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Anti-Aging Creams — The Best Kept Beauty Secret?
Many people are intelligent enough to understand that many promises made by anti-aging creams and potions are not actually able to prevent the natural and inevitable process of aging. We understand that we may, for lack of a better term, "fall apart" as we age. However, we also know that there are ways to make the aging process more acceptable and attractive.
My grandmother always used a cream on her face and hands each night of her life. She may not have called it anti-aging cream. It may not have been prescribed by a dermatologist or beauty expert who promised her beauty and youth. It's likely that my grandmother never sat at her vanity in her humble bathroom applying her cream while thinking about free radical damage, exfoliation or other preoccupations that today's beauty obsessed culture often focuses on. Most likely, she simply wanted her face and hands to feel nurtured after long hours as a scrub woman who was frequently exposed to harsh, drying chemicals and cleaners.
Perhaps my grandmother, like many elders, possessed insight regarding the pink cream in the thick white jar. Perhaps she loved the buttery, powdery aroma. Maybe she somehow understood how the product worked to slow the ravages of aging, stall flattening of the skin's layers and the decrease in collagen production and thinning blood vessels to the skin's surface.
That 99 cent jar of cream may have been an effective anti-aging treatment, for my grandmother's skin was always smooth, clear and almost wrinke-free. I remember when she kissed me hello, her skin was like silk. One would never know that this woman faced ten hours of hard labor seven days a week cleaning up after wealthy people and college students.
Maybe that cream was not only an anti-aging cream, but an anti-remembering cream as well. Maybe it helped her forget how she worked so much for so little. However, maybe it was a potion of rememberance for those of use who remember watching her apply it long after her passing. I know I'll never forget her, or the soft sweetness of her unlined skin.
