Tag Archives: cellulite

Fountainhead of Youth

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The other day, I was sitting at a bar and chatting with a friend, when the subject turned to cosmetic procedures. I realized I had had a similar conversation with another friend a few weeks before. And another with a third friend a couple of months before that. The common theme in the discussions? Cosmetic enhancements: everyone does them. And despite this repetitive conclusion, I sat shell-shocked on my bar stool.

I’m not entirely sure why, since my current YouTube obsession is an anti-cellulite massage video (please reference the “Step by Step” post). My Friday night guilty pleasure consists of smearing Vaseline all over my face (right after using it on the wood furniture). I also just fulfilled a dream of shopping for snail essence masks at the Seoul airport. I get our obsession with physical appearance.

Yet, I was dumbstruck by the fact that regular people, walking my streets, drinking Trader Joe’s wine and buying Gap turtlenecks were elevating the beauty game to a whole new level. We’re not talking about reality stars or ex-heads of state.   We are talking about the chick with the baseball cap and fleece vest, halfway through her pint of Miller Lite, at the corner Irish dive bar.

And then there’s that: a quest for youth isn’t reserved for those over sixty, or even thirty.   It’s now actually for the youth. Ah, what bright eyes she has, you wax nostalgically over a young lass walking by. Go ahead and sing your praises, but direct them to the professional aesthetician that skillfully glues custom-sized fake lashes onto tiny human eyelashes. Repeat monthly.

Debating Botox and wondering about that whole “losing your expressiveness” chatter? Don’t – for all your friends, strangers, and children’s babysitters have already injected themselves. No one else is cogitating about it, and yes, you can still tell when they are mad at you.

Since my adolescence, I have occasionally felt guilty about my frivolous interest in clear skin, and shiny hair that smelled like roses. But now I suddenly feel like an out-of-date Victorian forced into modern times. I can often relate to the Victorians, but that’s an entirely different subject.

Should I have pumped collagen into my jaw line at nineteen, instead of buying one ugly pair of Doc Martens after another? Why oh why did I ever frown at the blackboard during the mystery that was Microeconomics? I should have feigned comprehension, and then immediately asked a pre-med student to transplant ankle fat onto my forehead. And peptides – why am I still not sure what they are, when all the ten year-olds on my block are massaging them into their necks?

I know rationally it’s not a race to keep up; but if it were, the reality is that I am barely at the starting point. I will never meet the requirements for ultimate cosmetic maintenance. It might be because my recent conversation with a Buddhist monk excited me as much as finding French brands at the Walgreens’ beauty counter. It could also be because I believe dog slobber is a highly effective antioxidant.  Clinical results to come.

Step by step

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Me: “Do you want to pick up the takeout now, or shall we do it in an hour?”

My mother: “Why do you have zits on your face?”

And that, my friends, is how you silence an adult.

I was as mortified as any fourteen year-old.  I could have delivered a million excuses: changing seasons; PMS or early menopause; E. coli-infested chocolate; the dog licked my face.  But silence seemed a more dignified response.

I suspected I would rush home after dinner and desperately pound the keyboard Googling “good skin gone bad.”  But in my newfound quest to embrace acceptance and its colleagues (non-judgment, self-love, positive thoughts, et al.), I let it go.  Instead of focusing on selfish, superficial worries that would hopefully vanish in a few weeks, I would concentrate on solving bigger problems – afflictions that had plagued generations of women and many men, at a global level without discrimination. Afflictions like cellulite.

I did my research, and a few days later, a French company’s brainchild arrived at my door.  When in doubt, always go French.  There is zero probability they will prescribe heavy exercise or fat-free living.  I unraveled the instructions with excitement.  One may think there isn’t much to learn about applying creams.  But which finger should you use?  Is it a circular motion, or more oval?  Tapping or light massage?  Clock-wise?  I don’t like to chance it.

The instructions came in six language versions, two of them Asian ones.  This was an excellent sign.  If the ladies of Tokyo and Beijing were buying this up, it had to deliver.

There were eight illustrations of a lovely naked woman with her hair in a perfect ballerina bun.  First, sit on the floor, back straight up against a wall, with legs outstretched – easily done.  And then I stopped understanding. For in the next picture, the young woman appeared to be going into labor, as she sat with knees bent, pushing apart her thighs with her hands.  And there were arrows shooting up the sides of her legs.  And, wait, was she now lying on the floor shoving her pelvis up into the air?  Rosemary’s cellulite baby.

The written portion offered little help, with its multi-step approach (phase 2, part 1, zone 3), and incremental stretches for those “accustomed to exercise.”  I tried to muddle through the other language versions, but all were as clear as mud. I felt dejected as I set the instructions down.  I would never complete the “natural draining process,” or have “refined buttocks.”

Alone and scared, I tried to find some glimmer of hope.  I sat on the bed and opened up a blank page on my laptop; I typed the number 1.  I find lists to be very comforting.  And slowly the letters flowed from my fingers onto the screen: 1. Fine greasy hair 2. Callouses and/or corns 3. Ashy knees.

There were many more global maladies out there for me to solve.