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Mirror, mirror on the wall...
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___Men have it easy. No curling iron (Mark doesn’t even need a hair dryer anymore thanks to his lack of hair); no special face soaps, facemasks or moisturizing face lotions; no eyebrow tweezers (although I hear nose hair tweezers come in handy as they get older) and last but certainly not least--no
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ALISON WINGFIELD
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makeup.
___No wonder it takes me longer to get ready to go somewhere. Just taking out and (usually) putting away all my bathroom paraphernalia consumes more time than Mark’s whole routine. I must admit, I do get some degree of pleasure in buying all this stuff. Clinique bonus sales get me every time.
___If we were back in the Regency days in England, at least it would have taken Mark as long to complete his toilette is if we were so lucky to be part of the nobility. Men even wore makeup and wigs and took great care with tying their cravats (the precursor of the tie). But I digress.
___ Men wake up, shower, shave, get dressed and go.
___ Women wake up, shower and start the long ritual of trying to undo the damage to their hair and skin that seems to happen during the night.
___ As I get older, I find it takes more effort to get that "natural" look. I used to be able to wash my face, slap on some mascara, and that was that. Now there’s an exfoliating cleanser, then comes the moisturizer and don’t forget the eye cream to minimize wrinkles. And we haven’t even gotten to the makeup that promises to "smooth the lines" and even out your skin tone.
___ Why do we put ourselves through all this?
___ When in doubt, blame society. We have been brainwashed into believing youth and beauty are synonymous (for women), and so we work hard at looking youthful. Men, however, have it lucky. They are said to look distinguished when those gray hairs come in and the wrinkle lines around the eyes start to show. Of course, Mark is grateful for any gray, but even bald is considered a hot look right now (look at Bruce Willis and Paul Schaefer).
___ Since I don’t think society and its influence on us is going to change anytime soon, I’ll just continue to be grateful for the little things--like separate vanities.
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___Alison’s right about the last point, at least. One of the best things about the house we live in now is the master bedroom has a bath with two completely separate vanity areas. That means she doesn’t have to keep up with my junk, and I don’t have to tolerate her never-ending spread of products.
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MARK WINGFIELD
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___We used to share a bathroom--one with a small countertop. It was a good thing I didn’t have many toiletries to keep up with because she didn’t leave me any space to keep them.
___But she’s wrong about society going easy on the physical image men ought to attain. Do you know how impossible it is for a middle-aged man who has to work for a living to attain Brad Pitt’s washboard abs? That stuff doesn’t come in a bottle.
___ For men, keeping up with the image of the day may not require a lot of toiletries, but it demands more time and discipline to exercise than any man ought to have.
___ What sparked this whole discussion at our house was one of those annoying e-mail jokes that clog up the Internet. This joke compares the differences between men and women, noting: "A man has six items in his bathroom--a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, bar of soap and a towel from the Holiday Inn. The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify most of these items."
___ Truth is, not only would a man not be able to identify most of those items, but many of those items look downright scary. Since when did they start selling instruments of torture in the toiletries department?
___ It's also true I did have a towel from a hotel for a while, although not a Holiday Inn. I got home with it accidentally, I promise.
___ Perhaps the one thing men and women really have in common at this point is a need to see in themselves the inner beauty God has created and brush up on ways to make that beauty shine through to the outside.
___ Sad to say, but we all often spend even less time in spiritual cleansing than the average man spends with toiletries.
Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Standard. Alison Wingfield is a freelance writer. The Wingfields moved to Texas from Louisville, Ky., where Mark had been editor of the Western Recorder, in which this column appeared weekly.
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