I’m Ready for My Close-up, Mr. DeMille

July 24th, 2008 by Sally | Posted in ACKtivity, Uncategorized |

Yesterday, I took a Personal Hygiene Day and headed to the salon. In my normal life, these days are a necessity, not a luxury, for upkeep: repairing chipped nail polish, an unsightly blemish, unibrow, e.g. Only, I’m in Nantucket, which begs the question: on vacation, wouldn’t “Personal Hygiene Day” be more accurately termed, “Spa Day?”

I’ve never looked at aesthetic services as treating myself. When I was 12 years old, upon sight of my first pimple, my mother promptly enrolled me in a series of appointments that would distort my image of a facial until well into my twenties. There was no “spa” whatsoever in Millie’s Facial Firm of Dallas, Texas; zits were serious business. It was solemn and sterile, like a hospital ward with the most terminal of patients. And the white-haired aestheticians were Nurse Rached-esque, with rubber-soled shoes and cold objects plinking on aluminum trays. After applying me with electrode mummy masks and stinging solutions, the facialist-du-jour would look down at my pre-teen skin through glasses with an extended magnifying shelf, roughly pinch my skin with her rubber gloves until it felt like it would bruise, dig hard into a bad place with a metal extractor, and then disgustedly (but, also, triumphantly) show me the results, as if forcing me to look at the dirt up close would keep me from ever letting my pores fill up like that again.

This torture continued on a monthly basis, until I was 15 and could finally escape my mother’s clutches – and, therefore, Millie’s Facial Firm – by fleeing to boarding school in far-away-as-possible New Hampshire. It wasn’t until faced with the adverse effects of sun exposure and aging that I begrudgingly tried a facial again. Now I go regularly to Tony, a warm, wonderful gentle-man at the Face Place in Los Angeles, who kindly fills me in on Hollywood gossip to distract me during the dreaded extraction period. And I never have to look.

Yesterday, I got a facial from Emma, a gorgeous and shockingly young Irish lass at J. Parave Salon in Nantucket. A far cry from the Face Place or, thankfully, Millie’s Facial Firm, and the Nantucket WASP answer to the gossip-mill hair salon in Steel Magnolias, J. Parave Salon is the kind of place where white haired ladies with leathery, tanned faces and the visiting summer folks in worn-in shorts and polo shirts squawk weather observations to each other from side-by-side manicure stations. Emma turned up the pan flute/wind chime music to drown out the noise in the other room, and began what was obviously an attempt at a spa-like facial. Poor thing didn’t realize, as she tried to massage my temples in slow, gentle circles, that the facial was not about relaxation for me. Despite the years of distance from the evil Millie’s Facial Firm, a facial – and the manicure, and the pedicure I would get after that, were utilitarian exercises for me. Upkeep.

She did manage to capture my attention by performing what felt like an amazing science experiment: after applying three layers of foamy lotion to my face, a mask hardened on top like paper mache, and went from refrigerator cold to burning hot to the touch within five minutes. It came off in almost one piece – but not before Emma caught me in close-up, Norma Desmond-style, as if going through endless machinations and contraptions to ready myself for my big comeback (or, oops: return.) Norma would know what I mean about “Personal Hygiene Day.” All that stuff is work work work! And preparation!

I encounter way too much media about stress-reduction and taking deep breaths and Om and Namaste. This morning, I grabbed for the Kashi granola bar that I keep handy for on-the-run occasions, and for the first time, I noticed that the bar is called TLC – not for what you’d think, but for “Tasty Little Chewies” – and the side of the box says, “At Kashi, we know there’s a time in the day when we need to take a moment to give ourselves some tender loving care…So, we’re offering you a great-tasting snack…” Now my in-a-hurry breakfast is supposed to be champagne brunch. My Personal Hygiene Day is a Spa Day. What next? A massage, to relax?