I didn’t set out to become high-maintenance, really I didn’t. I was tripping along, clam-happy, unmanicured, and wash and go all through my twenties with nary a problem. Then I hit my thirties and the hair products, moisturizers, serums, scrubs, buffs, and anti-wrinkle creams hit the fan, or, more appropriately, my face. 

Granted, I’ve always been vain and completely silly about my hair.

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Next week is my birthday. I’m turning 39. This has been an especially hard year for me and my face is telling the story for me. A while ago, I wrote on my personal blog all about the horrors of my age and stress related skin issues. I received some advice and direction, and tried a product that was recommended. I was thrilled to find that company makes a whole line of products with my unique needs in mind.

I brought them home, used them and soon discovered that they cause these colossal subterranean zits, that look like tumors or colonies of incubating spiders. Then, once they reach the surface, they leave marks on my face so that I go around looking like Harry Whittington, after the accident. This, along with the reptilian scaly patches on my cheeks and the laugh lines and droopiness about my eyes and mouth, I was not heading towards my 39th year looking very pretty.

I knew that I could go spend a day in the cosmetic aisle of Target, memorizing the backs of product boxes, spending another gazillion dollars on soaps and lotions, creams and gels which may work, or may make me look a little worse. Or, I could suck in my pride and throw myself bare-faced on the Clinique counter at Macy’s and beg them for help, like I did when I was 25, pregnant with my son and breaking out like a teenager.

Oh, those Clinique ladies, in their authentic looking lab coats, with the sparkling bottles filled with greenish potions behind them. The opposite of, the light to the dark of, the above-ground-daytime-happy shimmering reflection of Snape’s Lab, which would be my next stop if this didn’t work. You know he’d have some serious zit cream. You just know it. But, if that turned out not to be a possibility (can’t afford a ticket to London, turns out you really DO have to have magic powers to board on Platform 9 3/4, Snape is dead, who knows), then I would make an appointment with a real medical professional for some prescription stuff. But, that is truly my last option. I think once you go the dermatology route, you’re sucked in for life. They’re like chiropractors that way, they create a dependency on their services.

The pseudo-science cosmetic ladies didn’t point and laugh at me, or run and get a bag to put on top of my head. They’re professionals, after all. They took me seriously and asked me with genuine hurt in their eyes, why-oh-why had I ever strayed from the trusty and reliable Clinique Three Step System? Cost and convenience, really was my reply. It’s easier and less expensive, in theory, to buy products at the drugstore.

I was seated, examined and treated to an array of sterile, odorless, noncomedogenic, whipped and moussy products that just about made me purr. There was one lotion that felt constricting and I didn’t like the coverage that the powder make-up offered, so I felt good about my decision to go this route, having vetoed two recommended items. That’s another benefit of going the department store route, trying before you buy.

I left with my scales gone, my cheeks feeling as smooth a baby’s ass, my eyes refreshed, my lips gleaming and my pocketbook considerably lighter. If I didn’t actually look younger, I felt that I did, and that’s worth just about anything. I also have their refund policy, they will return my money on any product and the only explanation I need to provide is that I don’t like it. Birdshot-wound zit scars would just add drama, if necessary.

I know that this is a topic that can be more controversial than abortion in some circles. There are people who feel way too passionately about drugstore vs. department store cosmetics, on both sides of the issue. I’m not naïve enough to believe that these costly remedies are any better than their cheaper counterparts. I’m not advertising for Clinique, because what works for me maybe would cause a peckishness for human souls in you. But, I do believe that there is a certain formula that works for each individual. Whether it was the active ingredients or the emulsifiers and perfumes, something about those other products did bad, bad things to my face. A face that couldn’t afford any new badness done to it. I could spend a zillion dollars trying many products to get to a cheap one that works for me, or I could spend a zillion dollars every once in a while on a products I know will work. My loyalty is sealed. I regret having ever been lured away from the ladies in the white coats and vow it will never happen again.

Happy Birthday to me, indeed!

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