Sitting in the waiting area of my dentist’s office, I reached for Time magazine with the cover image of an aeroplane and the title “Fear of Flying.”
Right beside it was Redbook with a smiling Julia-Louis Dreyfus looking “hotter at 49 than 29.” What caught my attention was this message shouting out in bold all-caps: “Is your face older than you are?”
Under routine circumstances, I would have glanced, smirked, shook my head, and carried on with reading an in-depth analysis of the missed signs of terrorism on flight 253, but this headline was distinctly odd.
It had, attached to it in a slightly smaller font, a page number!
I’ve scanned through covers of similar magazines while waiting for my turn at the grocery store register and don’t remember having seen page numbers associated with catchy headlines. I figured the publishers were trying to pull in readers and making them at least flip through the whole magazine before they got to the one piece that lured them in. But this was different. They were making it easy for their target audience to cut to the chase. Hmm.
Intrigued, I swapped magazines and immediately flipped to page 49. What I saw was a slew of product placements.
Let me correct that: a slew of very expensive products. Aah! That explained the bait.
Products that would boost your eyelashes, plump your cheeks and lips, give you voluminous hair, make your large pores go away … products that promised a feel-good makeover … products that reminded you of how old you really were.
As if that is a bad thing!
The ensuing conversation with my oral hygienist was rather enlightening. All I did was mention the feature in the magazine and say, “I find it rather odd the amount of time and money women are supposed to spend looking good …”
And this followed.
“I spend half an hour cleansing and moisturizing my skin, clipping and polishing nails, massaging oil into my scalp … making sure I take as complete care as I can of my body before going to bed every night. I fight the signs of aging … at least I try,” she shared. “My husband on the other hand, changes into his pajamas and plops right under the covers.”
I couldn’t speak much with her fiddling around in my mouth except utter a couple “umm hmms.”
As she dug into my gum line, she wondered aloud, “Why do women get old and men get dignified?”
I smiled faintly.
“Maybe I should just go to bed after brushing my teeth like my husband does,” she declared. “Maybe it shouldn’t matter to me that my hair’s turning gray and my skin is sagging.”
She was on a roll. She reminisced about her grandmother going “naturally white,” while her mom and her generation try to cover up the grays with streaks and highlights. She talked 
about the business of marketing to women’s vanities. “Men are vain, too, but not to this extent,” she opined.
Men usually don’t care as much about appearances — the ones who pluck their eyebrows, get facials, and expensive haircuts are mocked (or — as some right-wing generalists would call them — gay), but women, no matter which culture they come from, strive doggedly to be well-groomed.
As my dental hygienist said, “Men are supposed to be intelligent. Women should just stay pretty.”
We scoffed in unison.
What was left unsaid is probably what will stay with her.
It certainly struck a chord with me.
Nice thought Mansi but as a man I’ll stay out of this argument =D I do become ill with all the expensive products everywhere that will fix everything & the fact that people look to Celebs for what they should look like when Celebs don’t even look the way they do in a magazine picture.
Ok I’ll stop now. =D
Hugs,
Bill
People don’t realize that, Bill — Photoshop does wonders. It’s inner beauty one should seek, gender aside. The skin is but a cloak. It’s what’s inside that matters.
One can be caring enough to be presentable… maintain the basic hygenic things… and grow old with grace
the craze to look younger only does damage… nice post on very interesting topic 
Thanks, Rajlakshmi. It drives me crazy how much attention we pay to the body without paying much to the development of the mind and spirit.
Hey Mansi,
Thanks a lot for sharing your conversation with your oral hygienist. She said it all, in very clear terms.
She said: “I spend half an hour cleansing and moisturizing my skin, clipping and polishing nails, massaging oil into my scalp … making sure I take as complete care as I can of my body before going to bed every night. I fight the signs of aging … at least I try, …. My husband on the other hand, changes into his pajamas and plops right under the covers.”
I think: Women should be appreciated for their efforts here at the same time men should be deprecated for their lack of effort. There are some who do keep themselves fit and groomed but they are part of a very small minority. However, women, in general, do need to reduce their worries about aging a bit. And in any case, men, in general, need to increase their concerns about looking up-to-date a lot (at least to match their woman’s efforts).
She wondered: “Why do women get old and men get dignified?”
I think: Because this world of ours, and its notions, are mostly defined by “man”-kind. It is extremely difficult for man to think like a woman. Both men and women get old with time, but since men wrote the social norms, they very cleverly choose the term “dignified” for themselves in place of “old”.
She wished: “Maybe I should just go to bed after brushing my teeth like my husband does, …Maybe it shouldn’t matter to me that my hair’s turning gray and my skin is sagging.”
I think: There is no point in spoiling your good habits just because men are careless. Instead try to help them and educate them with importance of keeping themselves well groomed. And do not worry about aging, we all age and die one day. But that day is not today
Amen!
[...] As long as my teeth function the way they’re supposed to, who cares about the superfluous cosmetic stuff? [...]