Hey, the TV really does tell the truth

I’ve been living without TV for a couple of months now. PBS is one of four channels I can see on my cable-less television, and it’s reception is the clearest. So this weekend, I found myself watching a PBS show on skincare.

The show featured a “medical doctor from Cornell University”, who talked about skin and what you could do to reverse the aging process. There were a few easy steps, she said, and you just needed to give yourself five minutes a day to see improvement.

- You needed to clean your skin with a serum that the skin could absorb.

I have no idea what that means.

- You also had to use a toner.

Whenever I buy toner, I’m convinced for about three days that this is the missing link to my next Vogue cover. Then it sits in the back of my cabinet, unused, for approximately three years. Feh. I decide to skip the toner.

- Then there was something about a cream.... or a moisturizer, or a lipid-based serum, ...and then "sealing your skin with a water-based serum" ...or cream.

Again, I have no idea where we’re going with this serum stuff.

Pass.

She then discussed the merits of exfoliation. With a brush. Ow. She talked about the damage your skin can amass; liver spots, lines, wrinkles, enormous pores, thin skin, sagging skin, sallow skin…. Jeez. I get up and peer into my bathroom mirror. My skin is fine.

The medical doctor from Cornell was wearing a nicely tailored suit, a string of pearls, and she had long, curled, blonde hair pulled off her face. She spoke softly and gently and used a lot of small, sweeping hand gestures in which I could picture countless, toner-laden cotton balls.

“How old do you think I am?” she asked the camera and her studio audience.

I looked at her long, curling, blonde hair that was a blatant attempt to look like a six-year old.

“Fifty-five”, I thought to myself. She’s in a panic about her age, obviously. And who wears pearls? And that hair! Get an age-appropriate haircut! What are you, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman?

“I am fifty-two years old”, she announced, proudly. I mentally shaved her head.

Later that night, I’m getting ready for bed, and I decide to devote five minutes of my day to reversing the aging process of my skin. I skim through the doctor’s list in my mind. Cleansing… blah, blah, blah… exfoliation…. serum, lipid, pass, pass. I pick up a washcloth and some soap and I decide to wash the makeup off my face before I go to bed.

The next day, I get up, stumble into the bathroom, flick on the switch… and I am aglow. My pores are refined, my cheeks are rosy, and I don’t have eyeliner and smeared mascara all over my face.

Thank you, television.