At 62, This Is About as Much Effort as I’m Prepared to Make
At 62, This Is About as Much Effort as I’m Prepared to Make
I can shower, do my hair, put my face on and be ready for the day in about 30 minutes.
That’s not because I’ve perfected some elaborate routine. It’s because I can’t stand fannying about in front of a mirror.
I like feeling put together. I just don’t enjoy the putting element.
At 62, I’ve reached a comfortable arrangement with my face and body. They’re ageing. Obviously. There are wrinkles, bags under my eyes, bits that have moved south and other bits that have quietly vanished altogether.
My eyebrows, for example.
But I’m not trying to look 38. I don’t want a seventeen-step skincare routine. I don’t contour anything. I don’t even own concealer.
This horrifies my 12-year-old granddaughter.
“Nanny, you need some concealer under your eyes.”
Apparently, I’d also benefit from lip gloss and generally more make-up. This advice has, on occasion, been linked to my prospects of “getting a man”.
I don’t want a man. I’ve tried a few. Maybe more than a few. No thanks.
That rather undermines the business case for concealer.
My dog doesn’t care what I look like either. So the two most important parties have spoken: me and the bitch I live with.
What I want is to look like myself. Awake would be nice. Fairly pulled together. Comfortable.
Then I want to forget about it and get on with my day.
The front-facing bits
Ageing hasn’t stopped me caring how I look. It’s just made me far more selective about how long I’ll spend on it.
My eyebrows need help because, like many women of my generation, I plucked the living shit out of them decades ago. They have never forgiven me.
I’ve had microblading. I’ve had powder brows. They’ve faded, so now I use a little forked pen to add fine, hair-like strokes.
It takes seconds.
I’m very fair. Without eyebrows I look vaguely unfinished. Possibly recently deceased.
Also, as I’ve established elsewhere, my eyebrows do a lot of talking. They’re less beauty feature, more communications infrastructure.
My lashes have thinned too. Age, years of eye drops, or another part of my face deciding it can no longer be arsed. I don’t know.
So I cheat. Just a little.
I use Wonderskin eyeliner, but not as eyeliner. I work it into the roots of my lashes, filling the pale gaps. Then mascara.
You don’t see the eyeliner. You just see a fuller lash line.
That’s my kind of beauty trick. Thirty seconds. Minimal skill. Worth doing.
Which is my rule for all of it now:
Does it work? Is it quick? Does it make enough difference to justify the faff?
If the answer to the last one is no, I’m not doing it.
Then there’s the underlying engineering
Being comfortable in your own skin is one thing.
Being comfortable in your underwear is another.
There’s a lot to be said for big knickers.
They’re comfortable. They stay where they’re put. They don’t spend the day trying to vanish into parts of your anatomy where no garment has any business being.
Sexy?
I don’t care.
And before my granddaughter suggests this is another obstacle to “getting a man”, we’ve established that isn’t on the shopping list.
Bras were harder.
I spent most of my adult life assuming that tearing your bra off the second you got home was just part of being a woman.
Then, about eight years ago, I found Conturve.
Where the fuck were they for the previous several decades?
They’re properly comfortable. They don’t move. The straps don’t slip. They support like a wired bra without the fucking jabby wires. I can wear one all day without spending the last few hours fantasising about getting it off.
Once I’d found them, I stopped looking.
Problem solved. Search terminated.
That’s another thing I’ve lost interest in: hunting for a supposedly better version of something that already works.
If I’ve found the bra, the eyebrow pen, the eyeliner, the moisturiser, the whatever-it-is that does the job without annoying me, it stays.
I don’t need twelve alternatives.
Comfortable doesn’t mean giving up
We’re often presented with two versions of ageing.
Either we fight it, buying anything that promises to lift, tighten, erase and reverse every sign we’ve lived past 40.
Or we announce that we’ve embraced ageing, liberated ourselves from vanity and no longer give a shit what we look like.
I’m not interested in either.
I’m comfortable with ageing.
I’m also quite happy to reinstate my eyebrows daily.
Those things aren’t contradictory.
Being comfortable in your own skin doesn’t mean you stop making an effort. It means the effort is for you.
I don’t need to cover every wrinkle or pretend the bags under my eyes aren’t there.
They’re there.
So is the rest of my 62-year-old face.
I quite like it.
I just like it with eyebrows.
Things have to earn their place
Maybe that’s what’s changed most.
I’m less interested in transformation. I’m more interested in things that quietly do their job.
The bra I don’t want to rip off.
The knickers that stay in their allocated postcode.
The eyebrow pen that restores my face to the living.
The eyeliner trick that makes my sparse lashes look like they’ve turned up for work.
None of it is revolutionary.
That’s the point.
I don’t want beauty, clothes or underwear to become hobbies unless I choose to make them hobbies. I want them to work.
I want to feel comfortable, look like myself and forget about it.
Which is why I’m ruthless about what earns a place in my bathroom, wardrobe or drawers.
Useful stays.
Comfortable stays.
Anything that makes life a little easier, stays.
Everything else can fuck off.
At 62, this is about as much effort as I’m prepared to make.
Conveniently, it appears to be enough.
*A note on recommendations: I bought and use the products mentioned here myself. This isn’t sponsored content.