Behold This

I painted my fingernails a dark wine color a few days ago. While I was waiting for them to dry, I read. I didn’t want to accidentally knock my fingers into something and ruin the paint job, so I sat there with my hands in the air as if I were being held up at gun point. Nonetheless, within twenty-four hours the paint began to chip off my nails. Sometime in the middle of applying the touch up coat I said to myself, “Self, why are you doing this?”

Why do people paint their nails? When did nail polish become a thing? I wondered this while sitting and letting my nails dry for the second time. According to Google it turns out that people have been painting or dyeing their nails since around 5000 BC. At that time it was done as a sign of social status. Around 3000 BC, Babylonian warriors colored their nails black which was an indicator of their warrior skill level. Modern day liquid nail polish was invented sometime in the 1910s. Evidently the first color of liquid nail polish was a rose tint which became very popular and eventually the nail polish exploded and now you can get your nails painted basically any color under the sun.

While Google was helpful with my wonderings, it didn’t answer the question of why I wanted to paint my nails. I only sometimes paint my nails, it’s not a constant for me. Sometimes I’m just in the mood. I do feel that painted fingernails make my large, mannish hands look more feminine. When my nails are painted I generally let them grow longer and then thoroughly enjoy the loud clicking noises I can make with them on a keyboard or a desktop or even the bathroom sink. In the end I guess it is a thing I do because it makes me feel pretty, but that strikes me as odd. If an alien were to observe the nail painting it would most likely note the “strange custom of altering the color of the sharp bits of the fingertips for no discernable purpose, investigate further”. I am totally pro-manicure, but it’s a weird little custom.

To be fair, though, I do not understand most things people do to achieve beauty. Actually, that isn’t true. I fully understand the desire to pursue and maintain one’s outward appearance. What I do not understand are the rules and tools that get you to a well-maintained outward appearance. The basics I get: hair washing and brushing, the removal of body hair to align with social norms, in general being clean and having good hygiene. These are all things that I understand and can achieve, at least on the days that I am leaving the apartment.

The thing that truly baffles me is skin care. It is a thing I know I am supposed to do, but I do not know how.

My workplace is relatively diverse and I’ve participated in conversations about skincare with people of all difference races. During these conversations I have overheard the phrases “Black don’t crack” and “Asians don’t raisin”, statements that people in these conversations generally accept as truth. I am neither Black nor Asian, but am a pasty white female with a tendency to burn at the mere mention of sunlight. I am certain that I will both crack and raisin given the opportunity and enough time. This leads me to believe that I need to step up my skincare game, but I am at a loss for what to do.

This is not for lack of trying. One of my coworkers was once giving away a whole line of skincare because she didn’t like the smell of the products. I did like the smell and happily accepted the free gift as if I knew the first thing about using the stuff. Thankfully though, my work wife came through and walked me through the steps. All told the nighttime routine involved four steps, five if I wanted to use eye cream as well. The morning routine was a mere three steps, assuming I wasn’t going to put on any makeup afterwards.

I think I lasted about two weeks of following the routines regularly before I went back to my old tricks of applying skincare products when I remembered: approximately once every two to three days. The simple truth is that other than washing my face regularly and putting on moisturizer when my skin feels dry, I don’t see the point or understand what any of these products are allegedly doing for me. It just seems like a lot of time wasted applying multiple types of goo of varying viscosity to my face.

A year or so ago my therapist told me I should get massages to help with my stress levels. I love her and what she says goes, so I started going to get a massage every month. Being that I am privileged enough to have some disposable income, I chose to dispose of some of it on a membership to a spa chain that, in addition to massage, provides facial services. And I was concerned about my lack of knowledge about skincare, so one day I scheduled a facial for right after my massage.

The first question the esthetician asked me was, “How is your skin?” I was baffled. How does one answer that question? “Fine”? “Still attached, thanks”? “My skin is great, how is yours”? Finally I muttered something about it being a little dry and she bustled around getting all kinds of lotions and potions to smooth onto my face for the next hour. While she did explain some of the things she did during the facial, mostly at the end of it my skin was the same except a little brighter and slicked down with an even coat of goo. Still, I figured, a monthly add-on to my skin care regimen was better than continuing to not do anything for my face as I was.

And so I go every month. After my therapist-recommended massage, I proceed across the hall and let a kind young woman poke and prod at my face. She applies goop, lets it sit, and then wipes it off. Sometimes she applies goop and then shines a light on it for a while and then wipes it off. Sometimes she vacuums the dead cells off my face with a little machine that sounds like the dentist’s suction tube having a hissy fit. Then she applies more goop, lets it sit, and then wipes it off. Always I leave looking a little brighter, a little goopier, and feeling like I’ve done something good for my face at least once that month.

The facials do make me feel good and, dare I say, even make me feel pretty for a while afterwards. I feel like I am taking some small action to better care for my skin, or at least that section of my skin. But one thought is always with me both at the spa and at home in my bathroom mirror when I slather on a night cream or some SPF: I am merely delaying the inevitable. God willing I will live long enough to achieve old age. What is it I expect then? To still have the skin of a thirty year old? What exactly would having young looking skin get me that I couldn’t also get with old looking skin? Other than amazed comments from people who are wrapped up only in appearances, of course. “You’re eighty-nine? Wow, you don’t look a day over thirty-two!” That would be bizarre and creepy, to be frank. If I actually make it to eighty-nine, I’d like to look like I earned the part.

We all want to achieve beauty, but who is to say what counts as beauty? It seems we’ve decided as a society that flawless and young-looking skin is beautiful by definition. Anything else is not necessarily bad, but it’s not the goal. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, they say. This is generally accepted to mean that beauty is subjective - everyone has their own opinion about what is beautiful.

Well, in Dungeons & Dragons a beholder is a spherical aberration with a giant eye and a bunch of eyestalks that have magical powers and can really fuck up or even kill your party of adventurers. Believe me, you do not want a beholder looking at you. Nothing good can come of it.

Not my artwork…

This is how I like to think about the beholder who sets the standard for beauty: a big ugly monster that is best killed before it destroys you. I mean, really, who cares what that guy thinks?

In the case of personal beauty we should be our own beholders. Not the kind with the eyestalks, but the kind who sees beauty subjectively and doesn’t score based on societal norms. I paint my nails and get facials because doing those things make me feel pretty. While I don’t mind the compliments if someone else should tell me I look pretty, in truth I do these things for me. It is not to indicate my social status or to tell the world how awesome of a warrior I am. It is not because I feel like I am supposed to get manicures or facials. These things make me feel better about myself, which is worth all the money and the goop and the chipped fingernail polish.

At the end of the day I know that if I live long enough I will shrivel up, wrinkle, look old, and eventually die. I see no point in fighting it and firmly believe that if I do make it to a ripe old age I will still be beautiful. Because old people are beautiful! And so shall I be, dammit. Maybe not in the eyes of society at large, but in my own eyes, which matters way more.

Always has and always will.