Column: Something About Nothing

I am so confused about my face. Let me tell you what I know about my face. It is droopy. It is a road map of lines from teenage acne. It has wrinkles and occasionally it is dry. The final tidbit I know about my face is that I don’t want a facelift. Those lines and wrinkles are mine, and I like to be able to follow the roadmap on my face that tells the story of my life.

The reason I am confused about my face is that I do not know what to use to add a little sparkle and whatever else it is that makeup and moisturizer and all the other newfangled products that are out there are supposed to do.

I have a wonderful Avon lady and she can explain things about Avon products. When I look at the Avon book, I still get confused. There are so many choices.

I can choose from the Anew Anti-Aging regimens according to my age. There are the cleanser, day cream, night cream, eye and lip cream and serum. But if I turn the page I can choose from Anew Clinical for any age. To cover up the road map on my face I can choose from the Magic X face corrector, the ideal shade concealer stick and the age transforming foundation. I can’t decide if I should be corrected or transformed.

I then turned to my new Herberger’s brochure I received in the mail. Maybe the Clinique Even Better Dark Spot Corrector or the Dramatically Different moisturizing lotion will work for me. Perhaps I might want the Even Better makeup.

To add to my confusion I have been clipping coupons and I found coupons for Olay Regenerist Facial Moisturizer. Perhaps the Regenerist product line would be good for me. Maybe it will regenerate a different route on my face and point me to a different direction.

I have shopped the sections of the department stores and stood for hours gazing at the many products available. There are serums and tightening creams and eye lifters and skin peels. I get confused as what to use before and after and how many times a week.

Then there is no guarantee that after I spend big bucks on a product that I will like it. I never know when I whoosh on makeup if it is going to settle like sand in my lines on the road map of my face and make me look like I had been in a sandstorm.

I know there are dermatologists and skin doctors who can help me with this, but my pocketbook tells me that this not an option right now. I can go into any department store and have a makeover. I can order all these products from my wonderful Avon lady. They are all good options with good products.

Here is my dilemma. All these people have an agenda, and it is to buy their products. Of course, their products are the best. I mean that in the nicest way. These sales people should believe in their products if they are selling them. My dream is to find someone who can navigate the road map on my face and not have an agenda to sell me their product. I want to find what is best, looks good and is manageable for my skin with someone who would be honest enough to say. “This product is not for you.”

I have to tell you that I would love to try all of those products out there for myself. I love Avon, I love Clinique, and I love Olay and would try all of them if I could afford it.

Maybe I should be an old lady makeup tester. They have secret shoppers. What about secret old lady makeup testers?

I want to throw away trial and error and find the beauty in the best product that doesn’t make me take out a new mortgage on my house.

Life is difficult enough to navigate. Life has so many decisions and feeling overwhelmed about makeup and skin care shouldn’t be one of them. It actually shouldn’t even be a blip in the radar considering all the important happenings in the world. However, we live in world where plastic surgery and Botox parties make the news every day. We live in a world of ads that tell us because we don’t use the right products we are less than.

My confusion remains, and if I don’t find that non-agenda makeup person you can still find me gazing in the aisles of the makeup department. In the blip of life, it is OK with me if the road map of my face remains for all to see.

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net.