Girl goop

It’s Friday and I think I’ll stay on schedule with write about self-care — and my endless quest to figure out what that means to ME.

I’ve never been what I call “a pink girl.” That term came to my brain when I was very young. Pink girls don’t climb trees. Pink girls’ hair always looks combed. They mysteriously knew that you matched nail polish to lipstick. Heck, they wear nail polish!* They knew the cool new Lip Smackers. They knew the right kind of sweater to wear with what sort of skirt and the appropriate shoes. Their pantyhose never got holes in them two seconds after arriving at school. They owned hairspray. Throughout the decades there have been the pink girls of my age bracket, and there has been me.

Sigh. Never even close to pink girl.
Photo: Unsplash.com

Some girls, the pink girls especially, have mothers who taught them skin care and fashion. My mother was clueless, and thank gawd she didn’t try to teach me makeup or fashion because the woman was just… not a pink girl either and had no taste. My older sister was clueless and useless. I was adrift with a lack of pinkness.

My young-me had oily skin. My older sister _{:glares at her:} had that gorgeous “I don’t have a pore and I never had a zit” pale white skin, with deep blue eyes and brown black hair. (And boobs. And long legs.) My younger sister had mild cystic acne (not much boobs, but yup, long legs). I was in between the two, as befitting the tortured middle child (not much boobs and too short legs for my trunk height).

As I’ve aged (which I deny with every breath I take! not. aged!) I still have kept the idea “I have oily skin.” Um. No. No, I don’t. It has gotten dry. I developed rosacea in my 40s. I always thought I had “strong” skin. I did. As a kid. I could pour whatever on it and it would go, “good grief. ok.” Now it is sensitive. Sigh. New England winters are not kind to that type of skin. Yet, I kept buying stuff for me in my twenties. If even buy stuff.

Photo: Unsplash.com

See above, mom never taught me skin care. I never learned it. I never had a routine. I never had a brand of “goop” to rely on.

I do now.

In the weeks to come, I will be discussing my new, pink girl-adjacent, self-care, adventures in goo. (Sorry male readers, but you know what? Y’all have pores, too! Your partners have to look at you. Is it so hard to pat stuff on yer faces? Hm? Is it?)

For someone who never had a routine, or cared, I ended up diving into the deep end of the pool. No floatie arm puffers for this girl. Nope, I will be discussing K-beauty. (Korean). I will be discussing glass skin and the ten billion steps. And the goo! The good, the bad and the wtf.

And guess what? I’ve been doing this for a few months, and I could so a do the before and after photo because the changes in my skin have been ah-mazing. Like 100% better. Perfect? Like my older sister’s? Oh fuck no. But it has never looked this good. I’ll share what I’m learning.

My 60-something skin is whining, “WTF TOOK YOU SO LONG???” followed by “oh thank you thank you.”

*This not-pink girl has been vindicated, in that it hasn’t been cool to be matchy-matchy in ages. I was just ahead of the curve…

Feature photo is my actual tray of (some) of the daily girl goop. It isn’t all used each day. 🙂 (But a lot of it is.)