Putting on a brave face in the pursuit of beauty
How do I know which ones are the most urgent? Or do what they promise?
On New Year’s Eve, I dug deep into my bag of super duper exciting tricks and pulled out a goopy charcoal detox face mask that promised a dewier, younger-looking me. And even if it was just for 10 minutes. In any case, the product in question was a steal. Because for $4 it promised to minimize pores, draw out impurities, remove facial nasties like blackheads and other blemishes, soften, smooth, emulsify, making me appear like a doe-eyed teenager, ready to prance my way into adult life.
There would be no more nasty Uber drivers asking if my friend, who is closing in on 40, is my daughter. I mean, come on. Although to be fair, the friend in question does regularly spring for high end facial treatments that involve lasers and sanders and the like. But this $4 product should do the trick, right?
I won’t keep you in suspense. My facial pores are still so cavernous, so visible, a seasoned search team might find that contact lens I lost INSIDE MY EYEBALL eight years ago and that I’m certain is having a grand old time, floating around beneath the surface of my skin. (Side note: I no longer wear contact lenses.) But I’ve decided to not give up on the $4 facial masks. Even though if I do enough of them, it will probably cost the same as it would to spring for a high end facial treatment administered by a professional face laserer/sander. The problem is that when I look at the list of services offered by spas, medi-spas, dermatologists and the like, the options are mindboggling. Obviously, I need all of them.
But how do I know which ones are the most urgent? Which ones actually do what they promise? Which one(s) will for real minimize the appearance of what is starting to look like a migratory route for tiny wildebeest, making its way from the top of my nose, between my eyebrows, across my forehead to my temples? None of the treatments I’ve looked at has specifically mentioned this migratory route. And all the brow-furrowing and consternation while trying to make heads-or-tails of these services menus is just making matters worse.
So when I came across a couple of articles, boasting about the hottest trends in plastic surgery, I was very interested. Maybe one of them will offer me a clue, I thought. Maybe one will help.
Allure says the Laser Bra Lift, a breast reduction and lift procedure done with lasers instead of invasive surgery, will be big in 2018.
“Instead of removing and discarding excess skin from the breast, the Laser Bra Lift leaves skin intact and treats it with a C02 laser, thereby creating an ‘internal bra,’” says the story. I’ll be all over this one in a few years, but for the moment: priorities, priorities, priorities.
Botox, fillers, blah blah blah. I’m not there yet. But there are new technologies, new products. OK, ya, whatever — I need a good superficial treatment and am not interested in injecting stuff into my face. Yet. But in case you’re interested, there are new products, new technologies. Ask your favourite facial person.
Requests for a better selfie. Yes, Coveteur says people are requesting the aforementioned injectables, laser treatments, fat-dissolving procedures to minimize the chin etc. so they will look better in selfies. I’m the person who still can’t figure out how to balance my phone in one hand a far enough distance from my face and from a high-enough angle (obviously) while actually pressing the button to get a good selfie no matter the circumstance, not matter how many facial procedures I’ve had. So I’m out on this one.
Labiaplasty. Yup, Allure reports that requests for “the process of reshaping the labia for esthetics and/or comfort — jumped by 23 per cent in 2016 and has been steadily increasing ever since.” OK. I don’t know if this one has anything to do with requests for a better selfie or what. I’ve been kind of out of it on the dating scene so maybe this is something people do on dating sites now.
But also not for me. I mean, I don’t think. Do I need this? Do we all need this? OK, no. Priorities, priorities, priorities.
Anyway, after all my research, all my reading up on this stuff, I wound up back at Shoppers, perusing the facial creams aisle. And yup, I left with another $4 goopy charcoal detox mask.
It’s just the least complicated option.
Do I need this? Do we all need this? OK, no. Priorities, priorities, priorities.