Santa Cruz, CA
I know this is hard to believe, coming from someone who posts pictures of themselves in various outfits on the (semi) regular, but I don't shop for clothing a lot. I shop for stuff for the house, oh yes (too much, probably), but I've spent the past year or so gradually whittling down my closet so it holds only the things I *actually* wear, as opposed to things I think I may want to wear someday.
So here’s something no one likes to talk about: hair loss in women.
I know it’s pretty common - everyone’s hair follicles shrink as they age, making your hair
thinner, and my family has a history of hair loss, so there’s a hereditary component there. I also know it’s nothing to be embarrassed about (seriously, why?), but still. It feels embarrassing. Unfeminine, or something.
And I suspect that if I feel that way, there are plenty of you who are experiencing something similar and feel that way too, and I’ve found few things whisk away embarrassment more readily than just talking about whatever the issue may be. Because when you talk about a problem, you can get ahead of it.
Over the past few years -starting around the same time I started this website, actually - I’ve noticed my hair becoming thinner. There were bouts of lush gorgeousness - thank you, pregnancies one and two - but increasingly, I’m noticing that my hair just isn’t the same as it used to be, and every so often I see a photo taken from an angle that makes my jaw drop, because that cannot possibly be my head.
Ohhhhh fine, I'll show you one.
Every morning from April through September, during the blur of activity that happens between 730AM (when my kids wake me up; and yes I know I am lucky that they let me sleep that late) and 830AM (when I load everyone into the car and head off to my son's camp drop-off), there is one consistent:
I will reach for a pair of denim shorts. I will pause, because I am bored to the depths of my soul of wearing denim shorts, and I will scan my closet for something else to put on my body. I will find only various incarnations of misery (tight jeans, mostly; I cannot handle anything snug-fitting at all when it's ten thousand degrees outside) or things that I don't feel cute in, because I'm distinctly blah lately and nothing makes me feel cute.
And so I will put on my denim shorts, think about wearing something other than a t-shirt on top, then put on a t-shirt and go about my day.
Summertime Splash (FYI if you're a Gray Malin fan: pre-orders for Escape just opened)
Over the past year, I've turned into an obsessive sunscreen-er...on my face. I'm extremely hit and miss with my body for completely obnoxious reasons, like not wanting to gunk up my necklace (and being too lazy to take the damn thing off and put it back on again post-sunscreen). Not wanting to get the tinted sunscreen that I use on my face on the edges of my shirt (and being too lazy to use different products on my face and on my body). Et cetera.
Then, as you may recall from yesterday's post, I went to see a skin specialist because I was 99.9% certain that my feet were going to fall off, and discovered that the tiny red bumps on my chest that I had assumed were bug bites of some sort (ohpleasegodnotfleas) were actually just...sun damage. Which shouldn't have surprised me, given that I've spent the past few months sort of actively ignoring the fact that my chest is starting to look, very simply...old. And wrinkly. And sort of rough in that way that people's skin looks when they've spent a few years or decades baking in UV light. This is also unsurprising, of course, because the chest is the part of the body (along with the hands) that usually ages the fastest on people, because it gets tons of sun exposure, and is rarely protected. I know all of this, and still did my best ostrich impression and pretended that the skin on my sternum would somehow, miraculously, inexplicably be...fine. Forever Young, and such.
I have been compensated by QVC for my participation. All opinions expressed are my own.
Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of Elemis skincare products. I had, however, heard of their spas - they’re all over the world (London, Miami, Bangkok, etc), on luxury cruise lines and in fancy hotels and such, and they all sound lovely, but you know which ones sound loveliest? The ones that apparently exist in British Airways terminals - complimentary for first-class travelers, naturally. (My feeling is if you’re flying first-class you don’t really need a spa treatment quiiiiiite quite as much as, say, the 6’8” guy sitting in the aisle seat in the very back row next to the toilet, but just saying: it sounds like a nice way to travel.)
Anyway. I’m unlikely to make it to one of those spas anytime soon, but a couple of weeks ago Elemis’ 24/7 Super Skin 3-Piece Collection arrived on my doorstep as part of my collaboration with QVC, and they are (allllmost) as luxurious. The set contains Pro- Collagen Cleansing Balm (which smells incredible, btw) for cleansing morning at night, Pro-Collagen Marine Cream for AM hydration, and their brand-new Peptide4 Night Recovery Cream-Oil to use in the evenings.
