This massive facial hair/skin kit photo courtesy of A2Z on etsy.com. I want all of these things.
It takes a village to manage hair after menopause.
You start having conversations with your same-age friends about when you plan to give up on color and go gray. You compare dermaplane tools. You ask your friends to tell you when they see black rogue hairs growing out of your chin, lip area, eyebrow zone, because you can’t see a damn thing anymore without your readers.
Didn’t you talk about your stylist already?
Oh, you must be young. We’re not talking about my not-so-lush head of hair. But as long as we’re on the topic, here’s some of what you young padawans can look forward to:
Scaly patches on your scalp. Could be actinic Keratosis, could be psoriasis, could just be a scaly patch on your head. Who knows!? Don’t Google it!
Flyaway hair. All the time. Every day. It’s not your products. It’s not humidity. It’s your age, girl. And the lack of protein, moisture, and the ability of your hair follicles to give a shit anymore.
Color. What to do? Go red? Go browner? Go blonder? Go gray? Rinse to make a pretty gray instead of a dull gray? Oh, the choices! Here is what I look like right now because my gal is on maternity leave. She’s where she needs to be, I can hold until October 19. Right? RIGHT!?!?
Okay, you said it’s not about your head of hair. Then what’s up?
No one over 50 is asking this question. They know. Let’s go north to south. We’ve talked about my scalp, flyaways and color. Let’s go to the brows.
Me v. Joan. Unrelated, but I don’t have a black eye. That’s just the dark circle. Pretty cool, huh?
Now I see why Mommy Dearest drew in those suckers.
After 50, your eyebrows slowly back out of the room like they accidentally showed up at a wet t-shirt contest. Now my brows are light and getting gray, but there’s always ONE hair in each brow that decides it identifies as a piece of wire, so it grows really strong, black, and standing proud.
Do you pluck it? NO.
Because your eyebrows are becoming extinct and they’re actually protected by the National Wildlife Federation, much like the spotted owl. You trim that one, draw the rest in, but gently and subtly, using your readers and a magnifying mirror, you blend, blend, blend. Honestly, I don’t have the energy or the Give A Fucks (GAFs) so most of the time they are shadows on my face, and then I go to a wedding and it’s like BLAM!!! THEY BACK LIKE DISCO!
What about your fleecy cheeks?
Glad you asked! At some point, usually when you’re looking in a magnifying mirror for the first time, you realize your face is now…furry. Like a Gremlin or a hairless cat. You have this gentle, silky fur all over your face. This requires something called Dermaplaning. Which requires blades and a steady hand. Fear not, My Little Pony, you can buy said blades on Amazon and learn by practice, showing up for work with little cuts or misplaced soul patches of fur that you missed.
OR you can find a Karla, who will remove the fur, rub potions on your face, speak softly and positively to you with relaxing music and lowered lighting and facial and scalp massages and sweet nothings and she’ll make you fall in love with her and then you’ll move away from town and stop getting this little slice of heaven every month and OH MY GOD KARLA I MISS YOU SO MUCH MY FACE IS A MESS.
Ahem. Sorry about that.
Now let’s address your moustache. Yes, you will get either black stubby hairs above your lip, or on your chin, or both if you’re super lucky. I am currently just getting the lip hair.
You picked the wrong lip, MFer.
But can you see all of the other hair there. The big black ones I can pluck, but it’s exhausting to keep up. And if I get ONE MORE AD about sebaceous filaments in my feed I’m going to… do nothing, I guess. It’s my algorithm now. I’ve been outed by the social media community as having some real problems.
But, as Current Husband likes to remind me, it’s better to have hair problems than to not have any hair at all, and so, I persist.
Happy plucking, Gentle Wifers.