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Can’t get enough Valerie Monroe? There’s more at https://valeriemonroe.substack.com.
By Valerie Monroe
If you’re interested in feeling happier about your appearance—especially as you age—you might like reading what she has to say about it. For more of her philosophical and practical advice, subscribe for free to How Not to F*ck Up Your Face at valeriemonroe.substack.com
I RECENTLY sent three questions to a handful of especially wise, generous women to get their advice on various beauty-related issues. I hope you find their answers elucidating—or at least amusing. (Vaseline? Who knew?)
E. Jean Carroll, icon, activist, and author of the Substack Ask E. Jean
Q: You’re going to a desert island and can take only one beauty product. The elders on this island provide sunscreen for free. What’s in your bag?
A: 89 jars of Vaseline.
Q: On this island, a woman over the age of 60 is considered a sibyl. What do you want to tell the younger people who revere you about being older? (If you’re not yet 60, pretend.)
A: The older you get, the better you get—cuz after six decades, you give a crap less.
Q: There’s a mountain like Rushmore on this island, as yet un-etched, waiting to display the faces of four people you hold as templates for aging with dedication to conscious choices and style. Who are your candidates?
A: Miss Val, I fall in love minute-by-minute with every brilliant person who comes my way, so my Rushmore is a moving picture.
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Heidi Waldorf, Md., HNTFUYF’s resident DermDiva and dermatologist at Waldorf Dermatology
Q: You’re going to a desert island and can take only one beauty product. The elders on this island provide sunscreen for free. What’s in your bag?
A: I love that the elders provide sunscreen! This is easy for me: Vaseline. It’s the Swiss Army Knife of topicals: It moisturizes head to toe; removes makeup—or more likely on an island, sticky sap or dirt; and it heals wounds.
Q: On this island, a woman over the age of 60 is considered a sibyl. What do you want to tell the younger people who revere you about being older? (If you’re not yet 60, pretend.)
I like this island more and more! I’ll be 59 in January, so it’s not hard to imagine 60. The great thing at this age is you’ve experienced the spectrum of life from very good to very bad and have learned to know the difference. Peer pressure is meaningless. You know yourself and what matters to you, and can act accordingly. You realize other people’s actions are more about them than you. In summary: Your mom was probably right about everything!
Q: There’s a mountain like Rushmore on this island, as yet un-etched, waiting to display the faces of four people you hold as templates for aging with dedication to conscious choices and style. Who are your candidates?
A:
Eleanor Roosevelt, for her advocacy for civil and human rights. She wasn’t hindered by not fitting into society’s definition of beauty, nor by her personal disappointments. Plus, she’s behind many of the quotes on my favorite coffee mugs.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Beyond the obvious, she was my mom’s professor at Columbia Law School and became a mentor.
My mom, Geraldine P. Waldorf, was my hero—the most loving, ethical, honest, supportive, strong, and silly person I’ve ever known. Sadly, she died at 67. But until then, she focused on living a healthy life, not on trying to look younger.
Ma grandmère extraordinaire, my maternal grandma, lived a happy, loving life of nearly 99 years. She was 5 feet but wore huge chandelier necklaces and large rings, which I joked were her only weight training. To the end, she didn’t feel dressed without lipstick and polished fingernails. Still, she was always willing to throw on a pair of Minion goggles for a photo.
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Joan Juliet Buck, former Editor-in-Chief of Vogue France and author of the memoir The Price of Illusion.
Q: You’re going to a desert island and can take only one beauty product. The elders on this island provide sunscreen for free. What’s in your bag?
A: Since the elders have access to unlimited sunscreen, they must also have access to the discontinued Laura Mercier Twilight Gray eyeshadow. If they don’t, I’ll make do with the Laura Mercier Plum Smoke Eyeshadow. (Why am I giving so many plugs to Laura Mercier?) I know the value of a bit of contour on the eyelids.I assume my gua sha tool doesn’t count as a beauty product, but as a tool—like an adze, ax, or a digging fork. It’s invaluable to keep the lymph moving in my arms, legs, and face. Because the secret to beauty is movement. Particularly the movement of lazy lymph.
Q: On this island, a woman over the age of 60 is considered a sibyl. What do you want to tell the younger people who revere you about being older? (If you’re not yet 60, pretend.)
A: Don’t go anywhere near Botox. Your children won’t able to read your facial expressions and will go mad with uncomprehending solitude. Your partners, gently inured to an inexpressive face, will move on to inflatable dolls. There will be much anger at me for speaking out against Botox.
Q: There’s a mountain like Rushmore on this island, as yet un-etched, waiting to display the faces of four people you hold as templates for aging with dedication to conscious choices and style. Who are your candidates?
A:
The mother of architect Richard Rogers: Dada Geiringer—the first old lady I ever saw with very short hair and Issey Miyake clothes. The power in her refusal of ornament!
Georgia O’Keeffe, because of course.
Charlotte Rampling, because she’s all present.
Isak Dinesen (a.k.a. Karen Blixen), because there she was smoking her cigarettes and writing her books, despite the syphilis her husband gave her.
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Laurie Stone, author of Streaming Now: Postcards from the Thing That Is Happening and the Substack Everything Is Personal
Q: You’re going to a desert island and can take only one beauty product. The elders on this island provide sunscreen for free. What’s in your bag?
A: Witch hazel for my eyes. The witch hazel is to wipe off the Preparation H I won’t have with me, but maybe it’ll activate a cellular memory.
Q: On this island, a woman over the age of 60 is considered a sibyl. What do you want to tell the younger people who revere you about being older? (If you’re not yet 60, pretend.)
A: Dear younger humans, it’s thrilling to be your sibyl. I hope you will take what I’m about to tell you seriously. There is nothing, nothing whatsoever essential about moving through time, or having time move through you. Wisdom is not a real thing. It’s like potential or inner beauty. They are words for things that don’t exist.
There is no reason you should imagine being my age, and even though I was once your age, it was a different time I lived in and so I can’t with any authority say I know anything about your existence. If you get to be my age, soon to be 77 if a giant rock doesn’t fall on my head, you find out you are going to look like shit in relative terms. There is no trade at the end of the looking-like-shit train. You don’t gain wisdom, because wisdom is not a real thing. There is entropy and getting funnier, because the things that shocked you the first time they happened, like someone dumping you or lying to you, the things that shocked you and pained you can’t be shocking when they repeat themselves over and over. You aren’t broken, and you therefore don’t need to be fixed. If it would make you happy to think my life has an arc, like the plot of a bad novel, then my arc is: I used to be, and I still am.
Q: There’s a mountain like Rushmore on this island, as yet un-etched, waiting to display the faces of four people you hold as templates for aging with dedication to conscious choices and style. Who are your candidates?
A:
Helen Mirren for being sexy at every age. She is just a walking piece of sex.
Then three dancers: Twyla Tharp, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Merce Cunningham, because they sculpted their bodies and then wore them like clothes.
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Lucy McBride, Md., primary care physician, host of the podcast Beyond the Prescription, and author of the Substack Are You Okay?
Q: You’re going to a desert island and can take only one beauty product. The elders on this island provide sunscreen for free. What’s in your bag?
A: Cetaphil Daily Facial Cleanser.
Q: On this island, a woman over the age of 60 is considered a sibyl. What do you want to tell the younger people who revere you about being older? (If you’re not yet 60, pretend.)
A: As a doctor, I recommend prioritizing sleep, eating healthy, exercising regularly, and spending time in nature. I also suggest journaling, mindfulness techniques, and leaning into joy whenever possible!
Q: There’s a mountain like Rushmore on this island, as yet un-etched, waiting to display the faces of four people you hold as templates for aging with dedication to conscious choices and style. Who are your candidates?
A:
Angela Bassett
Helen Mirren
Sally Field
My mom! All are beautiful from the inside out.
