What’s wrong with Skin deep? What do people want, a pretty pancreas? A lovely liver? One of the joys of getting older is that looks cease to matter that much. Anyone can keep up their standards if they want to, but they do it for themselves (or for their career if they are in the public eye) and not for other people, because however wonderful you look at ninety when you are dolled up to the nines, you are never going have the beautiful skin and clear eyes of a twenty something. We used to be told that anything was all right as long as we didn’t frighten the horses and I have to say that one does see elderly women whose liberal use of the frosted blue eye shadow that was very attractive all those years ago but not so much now as it collects in the folds of the ancient eyelid, who might well cause a stampede. As we get older Less is indeed More!
When I look at photographs of myself in my twenties I can’t believe it – I thought I was fat and plain – and whilst I wasn’t exactly Jean Shrimpton (if you don’t know who she was – you are too young to be reading this!) I really didn’t look bad. What was lacking then was confidence. As you reach middle age you become pretty much invisible and paradoxically that can fill you with confidence. If no one notices you it doesn’t matter much what you do! And do not despair as you leave middle age behind and become older you become almost historic. You are living history to your grandchildren who ask you about riding a penny farthing and living with dinosaurs – and not entirely in jest. You become a character – if you are lucky – you can be rude to people and are often forgiven. A grumpy old woman indeed.
But there is no doubt that make up is a wonderful thing – we’ve all seen the before and after photographs of people who are literally transformed by cosmetics (and let’s face it probably some computer wizardry). However, we all need to beware, as we get older, of putting too much slap on our faces. It is only too easy to look like a drag queen – and that is great if that is the look you are after, but it seems a bit out of place in the middle of the countryside. When asked to a party I try to apply some sort of coverage – Tik Tok is full of make up videos and it all looks so easy – they have ‘old’ people doing it too – people who claim to be 70 + and look more like 40. I suspect that they have spent a lifetime of looking after their skin rather than mostly forgetting about it! In any case I can never achieve anything like the videos! However, old age has its own attraction – I remember seeing a very old and distinguished actress in a Chelsea restaurant many years ago – she didn’t appear to have any make up on and she looked amazing – plenty of lines but each one denoted her character. She looked as though she was having fun with her grandchildren. She was in her late eighties and was still making the most of her life. All the creams and potions in the world can’t give you that. And I’m sure botox is amazing but being able to frown and smile is better. We’ve all seen actresses whose faces are completely frozen unable to move a muscle when their screen character is told that their screen lover has been killed – ‘Oh no,’ they cry as a glycerine tear rolls down their perfectly smooth and expressionless face. Sometimes actors who are supposed to be their children looked older than they do! I can think of a few examples but wouldn’t dare name them for fear of a libel action.
And looks can be very deceiving. When I was young there was a local girl who was incredibly glamourous but she was also very irritating, she reminded me of a character by PG Wodehouse where the wonderful Bertie Wooster (if you are not a PG Wodehouse fan you can skip the next bit!) said of Madeline Bassett ‘She holds the view that the stars are God’s daisy chain, thatrabbits are gnomes in attendance on the Fairy Queen, and that every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born…” and in modern parlance that would be enough to give most men the ick. That was this girl and it used to give me a perverse pleasure if some man asked to be introduced to her (those were they days!) and then you would see him desperately seeking a means of escape as she asked him if he believed in fairies?
And as I always digress but I would like to know when it the word ‘unalived’ started to be used in place of ‘dead’? Apparently, it is a slang term used on social media as a replacement for the verb kill or other death-related terms, often in the context of suicide. Unalive is typically used as a way of circumventing social media platform rules that prohibit, remove, censor, or demonetize content that explicitly mentions killing or suicide. What? Unalive is not a word, it is clumsy and stupid. Are we such sensitive little flowers that we can’t hear the words dead, dying or suicide without fainting and yet everyday we are allowed, indeed forced, to hear about terrible atrocities in many different parts of the world. As for ‘trigger warnings’ – don’t get me started!!! If I try hard enough I might become a one woman trigger warning.
Has Anyone Seen My Glasses? 