Beauty Routines and Other Midlife FU-tilities

In my 30s and 40s, my entire beauty routine could be summed up in about 12 seconds:

Wash face in the shower.

Slap on some tinted SPF.

A dab of lip gloss.

And a swipe of mascara (if I was feeling fancy).

That was it. Done. Off to live my life like the low-maintenance goddess I thought I was.

Fast forward to perimenopause. Now, I find myself standing in front of the mirror each morning carefully dabbing caffeine serum under my eyes like a sleep-deprived raccoon prepping for the Met Gala.

Somewhere along the line, I apparently decided I was going to Benjamin Button my face back to 25 using an arsenal of products that all smell vaguely like citrus and regret.

I now own "essences," "boosters," "primer", "retinol," and mysterious things called "peptides" that I’m convinced are either miracle workers or a scam orchestrated by a very clever 22-year-old on TikTok.

I went from one simple bottle to a multi-step routine that looks like I’m mixing potions at Hogwarts. There are tiny glass droppers, jade rollers, gua sha stones - at this point, I’m basically performing witchcraft on my face daily.

And let’s talk makeup. Suddenly, I'm contouring like a drag queen prepping for a Vegas residency. I own more brushes than an art school freshman. My face is now a canvas, and I am both artist and cautionary tale.

The irony? I still end up looking tired, just with more sparkly highlighter.

Meanwhile, my teenage daughters breeze by in perfectly smooth, hydrated skin, asking me "Mom, why does your face smell like chemicals?" as they slather on lip gloss and run out the door.

But hey, this new routine might be a midlife meltdown or a beautiful act of self-preservation (jury's still out). All I know is, I now spend more on serums than electricity, and I have a drawer of "emergency concealers" that could singlehandedly fund my retirement.

I recognize how pointless it is frantically trying to reverse engineer youth when I’m already at the stage of thyroid and cholesterol meds, and joint supplements. But if we can’t actually turn back time, we can contour the illusion of a jawline that no longer exists. And really, isn’t that the next best thing?