The Price of Beauty

The price of beauty is high.  Coming up as a young teen in my home there was not a lot of emphasis placed on skin care of make up.  My mother barely wore any makeup and if so it was almost like she had none on...mainly lipstick.  None of the many small bottle rituals of today.  When I got in high school some of my friends began to use make up and soon I was introduced to the world of skin care regimes and  makeup.  A whole new world.  I started with Charles of the Ritz as it worked well for African American skin as well as Caucasian skin.  They had everything from the skincare to the make up to Charles of the Ritz fragrance that I absolutely loved.  My mom was a little dismayed I was getting into all of that.  I had to. I had skin that was so oily, I could fly eggs on it, if it was hot enough. So much oil.  So much!  There was not a lot of skincare products out there for black woman.  We only had Ebony Fashion Fare and that did not do well with me. While the colors were beautiful, it was oily.  And there was something in some of the frosted lipsticks that made my lips beak out.  Not good.  I rallied on using drug store acne products and Charles of the Ritz.

After college and after major burn out in a large, high pressure job, I decided to work in retail.  Something that I thought would be mindless and would give me a mental break.  I went to work at the cosmetic counter at my Thalheimers.  I started out at the Charles of the Ritz counter which was combined with Naomi Sims cosmetics.  I did very well. So well that I was soon promoted and moved to Estee Lauder.  Estee Lauder, the best of the best.  Soon I was educated in all the products and benefits of their line. It was eye opening.  The line was for all skin types and all people.  That was about 30 years ago.  Once I worked for Estee Lauder I used nothing else for skincare and color.  About 10 years ago I discovered MAC for color, so now it s Lauder for skincare and MAC for color.  It works well.

It works well but of course Estee Lauder is very expensive; but so worth it.  Last week I bought a bottle of Diminish and the new moisturizer for oily skin and for those two very small bottles and jars, they were $54 and $50 apiece.  If those products did not work I certainly would not be buying them for all these years.  It costs to be beautiful!  Diminish minimizes pores and helps with oil.  The new moisturizer is clean, light weight and feels wonderful on my skin.  My face seems to soak it up. 

The price of beauty is high.  Paying $50 for a small jar of cream that works wonders is so very worth it! 

You can chase a butterfly all over the field and never catch it. But if you sit quietly in the grass it will come and sit on your shoulder. ~~Unknown~~