My Quest for the Fountain of Youth

My Quest for the Fountain of Youth

My birthday is approaching, and I’m researching beauty treatments to (make myself think) I look like I did ten years ago. 

Asking around, I was amazed at how many women are getting lasered, botoxed, injected, and microdermed and spending fortunes doing it.

www.arizonafoothillsmagazine.com

I called “Chateau d’ Shangra OOOH-LA-LA” yesterday to check the price of getting my underarms lasered so I’d never have to shave again. 

By the way, I really do buy expensive razors on account of I’m worth it.  However, I use them approximately 23 more times than Bic’s recommendation and I cut myself every time—just like last night.  I had to wait twenty minutes to stop bleeding before I got dressed for bunco so I wouldn’t mess up my new Mossimo faux raccoon fur vest. (A virtual Fountain of Youth itself). 

Anyway, I quickly found out that my budget only permitted me to laser half my chin, which was unacceptable.  

So, then I turned my attention to a plethora of cosmetic miracle cures.

www.styleite.com

First, I researched “BerryActif” a product containing raspberry plant stem-cell technology with 300,000 raspberry stem-cells in every jar. 

After four weeks’ use, 83% of panelists* using the anti-aging cream showed improvement but had to set their thermostats below 58 degrees to prevent becoming moldy at room temperature.

Next, “Fifty Shades of Clay” Cosmetics boasts a potion called Accelerated Retinol Serum.  Why would I want the Regular Serum?  More is better!  I mean, this is still America last time I checked.  I could teach those Marketing guys, with their framed Latin cosmetology diplomas just like Charlene’s down at the Glamour Nails, a thing or two about selling stuff.  Where did they go to college anyway?  LSU?  (Woo hoo!  Ole Miss fan.) 

Anyway, the cream claims to reduce wrinkles and revive bounce.  But I don’t need more bounce.  Lately when I walk in high heels, the skin on my cheeks vibrates, which is quite enough bounce for me. 

Next I learned “Brassy & Sassy” Cosmetics sells a miracle cream made from the rare purple raspberry variety Lavendéra L’Shawnda.  The rare strain was identified in the ruins of Pompeii in 1999 at the foot of Mount Vesuvius.  

www.asphaltdriveway.net

One lone plant possessed the determination and the immunity to free-radicals to push through the thick layer of hardened lava to photokinetically produce one purple raspberry.  The exclusive formula uses a specific strain of rare barnacle growing on that robust raspberry, which is rare. 

The secret behind “Meaningful Beauty” Anti-aging System lies in a remote region in France, named Jean Valjean d’ Cosette where scientists have cultivated an uncommon melon containing a powerful super-antioxidant, that obviously worked on Cindy Crawford, called Super Hydroxide Amino Mylflavanoid (SHAM)—and if you’re the third caller on QVC, they’ll throw in two more tubes.  Just pay separate shipping and handling. 

Female Baby Boomers are willing to spend their kids’ college funds and sometimes even part of their wine budget to stave off the aging process.

I know one lady who spent $300 on a cream made from cat placentas.  Her skin looks great, but she goes bat-crazy when the vacuum cleaner is turned on. 

www.funclaw.com

*30 random people they found on the internet.

I Was No Coppertone Girl

“Why These Kids Can’t Be Mine” day

I Was No Coppertone Girl

pierjewelry.com

On fall break in Florida, I was surprised to see my daughter sitting on a beach chair covered from head to toe with a beach towel. 

Now as I posted yesterday, teenage girls are obsessed with tans.  Wrath is spewed if someone blocks their sunlight resulting in an inferior degree of crispiness.    

“I thought you wanted a tan?” I projected through the beach towel.

“I do.” (Of course, minimal information)

“Why are you covered up?”

“Mom, how do you expect me to watch Gossip Girl on my phone when the sun is so bright I can’t see the screen.” 

So I guess sometimes Gossip Girl trumps a tan.  I don’t know the rules anymore.

All I know is that when I was a teenager, tans were just as important as they are now. But I couldn’t go to a breezy beach at the drop of a hat so I “laid out,” as we called it, on a bath towel on the driveway. 

pinterest.com     DIY   by Brandy Garrett

Who remembers using this?

Just so you know, it was 1978, and baby oil was the potion of preference for the advance of the “Dark Arts.”  And according to the most recent U.S. data at the time, mixing it with iodine sped up the tanning process by 891%.  I mean, the U.S. was involved in a stagnant Cold War against the “evil empire,” but we were waaaayyy ahead of other countries in potions—like the Epidermal Crispus Mortem Potion, which is Latin for “potion for dead, crispy skin.”  By the way, literary journals agree that if you use “Cold War” and “Dark Arts” in the same paragraph, that’s really good writing.

Let me digress—remember the experiment in which sunscreen companies put two slices of bacon in the sun, one sprayed with sunscreen and one without?  The one without looks like it was blasted with radioactive matter.  The one with sunscreen looks like it has been in the microwave maybe ten seconds. The sunscreen protected the bacon, keeping the pork much cooler.  

Bottom line—before Mr. Coppertone, we got hotter when we “laid out” because we had no UV protection.  

To distract us from the infernal heat, we used our dial-controlled, AM radio that was never exactly on the station and only had one antennae.  The static was so bad you could barely hear Andy Gibb’s falsetto.  

My point is that it was BRUTAL.  Eight hours a day every summer until I was 16 and could get a job. 

But the damage had already been done.  I am now 75,000% more likely to get skin cancer, but more importantly, wrinkles.  This is why I require so much maintenance now, cosmetically AND mentally.  

According to reliable sources such as Cracker Barrel Magazine, long-term tanning with baby oil and iodine has been scientifically proven to diminish neutron activity in the brain.  I am proof of that.  I can’t remember anything, I repeat myself, and I say the first thing that comes to my mind, even if it’s vulgar.

But this is the “instant” generation.  Teens today don’t have the patience to brutalize themselves anymore like normal people.  However, I’m a little softer in my old age too.  Now when I’m on the beach, I embrace relaxation instead of pain.  Just give me shade, SPF 80, an umbrella drink, and a beach towel over my head so I can watch “Magic Mike.”