We had just been chastised to keep our voices down—this was, after all, a meditation retreat, and we were supposed to be in silence. But my roommates, two 60-something women named Joan and Linda, and I were amped up on late-night (in this context, that’s about 9 p.m.) girl talk. And I was about to receive the most profound insight I would all week, not from the six hours of meditation we did every day, nor from the spiritually rich talks the teachers would give. In fact, what my roommate, Joan, said next counts as one of the great insights of my life. “Jennifer, just wait until you get old,” she said. “Spending a thousand dollars on a Tempurpedic bed is no longer an indulgence, it’s a medical necessity. Getting old is the best!”

She said this without a hint of exhaustion, self-pity, or irony. I thought: She’s right. I can’t wait to get old! And the reason for that went beyond that moment, beyond a Tempurpedic bed—even though I covet that marshmallowy mattress. For the previous few years, I’d been coming to terms with the reality of aging. As I talked to Joan and Linda, however, I realized that perhaps I finallyhad come to terms with it, and the way I had done it was shockingly simple and inexpensive. As 9 million people underwent cosmetic procedures last year, I did something else. I hung out with older women.

But this new attitude hadn’t come so easily, nor without a dabble in dermatologic procedures. As I surpassed 30, I had grasped the impermanence of life and the sudden permanence of my smile lines. Weight didn’t come off as easily as it once had. Sunlight now left my face splotchy, not golden brown.

This all played in stark relief to what surrounded me: Many of my friends were a few years younger than I was, a result of my single-girl lifestyle in New York and, I liked to think, my youthful attitude. But they all remained unlined, while I felt worn in comparison. I also worked at Entertainment Weekly magazine, which is not the vainest magazine in the land, but is filled with freakishly gorgeous people with ageless skin and bodies. They’re from Hollywood, after all.

As my life got more stressful—working all day, writing a book at night and on weekends—my habits got worse—more wine, less working out, less meditation. The work paid off with lots more money, enough to pay for a pricey laser treatment I imagined would erase every abuse, mistake, and flaw of the last three-plus decades.

Instead of the perfect face I’d always dreamed of, however, what I got was a painful procedure in which my skin was systematically burned off to reveal a less-damaged under-layer. The dermatologist had promised a “slightly uncomfortable” operation that would feel “like a bad sunburn.” I imagined someone waving a light pen over me for a few minutes and taking away all my worries, with nothing but a little stinging. It didn’t go that way. Nothing went wrong; it just hurt like my skin had melted off, which it had. I went home and popped the prescription-strength painkiller my doctor had given me and healed up just fine. My skin looked a little better. Not perfect, but better.

My anxiety about my aging face, however, remained untouched. That is, until I met Jesse, the man who would turn out to be the love of my life.

But this is not a story about the magic bullet of finding a man who loved me just as I was, though he did, and he does, and his taste does run to older women. I am four years older than he, and I am younger than several of his exes. He’s a fan of gray hair on women. He’s expressed admiration for beautiful women who happen to have wrinkles. So, yeah, I hit the jackpot there. But it was the fact that he led me to practice Zen Buddhism that turned me around on the subject of aging, not because of any spiritual awakening I had, but because of the people with whom we practice: Namely, there are a lot of ladies of a certain age at the Village Zendo, the temple to which we belong.

The woman who started the Village Zendo 25 years ago happens to be a 60-something named Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara. Roshi—the Zen term for the head, or abbess, of a temple—is awesome in about five zillion ways, as you might imagine, but one thing strikes anyone who meets her: She is bald. Per Zen tradition for monks, she keeps her head shaven. And because she has better things to do, she wears no makeup. And because she kicks ass, she’s so radiant that after about five minutes of knowing her, you forget that it’s unusual for a woman to shave her head and wear no makeup. In fact, you start wondering why we don’t all shave our heads and wear no makeup.

In reality, I’m not quite to that level of shedding my vanity. I love my long hair and my smoky eye makeup. But I do go out without makeup more often now. Because I realize: No one cares. I look fine. In fact, I look good. Essentially, I have learned, mainly through hanging out with inspiring, vibrant older women, that I look great. Not that I look great in comparison to them, and not that they are those older women who look so good that they make us all think that 50 is the new 30. I don’t want 50 to be the new 30. That’s too much pressure.

But I do want to see that wrinkles and flaws are cool. And now I have, thanks to a string of older women who have appeared in my life recently. If you get used to looking at wrinkles and flaws on others, you realize they’re not so bad on yourself. The problem is that in our youth-obsessed culture, we barely see them anymore.

After I met Roshi, I encountered several other older women, first through the zendo. Because Roshi was the one who started the group in her New York apartment 25 years ago, a lot of the original members are her age. One of my favorites was Sybil Myoshin Taylor. When Jesse spoke of “my friend Sybil,” whom he wanted me to meet, at first I didn’t realize that she was in her 70s. I just knew that she worked on the zendo journal with him and that she was working on several book projects. He thought we’d have a lot in common.

It turned out we did. I loved talking to Sybil about my writing, and hearing all of the ideas she had for hers. It was so easy to talk to her about everything—life, sex, spirituality, work—that sometimes it was confusing when we’d get up from dinner and have to walk slowly. She was in her 70s. Her legs didn’t work as well as they once had. But her wit was sharp as ever. She was beautiful, but, yes, old. She died last year, beautiful and old and working on at least two books that I knew of. That, I thought, is how I want to die.

In my years since joining the zendo, I’ve encountered an endless parade of Sybils and Roshis. There’s this woman with long, beautiful, silver hair that she always wears in a side braid, and I think: Yes, I hope I get to have hair just like that someday. There’s Linda and Joan, my retreat roommates who have plenty of physical complaints about getting older but see the bright side in it. After one talk Linda and I had, she said to me, incredulously, “How old are you?” When I told her I was in my 30s, I was about to do the standard thanks-for-thinking-I-look-young thing. “Wow, she replied, “you’re wise beyond your years!” She’d thought I was older. And she meant it as acompliment. Somehow, it made me feel younger. If by younger you mean vibrant, alive, and happy in the moment. Which, let’s face it, is better than being lineless.

I’ve also had the privilege, throughout the last year, of meeting several smart, adventurous older women who helped to make The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s. In researching a book that tells their history, I’ve gotten to interview the show’s female writers—groundbreakers in TV comedy who’ve led full lives, many without ever getting married—and several of its stars. Producer-writer Treva Silverman exudes soft sexiness, even still. Valerie Harper, who played Rhoda, glows with generosity. Harper’s former assistant, Mimi Kirk, who inspired her to wear her famous headscarves as Rhoda, became a raw-foods expert and put out her first book at 73.

After spending months immersed in their lives and stories, I found the lines around my mouth softening, the discolorations in my skin fading. I didn’t notice them so much anymore. In fact, when I returned to the dermatologist for a follow-up appointment and she offered to do one more round of laser treatment, free of charge, to neaten things up and make them perfect, I found myself saying an easy, “No, thanks.” The pain just isn’t worth it.

With all the self-tanners on the market today, it’s hard to believe that women in the 18th and 19th centuries sought white, pale skin—the beauty ideal at the time. But just as we use product to make us look like we returned from a week in Cancun, Victorian women used primitive cosmetics to achieve their version of the perfect skin tone.

Interesting dichotomy, sure, but more interesting still is the political ramifications—or lack thereof—of a few ounces of powder brushed onto the skin of different eras. Victorian women likely weren’t as worried about setting their gender back a decade or two just by going all goth with the face makeup—but does hitting the Nars Laguna powder these days make us traitors to our gender? Some radical feminists have been known to blame patriarchy for coercing women into using beauty products. On the surface, they have a point: After all, anything we’re expected to do that men aren’t is cause for suspicion. But a look at the history of beauty products suggests otherwise:

A GIRL-POWERED INDUSTRY

First—and maybe even foremost—women have always been the pioneers of the cosmetics industry. Names like Helena Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden, Madam C.J. Walker, Estee Lauder and Mary Kay Ash are still recognized to this day, nearly a century after starting their own companies. And though entrepreneurs like Hazel Bishop and Annie Turnbo Malone may be less well-known, they were responsible for the development of smudge-free lipstick and African-American-centric cosmetics, respectively—no small feats (and evidence of some great business minds).

But women’s leadership in makeup dates back way further than that—and further than the word “feminism” itself. Though Egyptians were known to use kohl (an early form of eyeliner/mascara) and Native Americans were recognized for their plant-infused formulas meant to fix facial flaws, the majority of cosmetic recipes are traced back to Queen Elizabeth and other women of the Victorian era, according to “Inventing Beauty” author Teresa Riordan. Most were simple homemade creations, made by bringing egg whites and alum to a boil until it thickened. Newspapers chronicled similar recipes, but no one thought to make a business out of such products until Harriet Hubbard Ayer decided to market her homemade brand of beauty cream in the late 19th century, making her one of the first female businesswomen in the industry.

Of course, the industry did host its fair share of male moguls. Max
Factor emerged as the leading Hollywood cosmetics expert in the 1920s and 1930s. But behind every man in the business was a woman’s voice: T.L. Williams—the man who created the first modern form of Maybelline mascara—was inspired by his sister Mabel’s makeup techniques.

PAINTED LADIES

Widespread criticism of makeup existed as far back as the early 1600s, when young women would mix household products to create rouges and lip colors. Puritan Thomas Tuke, for one, wrote a discourse in 1616 condemning makeup for creating a “false face.” When cosmetics use popularized in the 19th Century, many continued to see makeup purely as a mask for women’s sins and vices. As author Kathy Peiss writes in her book, “Hope In A Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture,” moralists felt these women “invoked Jezebel.” And for quite some time, prostitutes were the only women to brave a “painted face.” But with the female oppression of the 1800s came a sexual awakening, prompting many assertive women to wear cosmetics to enhance their sexuality and individuality.

Much to the chagrin of traditionalists, women began to promote their independence through rouges and lipsticks, bucking the homemaker stereotype in favor of dancing, city life and fashion. Though they continued to live the chaste life expected of them, women began to define their individuality through made-up facades that seemed to reflect a newfound sexual yearning.

But men feared women’s new sense of identity, believing that such attention to makeup and beauty was only a cover-up for their desire to “unsex” themselves and demand equality, according to Peiss. Women who used cosmetics were viewed as rebellious, uncontrollable and dangerous.

It was only a matter of time before lipsticks and rouges made their way into the workplace. Women who predated Rosie the Riveter were indeed some of the first to shamelessly display their cosmetics use. Peiss writes, “Moving into public life, they staked a claim to public attention, demanded that others look. This was not a fashion dictated by Parisian, or other authorities, but a new mode of feminine self-presentation, a tiny yet resonant sign of a larger cultural contest over women’s identity.”

Not surprisingly, cosmetics thus infuriated a misogynistic early 20th Century society that found makeup use insulting and deceiving. According to Riordan, a 1936 Vogue survey of men found that nearly 100 percent of respondents disapproved of noticeable makeup.

But women continued to ignore their husbands’ and fathers’ requests. Two years later, Volupte introduced two new lipstick shades to American women, labeled “Lady” and “Hussy.” “Lady” was marketed toward women who prefer lighter shades and “quiet, smart clothes and tiny strands of pearls,” while “Hussy” was developed for women who wear dark shades and “like to be just a little bit shocking,” according to Mademoiselle magazine in 1936. “Hussy” outsold “Lady” five to one.

As the golden age of Hollywood began to emerge in the 1930s, however, some widespread opinions regarding cosmetics began to change. The success of Hollywood’s heavily made-up stars led society to realize the marketability of makeup. With an increased commercialization of products came an acceptance of cosmetics among those who once deemed them brazen and shameful. Beauty writer Nell Vinick wrote that cosmetics were no longer tied to morality, or the lack thereof, and were “merely symbols of the social revolution that has gone on; the spiritual and mental forces that women have used to break away from conventions and to forward the cause of women’s freedom.”

NO BOYS ALLOWED

Some may wonder why men never caught onto such trends, choosing instead to go completely au naturale. After all, a look back at centuries-old paintings shows women and men alike caked with powder and lip color. But it wasn’t long after the United States achieved independence that men began to assert their masculinity by ridding themselves of cosmetics. This change in attitude traces back to the most curious of places—the White House itself. Several decades after Ben Franklin ditched his wig and thus the “effete affections of their continental counterparts” in what’s labeled the “Great Masculine Renunciation,” the 1830s saw a sharp decline in product sales to men after presidential nominee Charles Ogle ridiculed current president Martin Van Buren for using various creams, labeling him effeminate. Soon men began to dodge makeup faster than commitment.

Not that there wasn’t any demand for men-centric cosmetics. In 1918, Cutex produced ads complete with coupons for free samples of its manicure products. Ten percent of respondents who requested samples were men. These men, however, never received their swag: Cutex employees intentionally threw out their requests. And in 1918, a journal named Toilet Requisites suggested that beauty-based businesses market products tailor-made for men, only to be laughed off because of society’s inflexible stereotypes.

But just before the dawn of the new century came a new man who seemed to finally start turning the tide back: the metrosexual. Gay culture took off, and straight men found themselves mimicking fashion trends once reserved for homosexuals—namely creams, colognes, and hair products. But, yes, in some cases, even makeup.

But who can we thank for men’s newfound attention to looking better, dressing better and—let’s face it—smelling better? You got it: women. A 1986 survey in Gentleman’s Quarterly found that men developed a “more polished appearance” after noticing the refined looks of their female counterparts in the workplace.

So why not celebrate these innate refined tastes of ours by opening our cosmetic bags and embracing our inner make-up artist? Who knows? Maybe soon the words lipstick, eyeshadow, blush, bronzer, and mascara will conjure up feelings of empowerment. It certainly did for our sisters decades—and even centuries—back.

– Kate Ward

Wanna save an extra $5,000 a year? Become a man!Seriously, I could be rich (or at least get richer faster) if I gave up my beauty routine. Currently, my daily self-prepping involves the following: shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, face wash, toothpaste, body lotion, face moisturizer, blusher, a bit of glimmer for my cheeks, eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss, and perfume. And I’m a basics kind of gal. Most American women also add in regular salon and spa stuff like spray tanning, waxing, highlights, haircuts, manis, pedis, microdermabrasion and Botox.

When I asked a few men about their morning beautifying rituals, the picture was slightly different: Deodorant, for sure. Shampoo, lotion, and shaving cream, most likely. Hair gel, maybe. Even the most metrosexual of men spends a fraction of what women spend to just bathe and beautify. It’s no wonder women — even corporate-climbing women with male-equivalent incomes — are more financially unstable than their male counterparts. Of course it’s important to note that men still make more on average, than women, but the women most likely to be shelling out a lot for products — that is, urban professionals — are also the ones closest to parity with their male counterparts.

Quite simply: It costs more to be a woman.

So, how much are we spending exactly? It’s a little scary, so I’ll ease you in with the most recent figure for British women: $6,000 to $8,000 a year on beauty and maintenance. US women? Ahem, $12,000 to $15,000 every year spent on products and salon services. Look at that number. Think about it. Try not to throw up. That could pay off your student loans, cover your past or future wedding (as long as you’re not, say, TomKat), give you a down payment on your first home, or — better! — it could start a sizable investment account, which could yield thousands more if invested properly. Ah, but that’s just it. Not only do women spend too much, but we pretty much suck at managing money, too.

Yeah, it’s tough to hear (and if you’re an exception to this rule, we salute you!) but the evidence is incontrovertible. When it comes to retirement saving, for example, the U.S. Department of Laborreports that in 2005, fewer than half of all working women in the United States contributed to or had some kind of retirement plan. Fewer than half. Where’s it going? You might want to check the till at Sephora.

We also dominate as consumers despite the fact that we still earn less than men do and spend less time in the workforce over the course of our lifetimes. And, speaking of lifetimes, we’re also more likely to live longer (hence: more non-income-earning retirement years). It’s a tough financial landscape we’re facing, ladies, but apparently we’re more worried about our future wrinkles than our financial security. (Men do, of course, spend more on wooing us, and surely they have their own special indulgences, but that doesn’t change that examining our beauty budgets could be the best way for many of us to save.)

If only we could give up some of these luxuries, right? But the truth is, regardless of what kind of financial pressure we may admit to feeling, most of us just like to look/smell/feel good. We splurge. We impulse buy. We go for the top of the line, even if we can’t quite afford it. And we justify it by telling ourselves: “I need it.”

And maybe we do need it. But we also need to get our financial shit together. Men are doing it, so why the hell aren’t we? I know what you’re thinking: “It’s so unfair! So much value is placed on women’s appearances, and men can get away with looking like crap if they want to!” There’s truth to that, certainly. Guys definitely have less pressure to look good, and it’s unreasonable to expect women to maintain the same simple maintenance routine as men. But men have their own extra expenses, too: paying to woo, date, and marry us, for example. So that $500 you dropped at Sephora, he spent on theater tickets and a five-star dinner for your birthday.

You know what else men are spending their money on, though? Stocks, mortgages, and life insurance, all those scary-to-us investments that offer a cash return the longer you pay in to them. Find me a bronzer that can do that.

So what do we do? There are basic saving tips for all women: buy only what you need, open an IRA, etc. But when it comes to our pricey habit of maintenance, the key is moderation.

“If I did as much as I wanted I would spend easily $200 dollars a month on just hair and bikini line,” says a young schoolteacher who loves her products, but loves paying her bills more. “It used to be that I felt like I was worth beauty splurges now and then. Now that I’m supporting myself, no way.”

Another woman felt the need to change her spending habits when her priorities changed. “When you do a really grown-up thing like buy a home or get married, you see money in a totally different way,” she says. “Of course I love expensive products and beauty treatments, but when I have extra money to spend, my instincts are to buy new blinds for the windows or paint the bathroom rather than getting a facial or buying the new Chanel fall palette.”

If nothing else, perhaps consider how many spa services you could do for yourself at home: waxing (we’re talking switching to tweezing the brows here, girls, not self-inflicted Brazilians), manicures, tanning, and highlights, to name a few. A few such switches could furnish the extra $500 to $1,000 a year that you instead put into an IRA, a 401(k), a mutual fund, or even just a savings account. Just, be careful. No savings is worth scars or balding.

So, yes, it’s doable. The online editor who’d rather buy blinds than bronzer can attest: “If you have a goal, you can absolutely meet it,” she says. “When it came time to save for my wedding, I had no idea how we would come up with $15,000. But we put together the necessary savings plan and it worked! Things were tight for that year, but I don’t feel like I sacrificed too much. And in the end, I’m getting a beautiful wedding and feel really proud that we were able to pull it off ourselves.”

So the next time you’re salivating at the Fresh counter or considering a blow-out, remember that the cosmetics and toiletries industry is a $45 billion to $66 billion annual business. How many of those dollars are yours?

– Molly Faulkner-Bond