Body Maintenance: Primping & Tweezing

You know, teenagers don't realise how easy they have it. Girls spend hours every morning painting their faces and making sure their hair is perfect.

Back in the '80s, and all you ladies can relate to this (and some of you men as well), primping meant half a can of hairspray every morning and an hour of getting our "feathers" just right. Then there was the eyeshadow of every pastel colour known to man. One layer of eyeshadow didn't cut it. No, you had to layer it up to your eyebrow with at least three colours. Then of course were the clothes. Socks had to be rolled or slouched just right. The shirts needed to be long to make sure our spandex covered butts were covered. Then of course was the 20 minute chore of choosing the right belt to put over our hips to try to make us look like there actually was a person under those oversized shirts.

I knew girls who woke up at 5:30am every morning to go through this ritual before they would even venture to leave their house at 8am to go to school.

And why did we do that? How many hours could we have saved back then for something useful - like sleep! We didn't even have time to eat breakfast. Obviously primping and painting were more important.

Yes, there is a point to all this reminiscing. We didn't know how good we actually had it back then. We should have left well enough alone. The millions of zits could have easily been dealt with some Clearasil and life continued.

Now we are in our late 30s and 40s. Many of us have gained and lost dozens of pounds. Our bodies have stretch marks and there is sagging in some areas, rolls in others and nothing seems to be in the same places as before. Hair is growing out of places that we never thought imaginable. Untamed eyebrows begin to look like they belong to Michael Ignatieff or Sam Waterston. Suddenly we have grey or white hairs popping up left and right. The guys are becoming follicly challenged so they shave their heads so no one can see exactly where the bald spots are.

Even women who've just "followed the course of nature" and never went through the war paint era suddenly find themselves in unchartered waters. Tweezers start appearing in hand, cupboards stocked with hair dye, specialised make-up to try to hide those ghastly bags under the eyes and the wrinkles that seem to have taken up residence for some unexplained reason.

Yes, now we have a legitimate reason to spend hours in front of the mirror. Ahh, to get back all those wasted hours from our teenage years.