Embracing Change

Change is inevitable.  And nothing will teach you that like a selfie.  I say this because I had to take one not long ago for the purposes of work.  I dutifully shifted the camera into selfie mode, smiled, snapped a picture, took a look, and then audibly gasped.  Where had all those wrinkles come from? Land sakes, they were everywhere! They were nestled into my forehead, spread out around my eyes, and even appeared to make a home at the corners of my mouth. I was fully aware I wasn’t 21 anymore, but suddenly I looked 107, and I was in shock. Then I did what any reasonable gal would do, and I assured myself that it was the lighting.  Bad lighting is no girl’s friend—not in any dressing room and certainly  not in a selfie. So I snapped another picture in a sunnier spot.  Aaak! The same result! Now I was truly horrified….and more determined than ever to figure out if the change in my face was real or just bad photography.  For the next ten minutes, I experimented with camera angles, arm distances, and lighting levels, and I finally discovered the problem.  It was my smile.  If I held my face in a completely neutral expression—something I might wear if I suddenly found myself in a nudist colony—I had no wrinkles.  But any picture that captured even the beginning of a smile—wrinkles abounded.  Well, that decides it, I thought.  For a wrinkle-free existence, absolutely no more smiling or laughing for the rest of my life.

And that lasted about a minute, because then I chuckled at the truth that was literally staring me in the face.  While I wasn’t really looking, my face had changed from the one I had twenty years ago, ten years ago, one month ago.  I now had the face of my wise-old 45 years, and every one of those wrinkles clearly reflected the time I had spent smiling and giggling thus far.  Which was, apparently, a lot. And I suddenly felt better…about my wrinkles, about my face, about change in general.

Change happens. There’s no getting around it. And in this new year before us, we really do have a choice on whether to resist change or embrace it. We can despise that new crinkle, or we can simply love it.  I appreciate that the Alise line of facial products encourages us to love our own mugs in all of their natural, ever-changing beauty.

Facial Moisturizer and Masks

The Beautiful Skin Facial Salves in Lavender or Ylang Ylang scent blends are designed to nourish and hydrate thirsty skin.  Alise’s facial masks, both the Calistoga Mud Mask and the Calistoga Seaweed Mask, will rejuvenate, detoxify and tone/tighten the skin.  These products nurture your skin at any age and through any change.  They encourage you to feel good about taking that next selfie—laugh lines and all. And I would say that is positive change for one and all.

Alexi Alfieri has written silly poems, ridiculous short stories, comical speeches, and many, many fun playscripts for children’s theater.  You can find more of her work on her website, Fun Middle School Plays, at www.funmiddleschoolplays.com.