Drooping earlobes, a sagging jaw and hooded lids: indignities you don’t have to live with
Aug 02, 2011 Posted by Martha Drezin
Recently, I was complaining to a friend that I have trouble accepting my age, so much so, that I usually try to hide it. I frequently use the minus ten technique. To wit, when asked to fill in my age, I simply deduct ten years. If someone asks me: “How old are your children?” I also deduct the requisite ten.
My friend retorted, “Well, I was young once and now I’m not; I don’t try to hide it. And then the stinger: “But I’m not vain.”
She meant that I’m vain. You bet I am. Trouble is that vain people are usually considered superficial, frivolous, self-centered and otherwise unworthy. But let’s reconsider vanity, especially in women who are not spring chickens. Take my aging mother. When I saw her a week ago, she was wearing a tailored white linen blouse and wide black linen pants accessorized by a small garnet pendant on a silver chain. Her silvery hair was perfectly groomed. She had a touch of eye liner, blush and a flattering shade of lipstick. She is a frequent flyer at Lord & Taylor and a regular at the Clinique counter. She provides many pleasures, not the least of which is how she looks. So much for the evils of vanity.
The August issue of Vogue showcases three vain women who describe what they did when certain body parts fell. For each of these women the fallen part was an Achilles Heel, a source of humiliation and shame that was unacceptable.
We all live through betrayals, including cheating husbands, disloyal friends or colleagues that take credit for your ideas. But for some, there’s nothing worse than having a reliable body part that lets you down. Though some things rise, like sun, corn, debt, weeds, and expectations, other things drop, including foreheads, eyelids, noses, jaws and breasts. You get the picture.
For arts writer, Dodie Kazanjian, it was her excessively long earlobes. This was brought home to her when she saw the “monumental, trembling” earlobes of 94-year-old Kirk Douglas at the Academy Awards. She reasoned that she and Kirk “would fit right in with the Rapa Nui of Easter Island who practice earlobe stretching.”
Kazanjian went to a dermatologist, hoping that some kind of injection would help. The dermatologist said he could plump up earlobes with Juvederm, but to reduce them would take the skill of a plastic surgeon. The plastic surgeon suggested surgical earlobe reduction, which costs between $2000 and $2500 an ear and takes about 30 minutes per lobe. So far, Kazanjian is torn between surgery and a pair of large JAR clip earrings, which will actually cost much more than the surgery.
Marina Rust, style icon, is blasé about most dropping body parts. She reasons that saggy knees can be covered with a longer skirt and wrinkled elbows with a three-quarter length sleeve. Not so the jaw. Rust’s jaw had become jowly. Rust saw an aesthetician who performed a “Platinum Lift,” draining toxins, water and general sludge that accumulate in that area. Rust also discovered that alcohol enlarges the parotid gland, making your face puffy.
Not quite satisfied with the work of the aesthetician, Rust saw a plastic surgeon who suggested a “natural lift” in which an internal ultrasound probe tightens the skin and melts excess fat, which is then removed via liposuction. Rust was not convinced. Another plastic surgeon delivered the bottom line: “As we age the platysma muscle over the lower cheek along the jawbone loses definition and sags.” Solution: jaw rejuvenation surgery, which lifts and redrapes the muscle, carrying a ten-year guarantee of a youthful tight jawline. Rust is still weighing her options.
Forty-five year old journalist Jancee Dunn thought she looked great until she revealed her age to someone who replied with a polite, “Oh.” The indignity was compounded when she applied eyeshadow and her eyelid skin moved, along with the brush. First, she tried Botox to her brows, hoping the lift would include her drooping eyelids, but no such luck. She then researched the fractional CO2 eyelift and found a doctor who suggested periorbital resurfacing in which a beam creates columns of tiny holes in the upper eyelid. Essentially, the laser injures the skin, which sends the body’s natural healing system into overdrive, encouraging collagen to grow. As the skin heals, it grows tighter and the brow lifts, kind of like shrink wrapping.
Dunn underwent this procedure, and the next day her eyelids were stippled like corduroy. Two weeks later the slack skin around her lids had retracted a bit as if a shade had been pulled up. By the fourth and final appointment, Dunn was elated. The area above her lids was smooth and toned and Dunn looks fresh awake, alert and toned.
The next time someone accuses you of vanity, say, “Yes, thank goodness” with a clear conscious. Any improvement you make on yourself simply beautifies the environment.
My friend retorted, “Well, I was young once and now I’m not; I don’t try to hide it. And then the stinger: “But I’m not vain.”
She meant that I’m vain. You bet I am. Trouble is that vain people are usually considered superficial, frivolous, self-centered and otherwise unworthy. But let’s reconsider vanity, especially in women who are not spring chickens. Take my aging mother. When I saw her a week ago, she was wearing a tailored white linen blouse and wide black linen pants accessorized by a small garnet pendant on a silver chain. Her silvery hair was perfectly groomed. She had a touch of eye liner, blush and a flattering shade of lipstick. She is a frequent flyer at Lord & Taylor and a regular at the Clinique counter. She provides many pleasures, not the least of which is how she looks. So much for the evils of vanity.
The August issue of Vogue showcases three vain women who describe what they did when certain body parts fell. For each of these women the fallen part was an Achilles Heel, a source of humiliation and shame that was unacceptable.
We all live through betrayals, including cheating husbands, disloyal friends or colleagues that take credit for your ideas. But for some, there’s nothing worse than having a reliable body part that lets you down. Though some things rise, like sun, corn, debt, weeds, and expectations, other things drop, including foreheads, eyelids, noses, jaws and breasts. You get the picture.
For arts writer, Dodie Kazanjian, it was her excessively long earlobes. This was brought home to her when she saw the “monumental, trembling” earlobes of 94-year-old Kirk Douglas at the Academy Awards. She reasoned that she and Kirk “would fit right in with the Rapa Nui of Easter Island who practice earlobe stretching.”
Kazanjian went to a dermatologist, hoping that some kind of injection would help. The dermatologist said he could plump up earlobes with Juvederm, but to reduce them would take the skill of a plastic surgeon. The plastic surgeon suggested surgical earlobe reduction, which costs between $2000 and $2500 an ear and takes about 30 minutes per lobe. So far, Kazanjian is torn between surgery and a pair of large JAR clip earrings, which will actually cost much more than the surgery.
Marina Rust, style icon, is blasé about most dropping body parts. She reasons that saggy knees can be covered with a longer skirt and wrinkled elbows with a three-quarter length sleeve. Not so the jaw. Rust’s jaw had become jowly. Rust saw an aesthetician who performed a “Platinum Lift,” draining toxins, water and general sludge that accumulate in that area. Rust also discovered that alcohol enlarges the parotid gland, making your face puffy.
Not quite satisfied with the work of the aesthetician, Rust saw a plastic surgeon who suggested a “natural lift” in which an internal ultrasound probe tightens the skin and melts excess fat, which is then removed via liposuction. Rust was not convinced. Another plastic surgeon delivered the bottom line: “As we age the platysma muscle over the lower cheek along the jawbone loses definition and sags.” Solution: jaw rejuvenation surgery, which lifts and redrapes the muscle, carrying a ten-year guarantee of a youthful tight jawline. Rust is still weighing her options.
Forty-five year old journalist Jancee Dunn thought she looked great until she revealed her age to someone who replied with a polite, “Oh.” The indignity was compounded when she applied eyeshadow and her eyelid skin moved, along with the brush. First, she tried Botox to her brows, hoping the lift would include her drooping eyelids, but no such luck. She then researched the fractional CO2 eyelift and found a doctor who suggested periorbital resurfacing in which a beam creates columns of tiny holes in the upper eyelid. Essentially, the laser injures the skin, which sends the body’s natural healing system into overdrive, encouraging collagen to grow. As the skin heals, it grows tighter and the brow lifts, kind of like shrink wrapping.
Dunn underwent this procedure, and the next day her eyelids were stippled like corduroy. Two weeks later the slack skin around her lids had retracted a bit as if a shade had been pulled up. By the fourth and final appointment, Dunn was elated. The area above her lids was smooth and toned and Dunn looks fresh awake, alert and toned.
The next time someone accuses you of vanity, say, “Yes, thank goodness” with a clear conscious. Any improvement you make on yourself simply beautifies the environment.