I'm feeling bored, so I think I'll continue my beauty biography.
Part two: High school years
In high school, I continued to love television: Luke and Laura on
General Hospital, Knots Landing, Dynasty, mini series. I wanted to be beautiful and to have top grades in school. I was quiet, and a loner, and I don't regret it! I liked a pale pink powder blush, a concealer, and a pale pink lip gloss. I adored beauty books and magazines. My favorite treats were watching television and going to the library. I made my parents take me to every branch library in town. I made a beeline for the beauty book shelf (646 in the Dewey Decimal System). I adored beauty books and I collected all I could get. I also haunted used book stores for them. Some of my favorites were:
- A Year of Beauty and Health by Beverly and Vidal Sassoon. This was an extraordinary book. The legendary English hairdresser and his glamorous wife created a guide with a special chapter for every month. They also provided a beauty regimen with a long list of daily and weekly tasks. The regimen was involved, but I worked hard at following it. I believe the Sassoons helped me to learn to be organized in my life, and the self discipline I gained following their fun but demanding regimen carried over into my school work. They were a big influence on me.
- The Natural Way to Super Beauty by Mary Ann Crenshaw. Ms. Crenshaw was the beauty editor at The New York Times, and wrote a detailed book with interesting and fun personal anecdotes about being a patient of Dr. Atkins and Erno Laszlo, and some of her beauty problems and mishaps. I absolutely love her writing style, and still have her autobiography, End of the Rainbow.
- The Beautiful People's Beauty Book by Princess Luciana Pignatelli. This was a book I found in the library, from the early 1970's. In it, a beautiful Italian princess wrote of how she felt plain as a child, but made herself over to become a famous beauty, then shared the secrets of her glamorous friends, like Sophia Loren. I adored the book, and the Princess was like a reassuring friend to me.
I loved Thursday night, which was grocery shopping night. On grocery shopping night, I would be allowed to get a new shampoo, or a beauty magazine. I loved beauty magazines also. A favorite was
Sophisticate's Hairstyle Guide, which always covered the beauty secrets of the stars. I mainly used Maybelline, Cover Girl, and Revlon makeup. For Christmas, I would get lots of cosmetics of course, and always a new curling iron. I would style my hair every day before school.
Part three: College
During my college years, I made friends with a girl who loved beauty as much as I did. We went to the mall and out to eat all the time. I did not have any credit cards yet, thank goodness, so I did not buy a lot, but I was in love with the glamorous beauty counters at the department stores. If only I could afford to buy Clinique, Estee Lauder, and Lancome, I thought, then I would be beautiful. I thought the department store cosmetics surely must be magic, as they were expensive and locked up under glass like fine jewelry. I longed for them. I was doing so well academically, I was successful, but felt unhappy with my appearance. I had cystic acne for years. Sometimes I would aggravate the condition by scrubbing too much with products like Aapri Apricot Facial Scrub, or Buf-Puf. A dermatologist had me on antibiotics. I discovered that the best thing for my skin was Neutrogena acne soap bar, and that many beauty products aggravated my condition. I wanted to be older and able to use glamorous wrinkle creams from Europe, luxury skin care, and not acne soap.
Part four: Graduate school
I loved academic work, and headed to a large university for several years of graduate school. In the university library, I could read every issue of
Vogue, Bazaar, Seventeen, Mademoiselle and French magazines from the 1940's to the present. I spent hours lost in this magical world. My favorite was 60's
Vogue, a gorgeous fantasy I went on study abroad to England, and had a ball shopping in Boots for all of the French and British products not available in the US.
Part five: The real world, and the bad times begin
This is where the sadness and buying too much begins.
I've never been as successful and happy in the "real world" as I was in my academic days. Like many, I found myself with a large education loan, and a not so great career. I undertook stressful jobs that made me unhappy, and I began to use credit cards because my large school loans ate much of my small paychecks. I would escape to the mall and go on shopping sprees, and I would get all of the cosmetics I longed for. I would also go out to eat. But sadly I did not enjoy all of the nice things I bought. I did not use them all, and often decluttered excessively to alleviate feelings of anxiety and guilt over buying too much. The decluttering never helped, and I just hurt myself by getting rid of my nice things. I would feel disappointed in my products, and did not give the creams time to work, or give myself time to learn to use the makeup. I would try them, declutter them, and then buy more. I truly feel I am a "shopaholic" or "compulsive shopper". I also was never satisfied, no matter how much I bought. I would buy something with a fabulous bonus at a beauty counter, and then I would see another bonus on the way out at another counter, and stop to get it too.
I remember discovering Birchbox in 2010. When subscription boxes began, I thought I had found the answer! I could get new cosmetics all the time, while not spending much. The problem was, then there were a million sub boxes, and I had to try them all. I would compulsively sign up for boxes and then cancel, over and over. Instead of serving as a simpler alternative to my shopping, as I had hoped, the sub boxes turned out to be just as overwhelming as the regular marketplace.
Part six: The answer
I am so grateful for the Internet, and for everyone who has contributed to the no buy and panning community online. For me, this appears to be the answer. After several attempts, I have been on no buy for almost half a year. This has helped me on many levels:
- It has helped me to enjoy products more. I never enjoyed all the lovely cosmetics I was lucky enough to have in my younger years. I was overly perfectionist and had a negative body image, so I'd feel disappointed in the products and cosmetics, though they were lovely. In the no buy mindset, my goal is to use every bit of a product. This takes the pressure off of the result having to be perfect. I stick with a product until it's done, and I give it the maximum chance. I don't keep checking in the mirror to see the result, but instead focus on emptying the container. When I empty a product I feel satisfied, then happen to catch a glimpse in my mirror and realize that my skin does look a little nicer.
- We did not have the no buy, project pan community when I was younger. How this might have helped my younger self. I wish I could go back and pan all those lovely things I had and wasted, and did not enjoy. How much money I would have saved. I would not have as many debts now, and I may have done better in school and my career.
Part seven: Future plans
I plan to continue on my no buy/project pan forever. I will buy things only when I need to replace them. This gives me built in boundaries, which I need. I hope to become debt free one day. In future I would like to incorporate a more holistic regimen of self care into my no buy. For years, I substituted buying for taking care of myself. I have a plan, for example, to motivate myself to undertake needed dental work by panning lip products. When I start dental treatment, I'll be able to use the lovely lip balms I have been hoarding, and then when the work is complete, I can pan all my nice lipsticks. I also hope to one day incorporate healthy eating into my plan. In short, I feel happy on my plan and if I could turn back time, I would have done this a long time ago! It has helped me on so many levels: improved finances, greater peace of mind, increased enjoyment of cosmetics. I do sometimes miss the activity of going out shopping, but even if I could, shopping retail is not the same as it used to be. Retail is in decline in my area. It is for me a bygone era.