I read today about another ‘look years younger’ serum (in this case five) that’s already sold out in America at an eye watering cost of £45 ($71). Although the dropper bottles hold 30ml, that’s not a lot for that amount of money.
It's from a company called Swisscode and the product is called Hyaluron and of course they're delighted that most beauty counters sold out in around forty-eight hours after the launch. In fact even it's pre-order sales topped ten thousand as women flock to see if this is really the 'fountain of youth'; after all, five years is still five years to a lot of women.
Will it work? I doubt it; they never do. The fact is we’re all growing old and when we do gravity helps bits of us to go south; it happens, it will continue to happen, so why are we so worried about it? I know people will tell me that movies/fashion has a lot to answer for on that score, but it’s not all down to them - we've been like this for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians had beauty products, and Roman women even underwent an early form of plastic surgery (God help them).
Take me, alright I’m already ugly, but even so I know I will never be seen out socialising with the likes of George Clooney or Gerard Butler. Alexander Skarsgård will never come banging on my door declaring his undying love for me, while the paparazzi snap away.
So, bearing all that in mind, why should I make myself ill worrying about whether I have a few wrinkles? Surely worrying about it will only make the problem worse anyway? I remember my paternal grandmother telling me more than once as a child that frowning would give me wrinkles.
However, I defend myself on that one as her Siamese cat, Ming, was the demon cat of hell and lashed out at anyone and everyone – the postman was more afraid of him than my grandparents dog. When you’re nursing a bleeding and bitten hand, ankle or shin you are going to frown, nothing's going to stop it.
We have to acknowledge that nothing short of botox or rigor mortis will stop us frowning, or smiling for that matter – unless you’re called Victoria Beckham of course, who appears to actually be allergic to smiling; that's the only reason I can think of for her to merely pout at everything. As a side note, I really think it's cruel that no one's told her that pouts look cute on a two year old, but not so much on a thirty-seven year old mother of four.
Back to the subject at hand though; why do so many women become determined to fight fate? Time is not our friend, we’ve known that for eons so why do we always act so surprised about it when we sprout grey hairs and gain a few wrinkles? I know I did - as if shocked that I, like everyone else, was getting old. It's not just grey hairs and lines either; other parts of our anatomy, female naturally, head rapidly towards our knees.
So why don’t we just accept the inevitable and move on? For instance: put Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, both naturally gorgeous women, next to Joan Rivers and Melanie Griffith and I can guarantee that the men wouldn’t pick the two Plastic addicts.
Besides I, personally, like a few laughter lines around the eyes, a few frown ones over the brow; it lets people know that we’ve been around the block, we’ve survived who knows what in our lives and come out the other side. Surely that’s more important than being like Nicole Kidman, Kylie Minogue and a slew of other celebrities who can never show any emotion because their facial features can’t move, and so they’re now going to go through life with a face like a mass produced android?
So what if we’re getting old and our faces, our bodies, show it? Most of us have had tough lives and so we should wear wrinkles, lines, sags and droops with pride; there’s no ‘quick fix’ for the passage of time and ravages of life – no miniature bottle of miracle fluid to wipe all that personal history away and make us look twenty one again.
Samantha might swoon, Carrie might curse, Miranda might moan and Christina might chastise – but the simple fact is, for some of us at least, aging isn’t something to fear; we welcome our lines as marks of our time here and what we've done with it. Indeed they show a life lived with laughter and tears; they show a life lived – and why, at the end of it all, would we want to deny that?
This is Simi, thanks for reading....
