I find myself recently feeling genuinely resentful about having to do any sort of grooming. This is weird because I used to be very, very into grooming. When I was 16 I woke up at 0600 in order to shower, wash and dry hair and apply make-up before my 45 minute commute to school. Every day! And Saturday! It was a borderline Satanic ritual and honestly I am amazed at my energy to do such things.
My patience with this sort of caper died in my mid-twenties, when I realised I needed to make peace with my face as it was, au naturel, and not feel like I had to draw a new one on every morning. And then, later, I stopped washing my hair all the time because it was making it fall out. And now I have to be really careful about not collapsing into a soggy, gross North London mess with coarse hair and gnarly feet and e.g. a chipped tooth I can’t be bothered to sort out.
But grooming is such a bore! The wet, sunless weather recently hasn’t helped. My skin is grey and tired, I am constantly wrapped in layer and layers of technical fabric, I am too impatient to moisturise anything. I feel like I have earned the right to go about the place bare-faced and the world has to just suck it up. But, it is bad manners to look a mess. Accompanying my husband to smart restaurants taught me that: other diners have paid money out of taxed income to be there, showing up in a messy topknot and my second best jeans is plain rude.
The things that need urgent attention are: my hair and my feet. For my hair, which is looking very frizzy at the ends and sort of wiry at the top, I applied this conditioner to it for 3 minutes - which is a good product for MATURE hair, and we all know that MATURE is a euphemism for GOING GREY don’t we - and that is what it is good for. I also applied Keratase Oleo Relax to my damp hair, which I know is a brilliant product and I fell out of using it for some reason, I don’t know why. Anyway my hair is now flippy and glossy as a show pony.
My feet are a work in progress. I give them a swipe with a foot file when I can be arsed, which is about once a week, and then another once a week pay actual attention to them with nail clippers and a file rather than snipping at them angrily and jaggedly with kitchen scissors for 10 seconds while shouting at my children to brush their teeth.
I don’t really like those thick foot creams, I use good old Vaseline Intensive care - the pink one for hands and nails. I have also recently been using a very hydrating face oil (feet, face? Who cares!) on my feet, but any old oil will do: something like this if you really mean it, but also almond oil from a chemist is fine. A manicurist once told me that massaging the cuticles quite firmly and the nail bed is key for nail health. I do this and my nails and cuticles are pretty damn healthy, I must say (also puffy and tiny and ugly, so swings and roundabouts).
Where are you at the moment with grooming? Can you still be arsed? Please leave a comment in the handy box below.
Eyebrows. I horrified myself by looking in a magnifying mirror one morning and realised that my mangled mess of eyebrow, with added moisturiser clogging up the works, made me look like a mad old man. Dug out an ancient mascara brush and started brushing my eyebrows every morning, just so as the hairs all go the same way you know and aren’t all manky with face stuff
I ran out of the time and the will for grooming when I had two babies very close together and moved from London to the country at the same time. I literally felt like I suddenly got wiped off the planet. But at the same time, during the night feed era I started to watch amazing make up tutorials on you tube by Lisa Eldridge. She takes grooming to the max and looks beautiful and amazing for her age. I was inspired to buy the products but for some reason could rarely be bothered to use them. My grooming now consist of DIY hair colour since lockdown. I use the same L’Oréal colour as my hairdresser - just on roots so it looks natural and not unicolour - and I save so much money and time as I need to do this every 3 weeks. It’s life changing. I started Botox 2 years ago because my eye brows started falling down and making me look angry. Which I am of course. It’s incredible what a difference it makes. Not Mr Spock…just returns them to where they were 10 years ago. I do that twice a year. When I look at “normal” groomed women with decent make up, hair and clothes and think they look great, look happy snd very much on top of their game. Whereas most of the time I now look tired, deranged and hopeless. So I really need to spend 10 minutes putting on make up and wearing some clothes that do more than just keep me warm for dog walks.