Hey young ladies, from the vantage point of an older mom, I have a few personal words of wisdom to share with you. Here they are: STAY OUT OF THE SUN and MOISTURIZE!

She should have moisturized!

When I was a teen, it was considered cool to lie in the sun for hours and bake on a tan. For some reason, it didn’t work for me. I got freckles, but I never got tan. One summer I fell asleep in the sun on the beach and had giant blisters all over my body. That was really gross. I still didn’t get tan.

Eventually I gave up trying. Since I don’t really like being out of doors that much (bugs, heat), I did not spend a lot of time in the sun in my younger years. Now I see what it does to people, and it isn’t good. Aside from the dangers of skin cancer, I have a number of friends who show a lot of sun damage on their faces and necks and hands. Nothing to be done about it now except belatedly cover up. SO my advice is to put on lots of sunscreen, every day, even cloudy days. Don’t forget arms and hands. Also, this is a great excuse to buy HATS! I love hats.

2 Louise Green Hats, Helen Kaminski hat

As for moisturizing, I came to that too late. I spent most of my life trying not to have zits, so I would scrub my face with Beauty Washing Grains, which was like washing one’s face with cement. I couldn’t stand the feeling of anything oily on my skin, so I washed a lot and eventually fell in love with toner, which I still love. I like to make my face SQUEAKY CLEAN!

I have a friend who used alcohol on her face all the time to remove the oil and shine. Unfortunately, now she looks like a turtle.

But all this cleaning is not good for the skin. As I got older, my face would get flaky and scabby in the winter, and it actually hurt. I started buying multiple very expensive replenishing and moisturizing items (Dr. Perricone, are you kidding me?). I hated how they smelled or felt. Some of them brought the dormant zit volcanoes to life. All of them were overpriced.

I don’t remember what made me start to use Olay – probably a sample in the mail – but that is currently what works best for me, even though it’s not cool and can be found in the drugstore. I used Olay Complete for Sensitive Skin with SPF 15. It’s not too greasy and has no smell. [No endorsement intended, just info-sharing). I can’t speak for other flavors of Olay but this works for me.

I use Lansinoh Diaper Rash cream on my lips in the winter – for real! No comments about its intended purpose, please. I have terribly dry lips and nothing worked until I read about Lansinoh. Turns out I bought the wrong thing – I was supposed to get the lanolin but got the diaper rash stuff instead. When I bought the lanolin, it was pretty disgusting, so stuck with the diaper rash cream, which has lanolin in it but has a better consistency.

I wash my face with Noxzema, which makes it clean but not stripped. I love the smell but not everyone does. By the way, Noxzema Shaving Cream makes a great sunburn soother. It’s so foamy and light that you barely need to touch the skin to apply it. I found this out when I got sunburned in a country that sells no sunburn soothing items! Had to improvise with what I had, and it turned out to be better than any other product designed for that purpose.

It’s also good to drink lots of water – good for EVERY part of your body, in fact. As a result, I have to locate every bathroom immediately, wherever I go, because I drink so much water. I do it because I really love it, and one of my indulgences is having spring water delivered to the house. Once I gave up buying some of those $100 moisturizers, the bottled water was easy to afford.

Even though I am not happy about getting old and looking old or already being old, the quest for eternal youth is not my point here. My point is that we take all these trusty body parts for granted until they start to get messed up. Preserve your parts!

People do make assumptions based on appearances. What was the magic day I went from “Miss” to “Ma’am”?? I hate the word “Ma’am”! It’s something out of a John Wayne western. Yet I hear it everywhere I go now, because people are judging my age by my skin! I still feel 29 inside – can’t they see that?

So please don’t risk your health or your beautiful skin at this lovely age when you can still do something about it. I love seeing all of your beautiful glowing faces in the CTWMs photos and I want them to stay that way!

Note: this is NOT a veiled plea for compliments. My mom was the Compliment Fisher Queen and it made me nuts. I simply want to provide helpful advice. So PLEASE NO COMMENTS on how young you think I look. I am what I am, a happy 61-year-old grandmother – how nice of my grandson to come along to distract me!