[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Charlotte Rampling then"]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_330" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Charlotte Rampling now"]
[/caption]Oh, it's just so sad. My smooth, peach-like complexion is drooping and wrinkling like the skin on said peach when it's been left in the sun too long. Which is, actually, exactly what happened. (Have you noticed how unwrinkled your--ahem--unexposed bits and pieces are?) On most of my face I am keeping time somewhat at bay with Retin-A, but the eyelid wrinkling and drooping is just awful. My mother used to say that aging wasn't for sissies. Boy, was she right!
I keep telling myself that my eyes are starting to look a bit like Charlotte Rampling's. She appears to be aging naturally, and thus getting a bit droopy around the eyes herself. The only problem with that logic is that before she became an actress, Charlotte Rampling was a model, and I...was not. So the original package she started with is perhaps a teensy bit better than the original package I started with.
An eye lift is not in the financial cards any time soon. Plus, I worry that if I did get one, I'd look perpetually surprised. And while an at-home eye lift performed with Scotch tape does provide comic relief, it's not really suitable for every day. At this point, all I am left with is topical prescription cream, smoke, and mirrors.
First of all, the Retin-A is something of a miracle. It does amazing things with crow's feet. If you use too much, however, you tend to get dryness and sometimes shininess. You have to play with it to see how often to use it and how much works for you. The other products (the smoke and mirrors part of the equation) that help a lot are both available on Sephora. The first is Urban Decay Eye Shadow Primer. I had stopped using eye shadow last year, because it just creased so badly. I got a sample of the primer from Sephora, and it is an excellent product. It keeps my eyelid area smooth all day, and now that I'm trying to try harder with my eye makeup, now I have a smooth canvas upon which to work! And who doesn't love the "I Dream of Jeannie" style bottle?
[caption id="attachment_338" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The smoke and mirrors"]
[/caption]The next challenge was that even the most emollient eye pencil dragged through my newly crepey skin. So out with the pencil, in with the liner. I tried several drugstore brands like Revlon and Cover Girl, but no go. The liner flaked off, or the brushes shed, or the wand of the brush was at an odd angle. Enter Lancome Artliner in noir. It's wonderful. My hands are not the steadiest in the world, but I can apply this liner with no problem (the key is a magnifying mirror and short strokes, no drawing on a wing in one fell swoop).
Urban Decay and Lancome are kind of expensive, but both are well worth it. For now, I'm afraid Charlotte Rampling is on her own.
1 comment: