Do Your Sagging Cheeks Get Stuck in Your Collar?

(Here is an excerpt from the new book Menopause Sucks. It’s coming soon for hot women everywhere.)Everything is going along just fine until one sunny day you jaunt outside in your best tank top and shorts and accidentally catch a glance of yourself in a mirror that’s not the kind one in your bathroom with the back lighting. Horrors! What’s happened to your once taut skin and when did your neck turn into the dryer vent hose? It seems a dingo just ate your body and left this wrinkly old mass in its place!Your skin is aging, just like the rest of your body, and the hormonal changes during menopause can cause accelerated dryness, increased loss of elasticity, and more spots than a Dalmatian parade. You could stop all the deterioration right now by signing up to have your body frozen and suspended in liquid nitrogen at the Cryonics Institute until scientists discover a way to halt the aging process. But, that option does have a downside. It costs $28,000 for the procedure and you’d miss the annual sale at Nordstrom’s.Your face is the first body part to show the physical realities of forty years of wear, tear, care, and despair. It seems that heredity, environment, diet, and lifestyle all contribute to the condition and quality of your skin, and during normal activity and conversation, the skin on your forehead and around the eyes and mouth continually moves and stretches. Over the years, sun damage and gravity cause your skin to lose its elasticity and resiliency. The skin no longer snaps back like a new pair of undies to a smooth appearance after all that frowning, smiling, and laughing. Yes, your mother was right. Keep making those faces and they’ll stay forever! And you should have listened to her about not smoking, too. Now, it’s easy to identify heavy smokers who spent a lot of time in the sun because their faces resemble the skin of a dried potato. Women who smoke have more wrinkles and lines than nonsmokers because nicotine slows the circulation to the skin and it can’t release toxic waste products of cell metabolism. There’s not enough lotion in the world to bring back their skin to make it soft as a baby’s butt.(This chapter goes on to give helpful hints about lotions, potions, and lifestyle decisions that can rejuvinate your skin.)