Thirty-seven days after turning 50, my life changed. It started weeks prior when I saw the word “epilator” on my 16-year-old’s Christmas list. As I searched for just the right gift to rip the roots from my daughter’s legs, my curiosity was piqued. From Best Buy to Target to Amazon, a shroud of mystery unraveled as I discovered the rotating marvel’s hidden power. Epilators don’t stop at a person’s bottom third or even their nether regions; they’re for faces too!
“Why didn’t a woman of 50 years already know that?” you might ask. I’m not just any woman; I’m a Gen X woman. Coming of age long before YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok hair and makeup tutorials somehow turned every young person into a cosmetological wizard, I know very little of the majestic beauty world. I instead focused my adolescence on things like flannel, Lollapalooza, and angst.
Aside from once removing some shin skin in a shaving rush, I didn’t think deeply about hair removal in my youth. My thoughts have since expanded to include rogue facial hair arriving on a wave of untamed perimenopause. I had heard about hot flashes, mood swings, and brain fog, but facial hair? Oh, my, the facial hair. One day, I had a Teen Wolf mirror moment.
Did I always have this much hair on my face? Between shock and brain fog, I legitimately couldn’t remember how furry my face had ever been or was supposed to be. Adolescent acne audits suddenly returned in the form of middle-age chin hair patrol. And when did my offstage hairline begin creeping in to steal my jawline? Wait, wait. Do I have a mustache?!
Feeling more unprepared for this moment of hair realization than when I prematurely went gray in my 20s, the words “facial epilator” completely disrupted my online hair removal device gift search. I couldn’t help but put on my critical thinking skills—where there is a pink facial hair remover of discreet design, there must be women removing their facial hair! Did I dare join their ranks? Yes! My epilation participation, nay, LIBERATION was born!
For a no-makeup, single-hair-product Gen X girl, electronic facial hair removal is not a decision taken lightly. Could I still maintain my come-as-I-am appearance with all my facial hair systematically removed from its roots? Would I miss how I was before? Do these epilator things even work?
They do work, and they’re spectacular. That first moment of smooth, hairless glory was an awakening of epic preening proportions. At 50 years and 37 days, I stood there, facially-hairless, basking in the late-bloomer sun. Make some room, Gen Z, for I, too, am a cosmetological wizard! |
