truth in aging

I have a friend who, on arriving at my place for dinner, immediately dims the lighting to the point that requires supplementary candles to be lit. I have other friends who do a little Botox from time to time. Those who have succumbed to the knife are rarer - and rarely admit to it. Me? I have an ever-changing and ever-increasing arsenal of creams, serums, masks, and scrubs. We have all chosen our weapons in the fight against wrinkles.

The problem is that none of these strategies really, really work. Or they do work, but only temporarily. Or they just appear to work - in a dim light after a good night's sleep. And the thing is that no one really fesses up to this. I have scoured the web, frantically entering search terms on 'wrinkle treatments' and 'anti-aging', only to find really bad ecommerce sites with faux testimonials on supposedly transformative moisturisers. Magazines publish barely edited PR blurbs under gushing headlines like 'products we can't live without'. Feature articles describe lunch-time peels as a breeze but the writers neglect to say that they fled home rather than return to the office for a three-hour board meeting looking like a burn victim.

So where is the truth? I have so many unanswered questions - OK, so some of them are prejudices. For example, I find the whole Botox thing counter-intuitive. Surely if muscles don't move then they atrophy and if they atrophy the skin around them will sag and then you just look older. Really old. So you have to have more Botox. Can anyone put me straight on this? Is there any real point to micro-dermabrasion? And what about peeling? No pain, no gain?

At the age of 47 and living in Manhattan (not as bad as Southern California, but the pressure's on), I have an increasingly consuming need to find answers. I've reached the conclusion, though, that I'm going to have to find them for myself. And that is what this is blog is really about. It's an attempt to find the truth in aging. In future posts I'll share what I've found out through my own trial and error. I will give regular updates of an expensive and ongoing cream habit. I will fearlessly test new products. I will inveigle my friends to do the same. Hopefully by sharing and keeping each other honest we will stave off the knife, find the miracle, and bare all to the brightest of lights.