"Faux wrinkles"

As I've mentioned before, it's immensely appealing - if ultimately futile - to believe that one is young when one is not. Is 30 young? Of course! my readers 30 and over will say. Whereas if you're 22 and the guy who just hit on you is 30, you're not going to weird out your friends if you explain that he's an old dude. Or, if you do go out with him, you can rest assured your friends are talking behind your back about how the dude you're now with is old. And I intentionally use an example involving a 30-year-old man being perceived of as ancient, because as it stands, it's largely assumed that 30-year-old women are decrepit. But no, it cuts both ways. We-the-ancient can, at 30, rest assured that we've still got plenty of time to be the scandalous younger lover of a French politician. It's not so bad to be the youngest rung of old. But we're old.

So! Today, "Into The Gloss" introduced a new beauty concept: "faux wrinkles." A 29-year-old woman profiled (who mentions she "just turned 29" - sigh, aging) notes that she uses a wrinkle-filling cream for her "faux wrinkles," and I'm thinking, if you're attempting to disguise wrinkles, you have wrinkles. Not unusual at all if you're 29 and have very good vision and/or a magnifying mirror. You can also try parting it a bunch of different ways, and maybe you'll find a gray hair or two, and tell yourself that these are faux gray hairs - you're surely going blonde. Or you can try not to look too closely.

But then faux wrinkles are explained: "I don’t have crows feet yet or anything, but if I don’t moisturize properly, concealer will make me look wrinkly." Which, yes, I can concur, under-eye concealer will do this. But it doesn't create wrinkles. It highlights not-as-young-as-you-once-were-ness. How do I know? Because this thing with concealer where you need to use a creamy one or put moisturizer (or, apparently, wrinkle-filling-cream) under it starts at a certain age. I don't remember when, exactly, and it's so gradual that you can easily imagine it had always been the case. Concealer just offers a little preview of sorts.

But whatever. However old you are, there's always a French politician even older.