Your head or your closet

French women say that after your forties you have to choose between your head or your butt. My friend D changes that to say you have to make tough choices between head and closet. “All nice and well a new sweater of 300 euros from Isabel Marant, if this (she makes circles around her head with her finger) doesn’t look good, no one will look at it.”

You don’t have to tell me that it’s nice to present yourself a bit presentable. When I was younger, my mother calmly handed out corporal punishment if I left the house with wet hair. Moreover, I like to let the outside tell how things are going on the inside. But there comes a foreboding moment in your life when everything changes. And no one tells you when that will happen.

Like my friend M, who had dropped her children off at her parents, suddenly had a few hours free and decided to spend them at & Other Stories. She had heard good things about their makeup products and wanted to try them out. Suddenly she was confronted with the woman she saw in the mirror. “May. Seriously. It may have looked fresh and cute before, a makeup-free face. But now. This was just insulting to humanity. I looked like an exploded mop.” There was nothing else to do but shove the complete makeup line from & Other Stories into her bag and so she still arrived looking fabulous as always at her appointment.

I decided to grab my own beauty agenda. I’ll warn you. The content of this message may be experienced as shocking. Once a month I get my nails done. Preferably hands and feet. I often get photographed, even with my hands. I think it’s part of my job that they are a bit well-groomed. Then there’s the eyebrow project. I left that somewhere in the nineties. So I go to Roya in the hope that she can find them again. Then there’s my love Leco. I also spend a calm three hours there. But then we’re all caught up and have a good time. Furthermore, I go to Annelijn at the Velthuiskliniek twice a year for a fruit acid peel and then she immediately lasers away some red veins. Soon I’m going to ‘get braces’ and have to appear at the orthodontist every week.

It’s clear to me. Either I stop working soon but look very well-maintained, or I keep working and become a slob. You can choose.