My Suggestion for Oprah's Aging Beauties

I watched Oprah's program on beauty and aging last night and was very interested in what Teri Hatcher, Cybill Shepherd, and Linda Evans had to say.  (Okay, I was also interested in what Cybill and Linda look like now, since they are in their sixties.  But that's another subject.)

The focus was primarily on what happens when really beautiful women age and have to come to grips with their beauty fading.  Not having been beautiful at a young age nor when older, I can't really speak from their experience, but I did have my share of compliments and attention as a reasonably attractive woman and can offer my opinion on the subject.

Of course, there were background photos of these gorgeous women as they were and their own remarks about how they didn't really feel beautiful when they were younger.  I'm not saying that they (Cybill and Linda, specifically) weren't being truthful, but I wonder what they thought about the rest of us, if they didn't see themselves as beautiful.

But that's really not what this post is about.  All three women, plus Oprah, emphasized the importance of finding things to like about ourselves, to develop our inward beauty and grace, and to accept the inevitability of (our culture's concept) of physical beauty going away. 

I agree with them.  I also read somewhere that it's good for women to have beauty when we're young, brains when we're older and money when we're really old.  (I'm not sure that is the exact way it should be quoted.)  I agree with that, also. 

For those of us who don't have great reserves of beauty, brains, or money, I have another suggestion.  I would like to offer it to Teri, Cybill, and Linda.  I think that Oprah would agree that the best thing you can have as a hedge against loss of beauty, love, money, or even when you get so old your brains give out is ----- GIRLFRIENDS!

If you have girlfriends, they probably didn't choose you as a friend because you were beautiful, and they certainly won't care if your beauty fades.  They will be there when your looks go (but will keep telling you that you look great).  They will be there when your man is gone either because he's found another, probably younger woman or because, sadly, men tend to die earlier than women.  They will be there when your money is gone or it's not, because they will remember the fun you had when none of you had any.   They will be there when your brains aren't so sharp anymore -- they'll point you in the right direction and make sure you stay out of trouble.

It may well be that Teri, Cybill, and Linda have girlfriends.  I know that Oprah has Gayle, but I hope she has some other girlfriends, too.  It's my belief that you can't have too many girlfriends.  The subject didn't come up on the "Fading Beauties" show and I wondered why. 

I think that the rest of us, especially those who were never "great beauties" understand the value of our friends.  We wouldn't trade them for anything!

Annie

Continuing Beauty Challenge #1: Hair Color

Dear Friends,

I hope that you won’t consider this too self-indulgent, but I wanted to blend the more serious (like the reasons I read books) to something more personal and light-hearted. At my age, you might think that beauty challenges would be a thing of the past, especially if you’re mature enough to realize that outer beauty shouldn’t count for much. If, however, you were born in the south, as I was, or if you had a beautiful mother, which I did, or if you were observant enough to catch the subtle and not-so-subtle clues that beauty mattered, then you might have started (as I did) to do the best you could with what you had been given.

My Mother

Let me acknowledge that it’s a losing game (especially later in life) and congratulate those of you refused to play – you have my greatest admiration, or you were born so beautiful that you had already won.

The clues that I got that I wasn’t so blessed included an offhand remark about my clumsiness from my mother, frequent observations from my dad (at my early attempts at makeup) that I “looked like I dipped my face in a flour barrel”, questions from friends and strangers about the birthmark on my face, hearing that my little sister was a beautiful baby and little girl, and the suggestion from a boy in my class that I might want to read the ad in the back of a magazine that guaranteed breast enlargement. Let me say now (especially since I know that my sister will read this) that everything I’ve mentioned here is accurate and true (Susie was a beautiful baby and child and is still beautiful), but things like this have a way of staying with you.

I’ll also mention that I’ve had a few beauty triumphs along the way, too – something just clicked at one point and I started feeling better about myself and the way I looked. I’ll share some of those triumphs in a later posting.

Back to the hair color: I used to be a redhead. It’s hard to be a redhead in grade school, when children will pick out anything different about you for teasing purposes. I also used to get perms that left me looking like Little Orphan Annie, while my two best friends, Connie and Jackie, had long, wavy blond and brown hair.

By the time I reached college age, I had “grown into my hair color” and actually saw the advantage of being different. (I had also mastered makeup by that time, thanks to Merle Norman.) College years were fine for hair color and later, when the first gray hairs started coming in, it looked like my hair had been frosted! That was wonderful for about fifteen years – best hair color years of my life. I went to a high school class reunion and friends asked me when I went blond – I had done nothing to my hair color.

Then, about ten years ago, things started going downhill. The grays were overtaking the reds so I decided that color was in order. I started with “low lights”, which worked for a while, and then experimented with different colors to get a subtle effect without spending a fortune. I also tried coloring my own hair, but my husband suggested that I should go back to the beauty shop. (This wasn’t entirely a criticism of my efforts – he saw how frustrated I got trying to do it myself, to the point where I would put it off and then gripe about how it looked. Some of my friends have great success coloring their own hair, but I just don’t have that knack.)

Now I am trying to find the right color, single process (I am too cheap to pay $100 a month on my hair) that doesn’t look “flat” or dull and doesn’t fade. It has to look right (natural) with my pinkish skin that is also showing some wear.

One of my favorite people is my Aunt Sister (my dad’s sister), who will be 100 next Halloween. She had red hair, too, and has let hers fade into a beautiful soft, pinkish white color. I’m sure that I’ll do the same, eventually. Not yet, though. I’ll probably put that off for a few more years. If any of you have any suggestions or comments in the meantime, I would love to hear them!

Love,

Annie Joy