anti-aging

Today’s high-tech beauty world was 50 years in the future when model Jean Shrimpton (right) peered from a pink space helmet for the April 1965 cover of Harper’s Bazaar.

If it’s mid-February, it must be sleeting in New York, snowing in Boston, sunless in Seattle and freezing in South Carolina.

First Lady Michelle Obama, who once said she looks forward to being "this really fly 80-, 90-year-old," turns 50 on Friday and is getting a lot of media attention because her new interview in People magazine leaves the door open to using Botox. Oh my!

We all want our face to look as healthy and youthful as possible. But new research suggests there may be some things we're doing to our skin that could make things worse, not better.

Super-glam is the current new normal for women 50+...unfortunately. All across the country women are getting spray tans, hair extensions, wearing false lashes, decolletage, body hugging dresses and high heels 24/7. They feel guilty about not getting Botox, fillers, laser treatments or a facelift and spend a lot of time wondering if they should.  I blame  Bravo's Real Housewives (past and present ) for pushing our high maintenance buttons. Lisa Vanderpump, 52, Adrienne Maloof, 51, Kim Richards, 47, LuAnn de Lessups, 48 and Carole Radziwill, 48  would have been out of place on any small town street five years ago. Now they look and sound like a lot of smart, evolved, ambitious women our age who work from home, work totally online, are semi-retired, really retired or just hanging out and plotting their comeback...these are the new housewives. It's time we noted the difference between entertainment and real life. Dialing up the beauty and fashion to reality show levels is so not us.  All we need is a  little home improvement, not a total renovation.  So stop faking it and start making it.

Maybe the government can't quite protect us against injections contaminated with deadly fungal meningitis, but beauty hype -- that's another story.

It's a dark jar with a silvery top that holds a skimpy 1.7 ounces of Lancí´me night cream for a hefty $98.