Mirror, mirror on the wall …

Published 10:22 am Friday, December 9, 2005

My two medicine cabinets, a bathroom cupboard and flat surfaces around my shower and tub are bulging with things to make me look younger, smell sweeter or experience calmness.

Most of the cure-alls don’t work, but I — and millions of other Baby Boomers — continue to buy them.

Employees at the businesses where I purchase cosmetics and fragrances and where I get my hair tended know I will buy almost anything to counteract the aging process.

Every now and then, I receive a sample of something in the mail that is supposed to make me look younger. I have a problem with this. Either they know my age or have been spying on me and think I need help. Either way, I don’t appreciate it.

My e-mail also is the source of products someone out there thinks I need. Anti-wrinkle items and quick weight-loss plans are popular. I really resent insinuations that I am wrinkled and overweight. That is a bit much.

I also resent the term “aging Baby Boomers.” We know we are aging. We do not need for the process to be pointed out. Instead of referring to us as aging, why don’t they refer to really old folks as aged? Like a good steak?

I am in possession of just about every complexion-saving product made by the cosmetic company I prefer. Not only am I in possession of them, I use them. It is a long, drawn-out process that starts when I get up in the morning, continues while I am getting ready for work, picks up again when I return home at night and undergoes another installment before I go to bed.

Certain vitamins are supposed to be good for the skin, so I take a handful of vitamin pills in the morning and another handful at night. Vitamin pills are cheap, and I don’t think they can hurt you.

Skin care products worth their salt are not cheap. The prices are outrageous. I don’t know whether the ingredients in the products are so precious that the steep prices are necessary or whether the manufacturers know foolish women like me will buy the stuff regardless of how much it costs.

An old stand-by prescription wrinkle product is inching up to $100 for the larger tube. It has become so expensive that I shopped around before making the last purchase. Even though it is prescription, my insurance won’t pay for it.

If I were a teenager and using it to control acne, my insurance would pay. When I asked why the insurance would not pay for the cream for me, I was told “because of your age.”

I explained how important the cream is to my mental well-being, but I could tell the person on the other end of the phone was not listening, did not care or had heard my story so many they had automatically tuned me out and would return to my world as soon as I changed the subject.

It seems insurance companies would want to do everything they could to ensure a client’s mental health stays intact as long as possible.

Another product I’ve fallen prey to recently is soap. I paid $30 for a container of soap the consistency of toothpaste. The round, squatty container, which appears to be opaque glass, is plastic. The lid is a soft blue. The bottom is aqua. Actually, I wanted the container, not the soap.

A woman customer at the cosmetic counter said the soap lives up to the manufacturer’s claim of providing calming effects. Put a little on a cloth or scrubbing apparatus and work it into a lather, the woman instructed me. The result is wonderful, she said excitedly.

I followed the woman’s instructions. Yes, the soap smells great and feels good going on, but I am still a nervous, hyper wreck. One of the reasons for my state is because the soap lathers so much I can’t get it out of my net-like scrubbing device. Instead of becoming calm, I can sense my blood pressure escalating as I rinse and rinse the net object.

A local store offered a popular brand of bath soap in several forms, including “Icy Blast.” The soap was a pretty blue and on special. I bought a dozen bars. There is no blast whatsoever and certainly not icy. The soap just sits there.

While I pondered wrinkle-prevention measures and lamented how my soaps neither calm nor blast, we “aging Baby Boomers” learned Social Security might — because there are so many of us — go bust when we start retiring in a few years. Talk about poor planning by our allegedly astute forefathers.

We early Boomers were the rebellious hippies of the ’60s. Has America forgotten the tumultuous results of our activities? We were dubbed the Me Generation, and that’s still what we’re about.

For now, though, I’m returning to the basics. I plan to seek solace in my stash of motel soap and a large economy-size container of good ol’ Johnson’s baby powder.