And Now,My Own Beauty Secrets... (Published 1977) (2024)

IF YOU'VE SEEN ME lately, you will wonder how I have the nerve to be dispensing beauty secrets. Just remember the old adage: Those who can't, teach. In any case, you may have to learn all the latest beauty tricks from someone like me, who has the time to bone up on the subject. The naturally ravishing are much too busy attending galas or being ravished.

Even in beauty parlors, where some of us do extensive research in magazines that have stood the test of time (having been published last August), these gorgeous creatures don't even bother to crack a Vogue. They just sit there wiggling their freshly enameled fingernails in the air, like puppies begging for a Liv‐a‐Snap.

I say they are not growing. And they miss so much. Listen, if I weren't the voracious reader that I am, I wouldn't be in a position to tell you Paul Newman's beauty secret. Ah, that does surprise you, doesn't it? You supposed he was a fine actor and a good Democrat who just naturally looked terrific. Yes, that's exactly what I thought until one of Mr. Newman's fellow actors went blabbing to a columnist. It seems that Mr. Newman keeps that complexion so vibrant by plunging his entire head into a bucket of water for 20 minutes, while breathing through a snorkel. He does this every day. If my figures are correct (multiply 20 minutes by 7, multiply the result by 52, divide by 60, then divide by 24, or, if you break down along the way, send for your son with his instant calculator), Paul Newman spends more than five days a year with his head in a bucket of water.

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Before someone comes right out and asks me, I will confess that I haven't yet tried the Newman Method. However, I did buy a new bucket. I certainly wasn't going to put a foot, much less my head, in that crummy bucket we keep in the garage. Furthermore, that bucket didn't really look big enough to me. You wouldn't want to skin your nose while toning up your complexion. (The snorkel didn't represent any additional expense since one of the boys already had one.)

Inasmuch as I am clearly prepared for the great experiment, you will wonder what delays me. Actually (excuses, excuses) I just don't seem to know when to do it. Obviously I'm not going to do it right after I've had my hair done. I'm crazy, but I'm not careless. And it's fairly evident that I'd have to get it done immediately afterward (every day). But somehow I just can't see myself running into Mr. Joseph's Salon with my dripping wet hair and some wild tale about Paul Newman.

Even that, I suppose, could probably be worked out. The crux of the matter is this: I'm chicken. Since the subject of my general instability has already been the source of much unwelcome humor around our house, I would hardly allow my husband or my children to observe me as I knelt on the rug and submerged with my snorkel into a pail of water. And I'd be afraid to attempt it alone. What if I got stuck? What if the snorkel didn't work? Think of the story in the local paper, “Matron Drowns in Bizarre Accident,” or worse (there are a lot of wags on the local paper), “Mother Kicks the Bucket.”

Anyway, there are easier ways to look sensational. An exquisite model recently interviewed in depth declared that she owed her special luminosity to milk of magnesia. No, no, she didn't drink it. She spread it on her face.

My research would seem to indicate that I am one of the few people left around who are still buying conventional cosmetics. Most women, if you can believe what you read, are using groceries. In the last couple of months I have read suggestions for facial masks made from oatmeal, egg whites, egg yolks, honey, mayonnaise and yogurt. And my favorite: a mask composed of olive oil and vodka. The olive oil is an excellent lubricant and the vodka, in case you didn't know, is bracing. This one seems full of possibilities to me. If you keep licking away at the vodka and olive oil you will, beyond question, feel better. And, if I may make one small suggestion, you could add a little chopped parsley and call it dinner. You'd lose weight, too.

Notice that I am nowhere mentioning women such as Candice Bergen or Ingrid Bergman, who were born beautiful and just stayed that way. I think it is more helpful for the rest of us to confine our investigation to those women who, by their own admission, have to work, work, work to be so attractive.

In her recent autobiography, Doris Day tells us that once a week she covers her entire self (from the scalp right down to her little toes) with Vaseline petroleum jelly. Then she puts on an old flannel nightgown and goes to sleep. Perhaps anticipating the lifted eyebrows of the bemused, she makes it very clear that she sleeps alone while jellied.

What I want to know is where she sleeps. In a bed? Suppose she turns over in the middle of the night. In her slippery condition wouldn't she skid right out of the bed, knocking over lamps and alarm clocks and possibly damaging herself, wiping out the improvements? Maybe she sleeps on the floor. They say that's good for the back muscles. Of course we must remember that Doris Day can afford to buy a hospital‐type bed with those crib slats that you can pull up. But then she'd have to store this crazy bed somewhere for the other six nights.

Personally, I find it a nuisance even to store my small facial sauna, which I have used twice since I bought it in 1972. Just twice, and it cost $14. Well, that's the kind of helter‐skelter, devil‐may‐care attitude that has left me in my present condition, about which the less said the better.

All right, I'll go soak my head.