorts. Blood vessels spontaneously burst just under the skin on my arms. When it’s my lucky day, they burst through my skin and blood drips down my arm. I told my doctor I’ve become the town leper. Between my asthmatic cough and my bloody arms, people yell “UnClean” when I walk down the street.
She laughed and made me an appointment with the dermatologist, but I’m not too far from serious.
So the good doc biopsied one of these bruise-like marks and the dermatology lab in Albany insists it’s sun damage, technically know as Solar Purpura. Basically I’m old and shriveled up.
It’s hard for me wrap my mind around that diagnosis because I haven’t seen the sun since September and it’s not likely my arms will see the light of day until about the end of April, if we’re all lucky and it quits snowing in April.
I’m pretty much the unlucky one-in-a-million, a lot like my friend Missy and the miserable rash she wrote about this week.
It could get worse and it could get better. No one really knows, but it’s likely to get worse. The advice – slather your body in sunscreen post-haste.
I may have given the doctor the hairy-eyeball when he told me to go put sunscreen on my arms.
“Doc, you do realize I just peeled off three layers of thick clothing made from manufactured materials? Lights cannot possibly penetrate one of those layers, much less three.”
The common sense part of my statement didn’t seem to register with him and he most adamantly ordered “SUNSCREEN.”
It all sounds a bit convoluted to me. If you run into me and I sound like I have the Bubonic Plague and look like your favorite zombie, I’m not contagious. I thought about getting a doctor’s note to pin to the back of my coat, so the people in line behind me don’t feel like they need to find another line, but it’s kind of fun to watch the horror in their expressions.
If my face begins bleeding, I’m packing up and moving to Hawaii to spend the rest of my zombified days on the beach enjoying some sunshine.
In the meantime, I may go buy a bottle of sunscreen. That should run me what? $12 dollars?
I’ll be $12 dollars closer to the average woman’s beauty by this time tomorrow. I’m feeling better about myself already!
Now, who wants to go shopping for wrinkle cream with me?
Older woman here. I use Oil of Olay age defying cream from the grocery store. For dry house heat, put vessels of water around and use humidifiers. We lived in several places where the heat and air was so dry I felt like it was sucking the life right out of me! Hello…wrinkles! So gals, my 2 cents worth is use cream that feels right for your face. And use lotion for your limbs too. PS. Don’t forget about your hair. Okay, I’m done. Have a good day.
Bought the anti aging products for big bucks and they caused rashes and burnt skin. I am now using St. Ives on my face and I love it! Minimal makeup saves lots of money too.
You are beautiful. Keep doing what you are doing!
I’m 43 and I use to spend the big bucks I have found Jergens skin firming with collagen&elastins,or st. Ives with Collagen & Elastins works as well as the $50. Avon cream.
and better then anything else you’ll find on the shelfs at your local store.
Hi one hundred dollars a month. That’s crazy! What exactly are women buying. I spend no where that amount of money. Hip I think. Great advertising or bad advertising tells us so. I’ll stick with my cheap crap. It works for me. Cheers
Wow, I can’t believe the average woman spends that much on makeup/lotions/potions! I used the off brand of cetifil for a long time, but now I’m trying the OCM, or oil cleansing method to clean my 52 year old skin. I like it so far, definitely no dry, tight feeling like I usually have in winter. And I do use lotion with sunscreen but not straight sunscreen daily.
Thanks for doing what you do, love your blog!
I wear sunscreen every. single. day. It’s the pale woman’s burden.
I never told my children I was 29 years old; I told them I was 100. They thought I looked GREAT for my age.
lol. I like that. I wonder if it’s too late to change my age to 100?
Dear Tricia….shop no longer , I have the product for you. I too am a lady of many sun spots, freckles, and yes wrinkles, but who doesn’t have these, right? God blessed me with freckles, but the sun spots and wrinkles, well I encouraged those myself. I love the warmth of the sun…I am a southern gal and I will always love the sun. I live in Illinois which is quite of change to being in North Carolina. So in regards to the product for you. I would like to share a sample bottle with you. It has literally changed my skin like no other anti aging cream I have ever used. ONe of the best things that Nerium International offers is a 30 day money back guarantee. Anyone can simply order the product, try it for 30 days and if for some reason they decided they don’t notice a change in their skin, Nerium will send them there money back. AWESOME news right? That’s not it…. my favorite part about Nerium International is after becoming a customer or Brand Partner…I now get my product for free. FREE!!!! so I never have to pay for my product again through Nerium gives back. More details on that if you decide to give it a try? SO Shop no LONGER:)
Can you even find sunscreen in your neck of the woods this time of year?!?? We moved from Florida to Michigan last month, and I’ve doubled the amount of body lotion I use. Unbelievable! I may have to start buying it by the gallon.