beauty secrets
My mother has beautiful skin. She hardly has a wrinkle, and I am about to give you her secret! But I warn you, you might be grossed out.
First, a little background. My mother was a nurse and so she cares a lot about ingredients in food and medicines. She reads labels on everything. I can’t take her to the grocery store with me unless I want to spend a couple of hours while she reads labels. I whiz around the store only to find her on Aisle 2 reading. Drives me crazy!
So, decades ago she decided that the ingredients for Preparation H would work on her face to keep it moisterized and taut. I’m not kidding.
It apparently worked, because she looks great. I did not know, however, that she had changed her beauty regimen until recently when my best friend and I had a “sleep over” at her house with our mothers. Her mother is 91 and mine is 76.
Evelyn, the 91 year old, looked at my mom’s face and commented, “My! You have pretty skin!”
That was all it took to light my mother up. She went back to the bedroom and returned with her beauty secret in her hands.
“Mom!” I exclaimed, “Not the Preparation H again!”
“No!” she gave me the look of disapproval as only mothers can do. “It’s not Preparation H, it’s nipple cream!”
Jeanne and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“What?!” we cried.
“Well,” she explained, “It’s what breastfeeding mothers put on their nipples to heal the chapping and cracking. Here, try some.”
She made us all take a dab into our palm, and like someone demonstrating a product on QVC, she showed us how to pat it on our skin. I didn’t do it, because I have never gotten over the fact that she told me that the blackheads on my nose when I was a teenager would go away on their own. So I don’t follow her beauty tips, but I had a lot of fun watching the others. And thanks to my stubbornness, I do not have such beautiful skin as mom’s.
When our mother daughter slumber party was about to end, Evelyn looked over at my mom and asked, “Are my wrinkles gone yet?”
We held our sides laughing. Then I had an idea. “Evelyn, you know what I want for my birthday?” I asked.
“What?” she looked puzzled.
“No, this doesn’t have to be a gift. I will PAY you to go to the pharmacy with Jeanne video taping your visit. I just have to see the pharmicist’s face when you ask him where you can find the nipple cream!”
More laughter.
She still has not taken me up on my dare. But I’m still hoping.
Elaine White 
Leave a comment