You've Come a Long Way, Baby - Third and final installment of my saga!

Due to personal circumstances, I put college on hold for a while and went to work right out of high school.  Suddenly, I was took subway and worked in an office in the Garment Center in Manhattan's Midtown.

Skin care, make up and glamour had to become a priority in my life.  So armed with $100, I set out on an adventure that followed me through my 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's and...dare I say it...very early 60's. There is a saying that we cannot prevent the inevitable but we can certainly prolong the inevitable.  How do we do it?  How do we fight Mother Nature, Gravity and the Environment?  We didn't know about free radicals back then.

Genetics plays a big part and if you look around at your family, you can pretty much guess how well you will age.  Most of my life, I had oily skin, the kind that was impossible to control.  Over time, I was grateful for the oil in my skin because as we grow older, skin becomes drier.

I met a woman at one of the big skin care and makeup lines at Macy's who explained the importance of clean skin.  I shivered as I remembered my experience with Noxzema.  In the same way that an artist prepares his canvas with gesso and other ingredients to get the perfect surface on which to paint a masterpiece; we, too, must prepare the canvas or skin so that makeup looks flawless and complimentary to our natural beauty as we age.

Several years later, I visited Saks Fifth Avenue and was drawn to a skin care counter where beautiful women dressed in red and promoted products from France with plant extracts as their primary ingredient.  The scent of these products alone produced a feeling of beauty and wellness.  That day I graduated to a slightly higher end skin care line than the one I was using and over the years continue to use as part of my skin care regiment.  Clinique and Clarins products have remained constant staples in my life through ups and downs.

I now can spend more money on my skin care and mix and match many products that give me the anti-aging results that must be religiously, meticulously and continuously if we are going to "prolong" this process called aging.  I will share with your the results of my "experiments" with you over time.

I urge all young women to start their skin care early; it pays off in the end.  But...stay away from that Noxzema around the eyes!