Aging is History



Me in 1967



I realize the name of my blog is Wrinkles Don’t Hurt…Much, but today I did feel a little twinge of pain as I strolled up the beauty aisle of my local drug store (yes, drug store…no over-priced designer names for me…anymore) to purchase my Neutrogena Wrinkle Serum…not a crème, mind you…a serum.  

According to the built-in dictionary in Word on my computer (too lazy to roll my computer chair across the room to look up “serum” in old-man-Noah’s dictionary), “serum” is the liquid part of the blood (similar to plasma without the clotting agents), or 2; a clear watery body fluid).  Hummm.  If I am paying $19.99 for a bottle of this “serum” and sticking it on my face, it’d better work.

But in the scheme of things, $19.99 for a fraction of an ounce of “liquid gold” is a real deal.  What bothered me, though, was that in the beauty aisle, all the Olay skin-care products were housed in a small plexi-glass-type “safe”, right there on the shelf, only to be open by a clerk with the key.   It was then that I thought how much things have changed.

As a young teen I would spend a whole afternoon at Woolworth’s or Kresge’s with my friends browsing through the cosmetics and having so much fun laughing as we sampled the beauty products.  In the 60s, products weren’t wrapped into hard plastic containers that required a pair of pliers, a mini-saw, and Edward Scissorhands to open.    

My friends and I would stock up on “Hide-It” crème.  Hide-It came in a small shallow round container that was no bigger than a small eye-shadow case.  It was actually a blemish crème, but we’d wear that white salve smeared thickly on our lips forcing the color of our mouths to blend effortlessly into our pale skin.  Then we’d paint our eyes the darkest of black. 

It was cool then.  I suppose as cool (or as "Sweet" "Rad" "Boss" "Bomb" "Phat" or whatever is "IN" now) as the variety of strange nail polish hues and hair dyes of today.  Every generation needs their own fashion statements...and crèmes and lotions, and serums.