Not for length. My hair got thinner after COVID and menopause, and I didn’t like it, so I did something about it.
The funny part is I’ve also pretty much stopped wearing makeup unless I’m actually going somewhere. Most days I’m running a business, making products, answering emails, shipping orders, cleaning up some mess I made in the process, and realizing halfway through the day that I need something in town. I’m not putting on makeup because somebody at the hardware store might see me.
Apparently I’m perfectly willing to sit in a chair for hours getting more hair attached to my head, but mascara most days feels like a bridge too far. I’m fine with that.
I think that might be one of my favorite things about getting older. I care a whole lot less about what everybody else thinks.
Women our age have already spent a lot of years figuring shit out as we went. We worked, raised kids, paid bills, took care of people, changed jobs, started over, buried people we loved, got divorced, got remarried, became grandmothers, became caregivers, became empty nesters. Some of us did all of that in a completely different order.
And somehow, after living all these wildly different lives, women are still handed one set of instructions for how we’re supposed to look once we hit a certain age.
Get the Botox. Get the filler. Do your lips. Wear the extensions. Wear the good lipstick and the heels. Or don’t do any of it. Let your hair go gray, stop wearing makeup, and buy the plane ticket instead.
You get to decide.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot with Wild Alaska.
I’ve had women in their twenties interested in creating content for me, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. My products work for them too. But I don’t want to put a 26-year-old woman in front of my customers and quietly suggest that if you use my face oil, you’re going to end up with her skin.
Of course you’re not. She’s 26.
I’m tired of skincare marketing that treats getting older like some kind of personal failure. Like our faces showing that we’ve actually lived is something we’re supposed to prevent, hide, or fix.
Getting older isn’t a punishment.
We all know we’re not rubbing a cream on our face and erasing every wrinkle. If you want that kind of change, there are people with needles, lasers, and medical degrees who can talk to you about it. A jar of skincare isn’t going to do that, and I’m not going to tell you mine will.
What good skincare can do is help your skin feel better. Softer, more comfortable, more hydrated, less pissed off. That matters too.
Maybe that’s what I’ve figured out more than anything lately. I’m not interested in telling another grown woman what she should do with her face, her hair, her body, or her money. We’ve had enough people doing that for us.
Personally, I’m keeping the extensions. Some days I’ll wear the good lipstick and the heels. Plenty of days I’ll run into town without a stitch of makeup because I have shit to do.
I’m in my 50s. I’m building a business. I have places I want to go, things I want to do, and a whole lot of life I haven’t lived yet.
Getting older isn’t the end of anything.
If anything, I’m finally getting to the good part.
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