the problem with pretty

It is possible to love our laugh lines. If we could bottle our sense of humor and sell it to other women who are ashamed of how they look we’d be billionaires. Indeed employing a sense of humor is what got me as far as I have in life jumping over the hurdles I faced.

We have to laugh, or we’re not going to survive whatever hell and heartache is in our lives. And on the topic of pretty I would like to give a spoonful of humor to help the medicine go down.

That is: If astrology is to be believed I’ve kept up a youthful appearance because the sign Gemini appears in my horoscope. Whatever. Could that really be why I look 15 years younger than I am–61 today?

The picture above was taken with an iPhone in May. I think an iPhone camera makes everyone look good in photos.

Ordinarily like in the photo above I don’t wear foundation and blush anymore. Just eyeliner or mascara and lipstick. I won’t leave the house without swiping on lipstick.

The author of The Problem with Pretty stated that the average women uses 10 to 12 products per day to get ready to go out into the world. Like deodorant, cleansers, shampoo, and setting spray, etc.

In reality I do nothing to my face except use micellar water to take off the eyeliner. On the advice of Jessica Cruel the editor-in-chief of the online Allure beauty magazine I bought the Glow Recipe ceramide cleanser. Sometimes I use the cleanser. Other times I do not.

You and I will wake up when real life intervenes with our normal routine. Acting as the caregiver for a mother who is 88 will change your perception of the need to go under the knife to scalpel yourself seductive to men.

An 88-year old woman who has wrinkles like rivers and mottled purple skin isn’t going to show up like 70-year old Maye Musk in a magazine advertisement for makeup like Cover Girl or was it Maybelline.

The fact that a double-8s octogenarian is still kicking and alive shows that longevity counts more than using potions and lotions to remain youthful. The Grim Reaper won’t be fooled by our youthful appearance when he comes to get us on our last day.

For three years on my birthday I treated myself to a Sephora makeover. Of course I looked gorgeous after the makeup artist powdered and puffed me. Whatever to this too. Soon after I didn’t have the energy and couldn’t muster the desire to put on a full face of makeup like in the After photo she took.

Reading The Problem with Pretty was enough to get me to shore up my feeling that I don’t care to impress other people with how I look. Not when idiot men in the patriarchy are pulling women’s purse strings in capitalist America to get us to toe the line and eyeliner to conform to their definition of pretty.

Sez who that you and I are nothing unless others like and approve of us?

Feeling ashamed of our bodies or anything else about ourselves and feeling unworthy is all too common. The author exposes that often it’s us women judging each other.

In a coming blog entry I might write about and explore the topic of the intergenerational shame you and I can feel that we inherited from our mothers.

Smile! You want to look real pretty smile! Smiling is an instant face and mood lift. You’ll look better and feel better smiling than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars a cosmetic procedure.

The new June book The Problem with Pretty I checked out of the library.

The author has a PhD in Health Psychology with a focus on perception. In the nonfiction guide she rightly asserted that it’s often white men in control in the patriarchy who judge you and me as either pretty or ugly.

It’s far better to engage in self-adoration at our own hands and hearts. Instead of waiting for or wanting others to stamp us as beautiful.

Th real curiosity is that I didn’t ever think about my body except when I weighed 138 pounds and wanted to lose weight. I lost about 20 pounds over the decades. Today I’m OK with the number on the scale.

What interests me more is having the “functional fitness” to carry home a 25-pound tote bag of groceries or a tote bag full of gifts from a local boutique.

The curious reality is that I didn’t think about whether I was pretty–either in my eyes or in other people’s eyes at all when I was younger. It wasn’t until I turned 50 that I looked in the mirror and realized I was photogenic.

Yet even I face with my pretty face ghosting on OKCupid and scammers on Plenty of Fish.

Only being thin and pretty ironically guarantees that sleazy men will come after you. As well when you’re thin and pretty and INTELLIGENT men aren’t interested in you. They want you to open your mouth to kiss not speak.

As it stands, I’m not proud of how I look. It’s an accident of genes at birth. Nothing I fought for and won.

Those of us whose mother is 88 and still alive and kicking. When she has wrinkles like rivers and purple mottled skin. Should not care about our looks but our longevity.

What good is the plastic surgery if we’re not eating well and breaking a sweat? The Grim Reaper when they come looking for us is not going to be fooled by a pretty face into thinking it’s not our time to enter the pearly gates.

The author asserts that women who have a connection to their ethnicity and take pride in their heritage are immune from internalizing the pervasive beauty shame that all too often plagues us.

Buy The Problem with Pretty or check it out of the library. It was published this month in June and has two 5-star reviews on Amazon already.