There is a section missing in the skin care aisle of all cosmetics departments. I’m serious. Check it out next time you are in one. It goes straight from the teenage pimple creams, gels, cleansers, exfoliators, toners and masks right to the anti-aging serums, lifting lotions, wrinkle creams, eye illuminators and lip plumpers.
During a recent trip to the drug store, on a quest to find something that would clear up my skin, yet NOT suck out every ounce of moisture—thus causing my face to look and feel like an old catcher’s mit before I’m 40—I discovered this suspiciously absent section.
WHERE I ask, is the section for the women in between puberty and menopause? Are you with me on this, people? Because many of you are here with me now, or you remember having been here, or you will one day GET here. You’re barely beginning to see some laugh lines and little “chick’s feet” (not yet full-blown crow’s feet) yet you still break out once a month like you did back in high school. Now I ask… What is up with that?! I thought we outgrew acne and blemishes? But no… apparently these 2 delightful skin conditions are going to OVERLAP. Wrinkles PLUS acne. Score.
So I ask you, skin-care manufacturers, where are the products for me and my pals deeply submerged in the throes of the Thrisis?
Do cosmetic manufacturers think women go suddenly from sweet sixteen to senior? Because it sure looks like they do by simply cruising down the aisle. Their marketing message initially goes a little something like this: “Hey, look at you! You’re a teenager! You’re skin is disgusting! You suck. Use our product and you will have beautifully-flawless skin just like the pre-pubescent 11-year-old girl in this airbrushed photo.”
Then you walk a few paces, and the message totally changes. It goes a little something like THIS: “What-up Grams! You’re a hag! You have wrinkles, crater-sized pores, dark circles under your eyes, age spots, sagging lids and thin lips. You suck. Use our product and you will have beautifully, wrinkle-free, airbrushed skin just like the surgically-altered-mature-woman in this doctored photo.”
So I beg of you Roc, Olay, Garnier, Biore, Mary Kay, Noxema, Neutrogena, Clearasil, Clean & Clear and Oxy… please get together and create something for us “Skinbetweeners,” because right now, as it stands… you are the ones who suck.
Woman In Thrisis 
I’ve noticed this too. While I’ve been lucky enough to have never needed acne cream (and, touch wood, I hope I never will) but I’ve often gone in search of a cleanser for dry skin and gone from creams for prepubescent teen girls with uncontrollable breakouts, to creams and concoctions for post menopausal ladies with wrinkles. What about the 18 year old, pimple free, (almost) wrinkle free (yes, I admit. At 18, I’m beginning to come across what can only be described as stress wrinkles!) who simply has dry skin or the odd, monthly oily skin dilemma?
You ARE lucky! But see, you have noticed the noid in the aisle too! WTF!?! Maybe I should forward this onto to Glamour and they can launch an investigation into the matter!
I feel your pain!!! 😦 I try to stick to 2 or 3 products that i have tried that work and switch between them every other month so my skin doesnt get used to them and start to break out. It’s hard in your thirties tho because your skin goes from being oily to dry and just when u get used to that, it decides to throw you a curve ball and gets oily again. I’m hoping my forties will be better.
Thanks Nannette! Here’s hoping! Mine doesn’t switch… but I was hoping for that magical sliver of time where there were NO wrinkles and NO pimples! Damn! This is probablty the best it is going to get. Minimal wrinkles and minimal acne. Thank God for Photoshop for all my photos from here on in!!
Ok, I’m going to just assume you have these brands in the States. I have had success with St. Ives fresh skin olive cleanser for a cleanser and Nivea Visage Aqua Sensation moisturizer.
Thank you. I will keep an eye out for those the next time I find myself in “the aisle” at the drug store. 🙂
Soooo true. I laughed outloud at your description of the Granny category into which I fit. I laugh at all the 30 something models on TV who are pretending to be 60 and worried about aging skin. It is just rediculous. Don’t drink in excess or smoke at all, eat well and get enough rest. Your skin will be just fine. Well, genetics does play a part in this too. And it is a good idea to use a night cream/day moisturizer. But come on, there is no MIRACLE cream out there.
Yeah Granny!! You will probably reverse your agin process now that you are retired!!
I have to admit I am out of my area here, however I do get zits on occasion and usually I end up on a rant because I thought we were done with this pre-pubescent stuff after the teen years! Don’t even get me started on hair and where it starts growing from!
Yeah… none of it is pretty, is it my friend? UGH 😛 Aging isn’t for the faint of heart.
I have to weigh in: I will admit to having an occasional microdermabrasion (about whom I’ve even written a blog, calling her a glowing dewy goddess … seriously, she sucks, and I hate basking in her glow while having the top layer of my skin sucked off. I hated her even more when she reluctantly shared that she’s the exact same age I am).
Anyhow, she recommended Jan Marini. I bought the first bottle from her at a whopping $65. I then went home and looked online: I now buy it for $20. 🙂
I’m using a lot of the line now, but if I had to recommend one product, the bioglycolic facial cleanser is fabulous.
Apparently, inbetweeners can only shop for skincare online — or from glowing dewy goddesses at 300% markup…
…just realized that first line makes little sense. What can I say … I’m at work! (and shouldn’t be playing online, but whatever…)
Anyhow, I have microderm administered by an esthetician who is a glowing dewy goddess. Just to clarify…
😉
Thanks for the tip! I can’t really afford the dewy goddessy esthetician… which is probably safe for everybody. If she were that good looking I might have to kill her… or at least hate her… which isn’t good for my blood pressure 🙂 Thanks for reading!!
Okay, sincere are talking actual names of products we use, i use Olay pore minimizing cleanser and scrub when my face starts feeling dry. it has a grit to it that helps get rid of the dry layer of skin on my face and it’s swirled so I think it’s pretty. lol! Anyway, it also has Salicylic Acid in it to prevent acne. When my face is not dry, I use Loreal’s foaming face wash. For dry skin, which I get more now, I use Garnier Skin Renew Radiance moisture cream in the summer and Garnier Ultra-lift Pro Gravity Defying Cream in the winter. If my face feels really, really dry in the winter I add Olay Regenerist micro-sculpting cream at night. What I hate is the cost of these things. $20 here and $7 here and before you know it your pissed of that these companies are charging you so much. I have accepted that I need them especially since my husband doesnt like my ONE wrinkle between my eyebrows but we are biological beings and not machines and we are ever changing. I will be 40 in April and am hoping for less hormonal issues. As for our skin, we have to keep changing our products because our bodies get used to them and they quit working. Hope this helps you! Hugs!!!
Thank you, friend 😀
Burt’s Bees has some great products. I like to use their Soap Bark and Chamomile Deep Cleansing Cream.
I’ve never tried those products but I have heard good things. Thanks!!
Sometimes being a woman is really overrated! Nothing really works super well for my acne; I’m allergic to salicylic acid (most people who can’t take penicillin are) so there’s not many products for me to choose from. To find anything good, you’ll probably have to upgrade to Sephora-ville, but some of the stuff is too expensive for me. DDF is one brand that has a wrinkle and pore/acne product, it really was the only thing that cleared up my blackheads/pores – but it was a sample and I can’t justify the cost right now- even though very little of the product goes a long way. They also have some other great – non drying salicylic acid products.
http://sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P290915&categoryId=C12411
http://sephora.com/browse/brand_hierarchy.jhtml?brandId=DDF
http://sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P1794&shouldPaginate=true&categoryId=3528
Thanks for the advice and product ideas. I will have to check it out 🙂
I think my skin has more of a mind of its own in my 30s than in my teens and twenties. Acne, wrinkles, sun blemishes, facial hair (hate this one the most). Until you wrote this post I thought it was me that could just not find the right products, but it seems to be they are truly missing from the cosmetics aisle. I feel so much better now. Thanks for bringing this to light – maybe we need to become more vocal concerning these products since we do spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on skin care and cosmetics every year.