Growing old gracefully

It really isn't. Growing old involves lots of aches and pains and things you never thought about before. Like your skin. For all of my life I had oily skin. Extremely oily skin. I could never use anything like moisturizer on it because my face would become a greasy, slippery mess that even I hated to touch. At the same time I had acne. Lots and lots of acne. Yikes!!! Any of the things that were available when I was younger to treat acne either dried your skin out completely or added to the oily mess that was my face. It was a nightmare. Then I got into my 30's and 40's. Finally my skin started to act normal. It was no longer very oily and I could put on moisturizer now and then without creating a goopy mess. But I didn't need to use it regularly, only once in a while. Then I hit my 50's. Hello. My skin became dry and papery. WTH??? I did not sign up for this. Not at all. Now i have to use moisturizer almost every day and be extremely careful what I wash with of my skin becomes extremely dry. But then menopause rears it's ugly head and I get these hot flashes where it feels like someone turned up the thermostat by 1000 degrees and anything I put on my body, moisturizer, sun screen, deodorant, starts running in rivers down my body. Oh, this is fun.

So one night I was working at Walgreen's and looking over the products they have available for the old and feeble - namely me :) I got to talking with the cosmetics girl about skin care. She is young, mid-20's, and has acne really bad. Lately though it seems to be clearing up, so I asked her about it. She started to tell me about a company called Tanda skin care. They have an acne removal system that uses light therapy. Now, as a chemist I know the power of light. It can do amazing things, just look at your skin when you spend too much time in the sun. So I know these things are possible I had just never heard of it being used for acne before. It is working on her. Her skin is starting to look really nice. They also have one for anti-aging. Maybe I'll have to check into that.