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Maybe she’ll just wait for a new face

Marketplace Staff Apr 23, 2007
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Maybe she’ll just wait for a new face

Marketplace Staff Apr 23, 2007
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KAI RYSSDAL: We could all use a little lift now and then, especially on a Monday. But women who might be inclined to use cosmetics to cover up their laugh lines oughta think hard before whipping out their wallets. Canadian researchers said today a chemical used in those products makes wrinkles disappear by damaging your skin cells — killing them, eventually.

In today’s edition of The Loh Down, commentator Sandra Tsing Loh tells us about her own brush with the more perfect face.


SANDRA TSING LOH: So a dear friend has begun selling beauty products for Arbonne International, a direct-marketing company. Which means to help her win her coveted white Mercedes, we should all be buying Arbonne products

For instance, with every $250 Arbonne purchase, for just an extra $45, this $145 NutriMinC® RE9® 11-piece Travel Set — including, and I quote: Eye Crème, Day Crème, Night Crème, Deep Pore Cleansing Masque, Facial Scrub, Hydrating Wash, Body Serum, Facial Serum, Toner, Body Wash and Body Lotion — along with a baby orange puff and travel tote.

Now I’m a mother of small children who can barely remember where she left her car keys. Unless the travel tote comes with an intern, I’m gonna be putting on night crème in the day and day crème in the night!

And how good does my skin have to look anyway? I’m 45. Yes, the mirror suggests I look a bit wilted for the inner 32-year-old I always magically envision myself to be.

Then again, do the math, you think: “For almost 50, I look pretty good!”

Plus, in my post-feminist marriage, I put in half the money, the parenting, and the poorly-done housework. Unless my husband dutifully starts slathering on his fair share of cremes and masques and washes, why should I?

Sure, I could spend $1,000 a year on Arbonne products, another $1,000 botoxing my forehead crease — it’s preventative — and another $4,000 cutting, straightening and coloring my hair. Many of my fortysomething girlfriends have beauty regimes that literally cost this much. But if we live another four decades, what is that . . . a couple hundred-thousand dollars? Just to maintain?

So I’m thinking, maybe I just sit it out for 20 years. Take a two-decade-long “moisturizer and toner” sabbatical. Start up again when I’m 65. With those intrepid boomers leading the way, I’m sure by 2027, modern science will have invented some kind of zapper or peeler or stunner that can spray on an entirely new face — perhaps Cher’s.

When Arbonne has that, I promise, I’ll slap down that Visa card.

RYSSDAL: Humorist Sandra Tsing Loh lives in Los Angeles.

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