The Beauty Boomer Manifesto

Hello, invisible internet friends!

I have a confession to make. I'm older than you are.

I'm 53, and at 53, I have to work twice as hard and spend twice the money and time to look half as good as I did when I was 27. Well, I have two options; I can continue to fight the good fight, or I can give up.

I plan to keep fighting.

I plan to keep fighting because I feel better about myself when I do. I plan to keep fighting because it makes my husband and children feel better about me. Most important, I plan to keep fighting because it shows the world that I'm still in the game. My glory days are not over; they're just beginning.

Like it or not, people judge you by your looks--and they do it all the time.

One of the things they judge is your age. Another is your perceived level of hipness.

Here's the deal: age and hipness do not have to co-relate. Perceived age is the combination of the impression made by your size, silhouette, complexion, coloring, grooming, clothes, accessories, and makeup. Some of these things can be easily fixed. Others you have to live with. But hipness? Looking in the know? Can easily be tweaked. And that makes you come across as younger.

It takes work. You have to leave your comfort zone. Because let's face it; your comfort zone is frumpy. It's the same hair style for 20 years. It's the overcoat you bought in 1995 that still has plenty of wear in it. It's glasses from 2004.

And frumpiness sneaks up on you. Like age, a lack of hipness doesn't happen overnight. You get busy with other things, and you gradually lose touch. You look up and the 90s--the decade you were hoping to catch up on because babies and graduate school made you miss most of them--are already being revived.

Now, I may be a recovering frump, but at least I've developed some taste and discrimination over the years. Forty years of reading fashion magazines tends to have that effect. In this blog, I'm planning on sharing what I've learned.

I also want to find out what you've learned. What has worked; what hasn't. Some of you posted comments back when I first starting moving in this direction. I've got several posts in draft that are dealing with these issues, so please keep the comments coming!

Elsewhere:

Poppy at BlogHer BeautyHacks:

Shimmery Makeup: Not Just for Teens

Nail Polish Trends for Spring, 2010

Upcoming:

I. The Five Cs of keeping your look fresh:

1. Cull
2. Coordinate
3. Cost -- How to prioritize
4. Change
5. Compromise -- When a fashion from your past is resurrected

II. 30/10--a month-long series of posts--10 minutes to looking younger.

1. Find a MLBB lippie
2. Update your eyebrows
3. Establish a beauty triage
4. Curl your lashes
5. Perk up the girls
6. Exfoliate
7. Rethink your jewelry
8. Make friends with concealer
9. Loop on a scarf
10. Lighten up, Francis
11. Make new friends
12. But keep the old
13. Wear a camisole
14. Wear blusher
15. Bump up your nails
16. Rethink your hair products
17. Be a brownie
18. Grow
19. Be true to yourself
20. Think like a decorator
21. Back away from black
22. Blot, don't powder
23. Find a younger mentor
24. Be all wet
25. Break some rules
26. Bags are the new shoes
27. The legs are the last to go
28. Move on
29. Use your rear-view mirror
30. Play

Post 1,111: What my hair and a roll of toilet paper have in common

Give up?




I blogged about it on BlogHer's Beauty Hacks.

Here, there, and everywhere II

I started the day off by heading over to Mamarazzi to make fun of Paris Hilton. Yes, again. Because as I reminded you yesterday, we'll always have Paris.

Then I went to BlogHer to post my latest BeautyHacks entry--a scathing expose of this whole Holiday Beauty Blockbuster scam. This is Pulitzer Prize material, people. Not everyone is willing to take on Sephora and Ulta, not to mention Saks and Neiman Marcus. And yet, once more, I did the right thing, and advised my readers to leave the big suitcases full of makeup (squee!) on the first floor of the department store where they belong.

And now?

Now it's time for lunch.

You can tap into my fashion expertise--for free!

Did you know that I'm a fashion expert? Well, I am.

What do fashion experts do? Well, right now I'm listening to a bunch of guys drive a Bobcat up and down my driveway while they tear up asphalt.

And what do self-declared fashion experts wear to listen to their driveways being demolished?

Well, let's see: a pair of Target Merona bootcut jeans, a SnapShirts Opiate of the Masses word cloud t-shirt, and a black Target hoodie. Also a pair of strangely expensive Thierry Rabotin black kid ballet flats, thus giving the lie to the old adage that you can upgrade your look by pairing cheap clothes with expensive shoes.

Note to all the editors of every fashion magazine out there: it doesn't work.

Yes, there definitely seems to be a certain Tarjay-ishness to my ensemble this morning, which is a good thing, because it gives me street cred. You see, unlike Oprah, who has legions of shopping minions to find stuff for her, I'm doing this all by myself. And as you can see, I bring a certain amount of real-life, small town credibility to the task of ferreting out bargains at Target.

You see, here in Small Town America, we like to sit around the kitchen table and talk about what ridiculous new fads the fashion industry has produced this year, and how we won't stand for those gosh-darned Neiman Marcus prices, and how we can get equally faddy and ridiculous looking versions at Target, Old Navy, The Gap, and Hot Topic.

And when we're done, we blog about it at BlogHer. You betcha!

I want you to do me a favor.

If you are at all interested in drug store makeup, please head over to my latest BlogHer BeautyHacks post and leave a comment.

I know it's a lot to ask, but I slaved over that damned thing--finding the pictures and uploading them was a big fat pain--but it's been up since last night, and no one has commented yet.

And now I feel like Stella Dallas's daughter that time when she was supposed to be having a birthday party and none of the kids she invited showed up.


Poppy tries to comfort her little BlogHer post

This illustration is designed to make you feel really bad for even contemplating blowing this off. Also, I'm cross-posting this entry at What Not to Buy. This is the current incarnation of my moribund shopping blog, which bestirs itself every six months or so and tries to grab some attention, only to continue to be ignored. Kind of like John Kerry.

In fact, I think my shopping blog (which believe it or not, used to get more clicks than this one) is ready to have an affair to take some attention away from this blog. Which in case you didn't realize it, is the John Edwards of blogs.

Because see how utterly lacking in integrity I'm being? Shamelessly whoring myself out, expecting to get away with my self-promoting sleaziness because of my good hair and boyish grin? See? Exactly like John Edwards.

So anyway, please head over to BlogHer, and if it isn't too much of a pain, leave a comment explaining why mine is the single most insightful post on how to make the transition from late summer to fall makeup for $30 tops, including tax.

(Of course, this is assuming you already have foundation, mascara, an eyelash curler, a my-lips-but-better shade of lipstick or gloss and a second gloss in a darker shade. If you don't already have that, you are way behind, and you need to get cracking.)