A New Wrinkle on Wrinkles

SENIOR FORUM
 A new wrinkle on wrinkles
BY TERRI ANDERSEN Contributing Writer
Nobody wants wrinkles, in their clothes or on their face. Unfortunately. however, wrinkles appear whether we like them or not. Until I was 50. I didn’t give a second thought to wrinkles on my face. When I was 55, all of a sudden there seemed to be more of them than I cared to have. By the time I was 60, they were all over my face. I didn’t feel old, but I sure looked old, so I decided to investigate and see if there was anything I could do about those creases in my face. For something so hard to do anything about, there sure are a lot of articles on the subject, and a slew of commercial products that promise to take care of the problem. Right now, as I write this, I have in my possession about 20 articles on ways to get rid of wrinkles, and in my medicine cabinet are about 10 products that promise to banish those caverns in a face. Which ones really work? You want the truth? OK, None! (At least not on my face.) One of the newest products on the market, that claims to reduce fine lines 80 or 90 percent and deep wrinkles by about 40 percent, beckoned to me from the skin care product shelf. My “fine lines” were already too far gone. so I didn’t pay much attention to their success rate, but the 40 percent for deep wrinkles made me feel that, hey, maybe this one is really the answer. (Usually the products only claim to “reduce the appearance of fine lines" and I’ve come to the conclusion that’s purely advertising talk and doesn’t mean a thing.) So okay, I buy and use this newest product for the time recommended to do its job, and what happens? (I bet you already guessed the answer.) Nothing! So I called the help-line number on the packaging and wanted to know “how come” I got no results. The sophisticated sounding lady who answered the phone insisted the product did keep its promises, as advertised, and she couldn’t understand why I saw no results. Then she asked me how old I was and I told her. Well! Right off the bat she knew what the problem was. The product was tested and marketed for 35–45 year olds, she informed me. H.E.L.L.O. “What do 35-45 year olds know about wrinkles?” I asked incredulously. She went on about how important it was to start taking care of one’s face while one was still young, but she really didn’t have an answer to my question. Then I saw an ad that sounded more like someone in my league. In the ad a girl vowed that her mother's face was covered with deep wrinkles, prune lips and crows feet until she used the product being advertised, and then the wrinkles and prune lips disappeared, the face muscles tightened, and the jowls didn't droop anymore. Even the age spots faded and the mother looked like a million dollars (for only $16.95!). Hey, that’s exactly what I'm looking for, I said to myself. And the advertiser was so convinced he had the best product on the market that a 100 percent money back guarantee came with the offer. Being a little skeptical, knowing what they say about anything that sounds too good to be true, usually is too good to be true, I got the bright idea of writing to the company and asking them to send me their product on a trial basis, and if it really did what they said it would, then I’d send them the money (and they wouldn’t have to bother sending me the money back if ... the product didn’t work). I mean, really, if I have to trust them with my money first, isn’t it only fair that they trust me to pay later? For some reason. I never got an answer to my letter. I decided to reread some of those articles I cut out of different magazines to see if maybe I missed something in the first reading. “To reveal fresher skin, exfoliation is the key,” one said. Another advised to “exercise your way to younger skin.” Use a steam facial; Saturate a cotton ball with witch hazel and swab over your face; moisturize, moisturize, moisturize (and be sure to use sunscreen); eat foods rich in vitamin A (like papaya), substitute chicken and fish for red meat, and drink at least eight glasses of water a day: revitalize your skin with a honey face mask (or a banana mask, an egg mask. or a brewer’s yeast mask); eat plenty of fruits and vegetables; exercise your face muscles; etc. etc. etc. So which piece of advice is the best? And when is it time to just give up and learn to accept those facial ruts? Guess what? I just ran across a remedy that sounds easy and hopefully promising: “wipe wrinkles away with a slice of apple.” Just rub a slice of apple over your skin and you can reduce wrinkles, it says. I can do that. If that doesn’t work, I'll give up, really I will.

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What will you be in your new year?

 January 8, 1999
The New Milford Times
H O M E & FAMILY
What will you be in your new year?
BY TERRI ANDERSEN Contributing Writer
There's something about a new year that makes us want to make a new beginning, improve on the old year and do better in whatever it was that we weren’t quite satisfied with in the past year. For many people it's their body size. (How many resolutions to lose weight are made at the beginning of a new year?) For others, it's a resolution to do better with the way they're handling their lifestyle, be it the way they handle money or the way they manage their relationships with their partners or their children. If they didn't get it right in the past, a new year seems a good time to resolve to do better. Whether we want to admit it or not. I think we all have some kind of standard of perfection built into us that begs to be considered. Take the issue of weight. Is there really a perfect size for humans to be? I watched a television show once where a 600 pound woman was pretty much confined to her bed. When she was asked what her weight loss goal would be, she answered, “If only I could weigh 300 pounds. I could live a normal life.” Ask a 300 pound woman that same question and she'd probably tell you she would be perfectly happy at 150 pounds. But how much do you want to bet that most 150 pound women wish they could be 130 or 120? Then there’s the issue of features that often lead to cosmetic surgery. Either the nose is too big or the breasts too small or the hips and stomach have too much fat; it goes on and on, that quest for perfection. Another subject that brings resolution into play is a person's financial situation. Don’t we all wish we had enough money to buy what we want but also have a nest egg for that proverbial rainy day? So we resolve that this year we'll save at least a few dollars every month or invest in something that will bring us financial rewards, but do we actually do it? We keep seeing things we just have to own and those credit card bills don’t let up on us. Yet that picture of a perfect life with everything we want in it doesn't go away. On a spiritual plane, someone might resolve to be a better person by being more generous, more patient, more loving, or just kinder in general. Maybe a husband and wife might resolve to find more time to nurture their relationship with each other or with their children. (Now and then it would be nice to hear of children resolving not to fight with their siblings, but that might be asking a bit much.) Maybe co-workers could resolve to get along better, not to let little things bother them so much. But all of us could afford to be a little more thoughtful when it comes to other people, and that could help make the world just a little closer to that perfection we all seek.

Cupid's Corner

I think Herb and I were destined to meet. We both lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., but about as far away as two people could live from each other and still be in the same borough (about a forty-five minute car ride). One day, I applied for a job at a company located in the center of Brooklyn, and I was told I could have so the job. But when I left the building, I noticed a sign for an opening in another company nearby, and decided to apply for that job, too, just in case it paid more the first. I ended up taking the second job.  A few weeks after I started to work there, a new employee was hired as an electronic technician. All the girls in the office were taking turns peeking at him. He was a tall, well built, blue-eyed blond, with a shy look about him. The general Consensus was that he was “so cute" and had the most Wonderful blue eyes. I thought he was cute, too, but I didn't want to look too interested because Anne, the girl who had trained me, let it be known that she "saw him first.” Anne was gorgeous, and I figured I didn't have a chance of getting his attention if she went after him. One day, I needed a pencil sharpener fastened to my desk and wondered who I could get to do it for me. As luck would have it, the man who was in charge of the electronics department also took care of little maintenance jobs and sent the new employee (Herb) to screw the sharpener to my desk. We started talking and felt very comfortable with each other. After that each time we saw each other we stopped to chat for a few minutes. After all, we were both the low men on the totem pole, being the most recent hirees, and it sort of gave us a bond. Before long, I was being teased about Herb finding so many excuses to come and talk to me. Anne got involved with someone else who worked in the company and Herb and I drifted together for lunch and coffee breaks. When I realized how much I liked him, I thought, Wow. If I'd taken that first job I was offered, I would never have met this terrific guy! We tried to keep our relationship platonic so it wouldn't affect our jobs, but after a few months, Herb got up the nerve to ask me for a date. He suggested we go ice-skating at a nearby skating rink. Little did he know that I had never ice skated before. But I wasn't about to tell him. So I bought myself a pair of ice skates and off we went. He had to hold me up a lot (which he didn't seem to mind), and proved himself to be a sincere and thoughtful person. After that, we were seeing each other almost every night after work, and ten months later, we were married. (My mother's advice to us was, "Be kind to each other.") A year and a half later, we had our first child, then four more over the next thirteen years. Herb's blue eyes were still turning me on, I guess. Actually, it was a lot more than that. Herb is a gentle soul and eager to please. He worked two jobs to support our growing family and always found time to take the kids on outings on weekends or holidays. It wasn't until our twenty-fifth anniversary that Herb and I got to take a vacation by ourselves, and it was surprising how romantic we could still be together. On an island in the Bahamas, we shared a double hammock. This is a picture someone took of us, giggling and almost falling out of the hammock. Herb is great at puns, which most people groan at, but which I still find humorous. He loves to tell people, "Would you believe she still laughs at my jokes?" And Herb always encouraged me to pursue whatever dreams I had. When I became interested in writing, he watched the kids while I took some evening courses. Eventually, my articles were published in the local newspaper, and Herb clipped them out and showed them to everyone at work. I guess what's made our love last through the years is that we respect and support one another. Sure, we've had our bad days, even days when the thought of calling it quits entered our minds. But we always managed to turn them around by trying to see each other's viewpoint, and then getting things back on track with a dose of forgiveness and a dose of laughter. I think taking my mother's advice about being kind to each other helped a lot, too. I see so many couples who put their partners down instead of building them up. It makes me want to tell them that how you make people feel about themselves has a strong effect on how they will feel about you. Last week, we celebrated our forty-third anniversary!
Terri Andersen
 New Milford, CT
True Romance Sept. 1998