Beauty Talk

 

At a picnic table with four other women, all in the third act of life, the conversation turned to beauty routines and aging. One of the women had never coloured her hair, or even blow-dried or flat-ironed it. She had a full head of luscious dark hair, streaked with grey and silver. 

Another woman talked about her minimal beauty routines, which included hair colouring but not eyeliner. Lipstick was her indulgence.

A third spoke about years of painting her fingernails for a polished look, but now her nails were thin and brittle. And what should she do about that?

You might think this was a frivolous conversation, older women bemoaning their lost youthful looks, searching for remedies. It was not. (We had already spoken about second careers after retirement, raising sons to be sensitive men, diversity and inclusion).

What we were talking about, each in our own way, was how the way we had been raised informed our perceptions of our bodies. It had influenced how we tended to them. Our mothers’ beauty routines had seeped into our own. Being told as a child either, ‘what a pretty, little girl’, or, hearing that being said to the girl beside you but not to you, had affected our images of ourselves. Over the years, we had understood that and emerged from those moulds into which we had been cast.

The woman with the dark, luscious hair? She had grown up being made to feel she was not a pretty child. Now she knew she was beautiful. Me? I had had my cheeks pinched, adults exclaiming how pretty I was. Either way, we had both resented those intrusive childhood proclamations or non-proclamations about our appearances.

Adults said some mighty stupid things to kids, didn’t they? Do they, still?  We can claim ignorance back then. They didn’t know better. But we do today. And yet, still, so much pressure on women, young and old, to tie in their self-worth to their body image. I applaud those young women of today who will not and do not accept that.

Is it too late for the older generation to let go of those old prejudices and stereotypical way of thinking? I think not.

There is no shame in wanting to look and feel beautiful. It’s the ‘feel’ part that’s worth exploring.

What does it mean to you, to me, to ‘feel’ beautiful, in our own eyes? Not someone else’s eyes, but ours. To not be concerned about seeking validation from others.

In a way, aging frees us to abandon the ‘shoulds’ and allows us to wear/do/be whatever we want. Want to colour your hair? Go for it! Fancy going grey? Yes, that looks great! Wear eyeliner or don’t, put on that bright crimson lipstick if it makes you happy. And yes, wear that flamboyant orange, strappy sundress! Go wild. Why not?

We can talk in clichés about beauty only being skin deep, and age being just a number. But how do we live outside those clichés?

Perhaps we can begin by not dragging those old stereotypical ways of thinking behind us, like a string of cans, clanking and clamouring with empty noise. We can begin by not judging other women for their fashion and beauty choices. We can focus on being true to what makes us feel most comfortable in our own skins; what makes us feel beautiful inside. All this, all of our lived experiences, persistence, creativity, resilience, and true sense of self, shows up on the outside.

It looks good on you.

 

"She wins who calls herself beautiful and challenges the world to change to truly see her"
-- Naomi Wolf

 “…the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious--or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.”

--  Naomi Wolf