Some Things Friday, But Not The Usual Kind

I'm about half way into a pitcher of iced tea that I made this morning. I started with a cup of coffee, but for some strange reason coffee just didn't do it for me, so I am swilling down amber Lipton juice...with lemon.

It's been a long, very hectic week. So much to do, so little time, as the saying goes.

I'm in a weird mood. I love Facebook, but it makes me a little melancholy. My family consistently posts stuff there and I love it. It makes me feel so much closer to them. The last couple of days I have been commenting back and forth with my grandson Jacob. I love that at nearly 17, he still wants to talk to his grandmother. Then this morning my son Mike posted this comment: "My farts smell like eggs" - Lily, 7-1/2 yrs old ~ "My farts smell like love" - Zoey, 6 yrs old. I could just hear my granddaughters saying those words and when I read those quotes I just laughed out loud. But it makes me sad that I live so far away from all of them. So that's the melancholy part ~ sort of bitter-sweet. The other part of my mood is that I'm thrilled that the weather has finally warmed up and I feel energized. I've been cleaning like a madwoman and I'm ready to throw out a LOT of crap that I've stacking in closets and piling in baskets. I have a very large laundry basket piled high and overflowing with ironing ~ yes, I still buy things that require ironing, so shut up ~ most of which I haven't ironed or worn in years...really....years. I'm going to cull that out this morning and give it to Goodwill.

Yesterday, after I finished cleaning our bathroom ~ every nook and cranny with a bleach cleaner ~ I went through some of my makeup because I rarely wear most of it anymore and pulled out all the the "gift with purchase" items that have accumulated over time. I'm an Estee Lauder gal. I've been using it since the 80's and, Lordy, I loves me some gift with purchase! So I wait to purchase my skincare stuff when they have a gift with purchase. Whoo Hoo! Of course, most of the freebies I receive sit in my cosmetic basket because they're shades of lipstick I wouldn't wear to a costume party and shades of eye shadow more suited for the likes of Brittney Spears or Lindsey Lohan than a 63-year-old chubby woman with slightly droopy eyelids.

But it's more than just the freebies that are overtaking my bathroom drawers and baskets. Over this last year, I decided that I would try out some different products, most that were maybe a little cheaper, for my skincare regimen, for what it's worth. My regimen is...I wash my face with body wash in the shower, get out of the shower and splash cold water on my face to "close the pores", apply one of two "wrinkle serums" and when that's dry, apply a moisture cream.

Because of my little venture into new beauty products, I now have a lot of those...moisture creams, that is. But I know a good moisturizer is important because every article in every newspaper or magazine says dermatologists always recommend using a "good" moisturizer. I read one article recently that recommended using moisturizers of different consistencies for different ages of skin. By the time they got to women in their 60's I think they were recommending something along the lines 40 weight motor oil.

But, back to my point. I've been trying other products. I started quite a few months ago with Olay-something-or-other. I used it once and gave the rest away.

I saw the commercials on TV and I bought Garnier Nutitioniste Anti-Wrinkle Night Cream. I used about 2/3rds of that jar and I still don't look like Sarah Jessica Parker, so what remains of the jar is sitting in the drawer in the bathroom. I think the problem with this product was that I didn't read the fine print. It says "gentle to skin." Fact is, I think I'm at the age where I need something brutal

Then I read about "Yes To Carrots" in some magazine that put it at the top of their "must have" list, so I bought a jar of their Eye Can C Clearly Now Eye Contour Cream and C Through The Night, Night Moisturizing Cream. They don't really work for shit on old-lady, dry skin, but they sure do smell good and, if nothing else, I'd use them for that fact alone.

My latest product purchase was from the Origins skincare line. I bought High Potency Night-A-Mins and I use it, go figure, at night. It's okay. It smells good, although not nearly as good as Yes To Carrots. But I look the same when I get up in the morning as I did the night before, except I have bed-face where I've been laying on my hand all night and a detailed outline of my nugget wedding ring is embedded into my cheek.

Thinking perhaps I needed a little more friction and not wanting to get as extreme as sand blasting, I decided to try Origins Modern Friction. I used it twice and, when I washed it off, the stuff got in my eyes and it burned so bad I had to rinse my eyes with water for at least 10 minutes to stop the stinging. I refuse to use it again.

My last venture into the Origins line was their new product Starting Over, Age Erasing Moisturizer with Mimosa. Now that's a name that will send dreamers to the edge. Does it really work? Well, let's just say that I do not have the skin of my youngest granddaughter. Did I really expect that? Well, they said "Starting Over"!! To be fair, I've only used about a quarter of the jar, but I don't plan on using the rest or buying any others. Besides, it smells like something my doctor would prescribe for some kind of skin ailment.

What I have discovered through this misguided adventure is that, first of all, nothing short of face lift scar tissue is going to significantly change the way I look and, baby, I'm not even goin' down that road. And second, I really only need three products. First, my Estee Lauder Re-Nutriv Cream, which is the consistency of gasket grease and the best moisturizer I've ever used since Estee Lauder discontinued Age Control Cream. Second, I will not give up my Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Recovery Complex serum. Anything called SERUM conjures up all sorts of medical miracles. How can that be a bad thing. Well, I don't know if it really does any good, but I've been using it for over 25 years and I'm not stopping. It's as simple as that. And finally, Future Perfect Anti-Wrinkle Radiance Cream. This cream has some sort of blue-ish stuff in it that reflects light or some such nonsense. I use it mostly under my eyes to help hide dark circles. It's probably only my imagination, but I think it works, if only just a little.

So, yes, after all that, I have a large basket full of crap I don't use and I am down to just those three products. I don't know what I expected. Maybe I thought one of those new, improved, miraculous products was going to magically peel away the years and reveal a whole new radiant, moisturized, unwrinkled face.  But, this morning, when I looked in the mirror, it was still the same old me staring back.