On Vanity

Every day I looked in the mirror this week, I was repeatedly confronted by the flashes of silver highlights peeking out at my roots. Those little silver buggers did not get the memo. They are not welcome on my head. I pay to have them replaced by brown ones, red ones and blond ones. My daughters received an illuminated, magnifying mirror for Christmas and I made the BIG mistake of peering into it. I do not recommend doing this because at this point I was also confronted by little dark hairs above my upper lip. My regular mirror is much more kind and does not enthusiastically show them to me. These ones above my lip are slow learners. They don't understand that dark hair is only welcome on my head. I have regularly plastered my upper lip with a fluffy white bleach concoction to lighten them up, but they still persist.

So after I dragged my butt out of bed this morning, I cracked open two boxes that stock my vanity. One magical little box will tame those nasty silver highlights. The other will lighten the dark ones above my lip. And I am quite a sight to see when I apply both at the same time. The first time I came downstairs with my hair in disarray with brown, wet roots and an upper lip that looked like I slipped when I was brushing my teeth, Bob literally gasped.

If I thought that silver hair and a dark moustache was attractive, life would be a lot simpler, however, I don't. I also don't like the extra hairs that thicken up my eyebrows or the one lone "horse hair" that grows to the right of my chin.

Growing up I always remember my mom telling me you have to "suffer" to look beautiful. This comes from one of the most naturally beautiful women you will ever meet. Suffering is an exaggeration. It's just more of an inconvenience to have to do some fine-tuning occassionally. Fine-tuning involves bleaching, plucking and dying and basically it all involves hair.

My mom's mom must have told her the same thing, because my beautiful little Portuguese vavo dyed her hair until the day she died. I don't know if this was at her daughters' insistence or her own, but I am betting it was her own. We always joke how every time she would look through a pile of pictures, she would always stop at any of herself, gaze admiringly and comment on how good she looked in the picture. I say this with much affection. Her hair never betrayed her age.

Now I have daughters of my own and as I hear my mother's voice coming from my mouth on occasion, I have encouraged them to fine-tune occasionally. To them that means brushing their hair, teeth and shaving their armpits. Being the athletes that they are, they are quite comfortable jumping out of the shower, throwing their wet hair into the dreaded Wilma Flintstone bun (drives us crazy), throwing on a pair of sweatpants (with the waistband rolled down) and a hoody. I envy how comfortable they are with their natural beauty. I do tell them regularly how naturally beautiful they are and to love their bodies. I try not to tell them what the years and having kids can do to your body. That would be cruel. There have been some mother-daughter lip bleaching sessions and eyebrow training, but when it comes to vanity, that ship has appeared to have sailed right now. And that is fine with me. (Gotta go rinse my hair now.)