Face Cream Whore

It's amazing to me that I've become an older woman. Yet, now that I'm one of the woman featured in the blog Advanced Style, it seems I am.

A year ago I wasn't. But on a cold January Thursday, just as I was about to enter the cleaners with my husband's shirts, a cute fellow stopped me and said: "You look fabulous. Can I take your picture?" Of course, I said yes. Ari Cohen presented his card, and before the week was out there I was, not only in Advanced Style but in New York Magazine as well!

By virtue of the Internet, youth fluttered away, and I unwittingly entered the end game of my life. Were I younger, I'd have run around Greenwich Village screaming OMG, OMG!

The novelty of seeing my pictures online, along with the immediate world, was so captivating (were I younger I'd say Awesome) that when Ari asked would I mind being interviewed about my look, my style, my hair, my brooches, I was thrilled. When the interview was put on YouTube, I forwarded it to everyone I'd ever met.

To my surprise, reaction was split between pals who cheered and pals who jeered at my admitting to be getting old. Women, not men, the culprits.

Oh what a damning word is old! Yet, isn't its clarity better than patronizing monikers like Senior/Seniors/Senior Citizens? No matter how you spell it, Senior is stupid. After a magnum or two of "Bolly, sweetie", Patsy might confide to Eddy that she might be getting old, but she'd never refer to herself as Senior anything.

Even more surprising, was how some gal pals reacted when it dawned on them that if I admitted to being on the bottom rung of the ladder called Age, aren't they old as well? Not that I was shunned exactly. Only their occasional waft of cool air made me realize I had crossed a delicate line. My boldness, vanity, cheek damned them to being old by association.

But I get it. Not too long ago, artificial estrogen, designed to keep females forever young by letting them hang on to their menstrual cycle, was considered a medical miracle. In my health club's dressing room, I'd see women way past childbearing years display their embrace of this Fountain of Youth by 'forgetting' to neatly tuck in the cotton thread of their tampon as if to proudly proclaim: "I'm still young."

"Not I," said the fly. In fact, I was happy when the bleeding stopped. The money I used to spend on tampons could be better spent on crazily expensive face creams. To beat the clock, I became a face cream whore. Then again, I've always had a finger in the cream jar. I remember the first ad I ever saw for CLINIQUE in the New York Times. The weather was warm. I was but 20 years old when my interior alarm hissed: "Now's the time, defy, defy. Slather this on and time will fly."

Before that ad, face creams never entered my mind. (Baby Oil doesn't count.) With a turn of the page, buttery yellow Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion entered my life changing it for the better. Since then, I've tried all sorts of creams and for what -- to keep me looking young, of course.

Young is not a damning word.

In my harmless pursuit of the trappings of youth, I've spent a small fortune whoring around Sephora, Saks, Bergdorf's, Harrod's, in search of the right cream for the right age. Still, mirrors can be cruel. It's no wonder that in beautiful places, lamps are kept low.

So here I am. An extra daub here, an extra daub there keeping me a half block away from looking old. A harmless pleasure, actually. One that I highly recommend!