OK, so I’ve scaled back on a lot of things lately due to a DRASTIC cut in income.
Granted, I could not completely come down from my fancy espresso drink high and have resorted to the methadone provided by a Krupp home espresso machine bought at Ross.
I haven’t bought any shoes….
Forget Wall Street--you know the country’s headed into financial CRAZY-times when I stop buying shoes. It should be a globally assumed index of the nation’s financial health.
I’ve actually started….ok….God I’ll just come out with it….I’ve start COOKING.
Like from scratch….
Using recipes and stuff.
And dividing and packaging up my creations to put in the freezer and take to work for lunches.
Every little penny pinching household trick taught to me by my parents…that I scoffed at while dining at Morton’s in Los Angeles, or buying my 2nd -3rd drink in one day at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has now come back to me and been fully embraced.
Hell, I’ve been making my own bread. Low-carb diet be damned...homemade bread is dirt cheap!!
But there’s one thing that’s starting to give me the DT’s….
Just like all things worth addicting over, my first hit was free. I bought a tube of lip gloss and the friendly girl behind the counter handed me a “free gift with purchase”.
When it comes to skin care, I’ve always had good intentions…but the path to hell…paved…etc etc. So I’ve never actually kept up any kind of regimen. I’m pretty lazy. If it’s not food or coffee, I’m pretty bad at doing anything consistently, no matter how much I seemingly want to.
In my “free gift” I noticed a small jar of Lancôme Absolue Premium bx. I shrugged my shoulders and didn’t think much of it. I’d tried face creams in the past, and if I did manage to use them for a brief time, I usually found them heavy, cloying. If they did anything it was usually to clog my pores, but usually it seemed pointless.
I then I tried the potion in the little jar one morning after a shower when my skin felt particularly dry.
Is it ever like the first time?
My skin drank it in like fine liquor. The scent was subtle, barely noticeable…a hint of grapefruit perhaps?
I was in love and didn’t look back. I used it religiously until that sad day when my sample jar had been scraped clean.
This would not do…my skin was already crying out like the parched dunes of the Sahara.
I took to the city streets in search of my fix, anything to get rid of that feeling of stretch parched skin.
And then I saw her, the woman in the black lab coat and Lancôme name tag. I sidled up to her, trying to nonchalantly scope out my surroundings, was there a “free gift with purchase”? Did I need another gold lame make-up bag with the purchase of $28.95 or more?
I showed her my empty jar.
“Do you carry this?” I whispered.
She placed a full size jar in my hands, and I could feel the hum of expectation coursing through my skin.
I reached for my wallet.
“How much?”
“The 2.7 oz comes to $145.”
Holy Mother of GOD!!!
But I paid.
And I couldn’t stop. Every 8 to 10 months I’d go back like clockwork.
I told myself it was a treat. I was now newly single, divorced. I was constantly fighting an internal battle with myself with my ex’s words hanging like a mist in the back of my consciousness. I continually pushed it back, but it clung to my own fear of never again being loved. “
No one else will ever want you…”
I was in my late 30’s, and my reflection in the mirror reminded me of that every day. I was looking haggard and my skin dull. But since I’d started using the cream, I’d begun to feel better. It was probably all in my head, but it seemed my skin looked bright….breakouts were happening less and less. And I know that dry feeling was gone. I felt I looked, not younger, but fresher…like I’d gotten enough sleep.
So here I am now, at a crossroads.
I’ve trimmed the fat; I’ve turned my back on so many luxuries. I’ve done the research, I know in my head that anti-aging creams do not really do anything, they’re not worth the money, and I can’t afford it anyway. I just can’t. But I am again staring at a very, very empty jar of face cream.
I’ve been experimenting with other grocery store aisle creams and I’ve yet to find one. They’re heavy, cloying, or smell funny. My skin is breaking out and feels annoyingly dry and once again, at least to me, looks dull.
It is a sad day. Oh. Miss Lancôme sales-girl, how I miss thee!!
**sigh**
