The Beauty Boomer Manifesto

Hello, invisible internet friends!

I have a confession to make. I'm older than you are.

I'm 53, and at 53, I have to work twice as hard and spend twice the money and time to look half as good as I did when I was 27. Well, I have two options; I can continue to fight the good fight, or I can give up.

I plan to keep fighting.

I plan to keep fighting because I feel better about myself when I do. I plan to keep fighting because it makes my husband and children feel better about me. Most important, I plan to keep fighting because it shows the world that I'm still in the game. My glory days are not over; they're just beginning.

Like it or not, people judge you by your looks--and they do it all the time.

One of the things they judge is your age. Another is your perceived level of hipness.

Here's the deal: age and hipness do not have to co-relate. Perceived age is the combination of the impression made by your size, silhouette, complexion, coloring, grooming, clothes, accessories, and makeup. Some of these things can be easily fixed. Others you have to live with. But hipness? Looking in the know? Can easily be tweaked. And that makes you come across as younger.

It takes work. You have to leave your comfort zone. Because let's face it; your comfort zone is frumpy. It's the same hair style for 20 years. It's the overcoat you bought in 1995 that still has plenty of wear in it. It's glasses from 2004.

And frumpiness sneaks up on you. Like age, a lack of hipness doesn't happen overnight. You get busy with other things, and you gradually lose touch. You look up and the 90s--the decade you were hoping to catch up on because babies and graduate school made you miss most of them--are already being revived.

Now, I may be a recovering frump, but at least I've developed some taste and discrimination over the years. Forty years of reading fashion magazines tends to have that effect. In this blog, I'm planning on sharing what I've learned.

I also want to find out what you've learned. What has worked; what hasn't. Some of you posted comments back when I first starting moving in this direction. I've got several posts in draft that are dealing with these issues, so please keep the comments coming!

Elsewhere:

Poppy at BlogHer BeautyHacks:

Shimmery Makeup: Not Just for Teens

Nail Polish Trends for Spring, 2010

Upcoming:

I. The Five Cs of keeping your look fresh:

1. Cull
2. Coordinate
3. Cost -- How to prioritize
   
4. Change
5. Compromise -- When a fashion from your past is resurrected
   

II. 30/10--a month-long series of posts--10 minutes to looking younger.

1. Find a MLBB lippie
2. Update your eyebrows
3. Establish a beauty triage
4. Curl your lashes
5. Perk up the girls
6. Exfoliate
7. Rethink your jewelry
8. Make friends with concealer
9. Loop on a scarf
10. Lighten up, Francis
11. Make new friends
12. But keep the old
13. Wear a camisole
14. Wear blusher
15. Bump up your nails
16. Rethink your hair products
17. Be a brownie
18. Grow
19. Be true to yourself
20. Think like a decorator
21. Back away from black
22. Blot, don't powder
23. Find a younger mentor
24. Be all wet
25. Break some rules
26. Bags are the new shoes
27. The legs are the last to go
28. Move on
29. Use your rear-view mirror
30. Play

Blog365 Fail and other updates

• On Monday evening, I returned from my second out-of-town jaunt in two weeks. This time it was a choir trip to NYC. (Frankly, I don't know how you road warriors do it. OMG the laundry alone is killing me.)

• I'm a Blog365 wash out. We had a group registration with the hotel, and the front desk was always so busy that I didn't register a credit card with the hotel until Sunday. This means I couldn't access the wireless until Sunday night.

• Also, we were incredibly busy. The kids and I sang services at the Church of the Heavenly Rest (5/90th) and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (113th and Amsterdam Avenue.)

• After rehearsal on Saturday, the four of us ate lunch at Centolire. Then my daughter and I got our nails done and shopped our way down Madison Avenue, with stops at Olive and Bette's and Betsey Johnson.

• That night we went out to dinner and then to Lincoln Center to see South Pacific. Which was fantastic.

• My daughter looks adorable in her new loot (black puffy satin skirt from Betsey Johnson; black Uggs from Olive and Bette's)

• I look far less adorable in my Betsey Johnson loot:



• Yet I'm wearing it even as I type.

• Makes you wonder how I have the nerve to dish out advice on beauty and style for baby boomers, doesn't it?

• But I'm going to, anyway. More of that anon.