Kimberly Emerson

It’s official.  The beauty industry is weird.

I recently saw an advertisement online telling me how I could have younger, sexier hair.  HAIR.  I understand that some women feel self conscious about their hair going gray, and dye it back to its natural color.  That’s a choice they make, and it’s fine.  Everyone deserves to feel good about themselves.  (Though I have it on the best of authority that there actually are some guys out there who think gray hair is sexy, so make sure you’re really doing it for yourself.)

But the pictures involved didn’t show someone dyeing hair.  No, the demonstration was a snappy little graphic showing someone’s hair poofing out when this miracle elixir was applied to it.  Which struck me as kind of funny, since I know people who a lot of spend hours and good money trying to get their hair to be less poofy.   I don’t, but then again, I have straight hair.  (Straight-ish.)  Oh, and I had straight (ish) hair even when I was a child, so making it younger really isn’t going to help.  Or else, if the super-shampoo or whatever it is really can make my hair poofy (which I’m not sure I want anyway), it won’t be making it younger, it will just be making it fuller.

But “younger” is an amazing buzzword.  It has a supernatural power that makes normally sensible people lose all reason.  We will pay any amount and endure any pain to lose the proof of our years.  At (almost) 40, I’m supposed to be strongly considering botox to get rid of my crow’s feet, and it’s probably past time to start collagen injections in my lips.  I should wear bermuda shorts exclusively, to hide the incipient cellulite on the back of my thighs.  And it won’t be too many years before I should look into surgical measures to change all of the above, because by 50, the quick fixes are no longer sufficient.

Hey, I understand.  I want to look good as much as the next person.  Okay, maybe that depends on who I’m standing next to, because I will go out of the house without makeup.  I have been known to go months between haircuts and years between facials, and I’ve had a fair part of my wardrobe since the 1990s.  But still.  I spend good money on facial soap and moisturizer that make my skin feel good.  I stick mostly to colors that bring a little life to my pale complexion.  I like what three-inch heels do for my legs enough occasionally to overcome the fact that they make me tower over almost everyone.

But shouldn’t there be a line, somewhere?  I don’t look twenty anymore, it’s true, and the odds are good I never will again.  But is that such a bad thing, really?  I was twenty once, and I lived to talk about it with other survivors.  Even if I could find the genie to grant me three wishes, I wouldn’t go back.  My twenties were not an endless parade of happiness the first time around, and I have no desire to experience them again.  I learned a lot, knowledge I still use, that makes my life better and fuller today than it was then.  But I no longer have to endure the specific pains that brought me that knowledge.  New pains, yes, but better resources to deal with them, too.  That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

So no, I will not be ordering the product that will be the Fountain of Youth for hair.  Neither will I be purchasing anything promising firmer, more luscious earlobes or the alluring nostrils of a seventeen-year-old or whatever it is that comes down the pike next.

Perhaps I’m looking at this all the wrong way around.  Maybe these ads are not meant to make people over 25 feel bad – maybe they’re there to make people under the quarter-century mark feel good.  Maybe this is all a huge ploy to make teenagers dealing with acne and cafeteria food  and college students who owe their souls to student loan companies feel like we envy them.

If so, well…bravo, Madison Avenue.  I never thought I’d say this, but you are brilliant.