22.

THE DAY I WASHED MY FACE WITH BATH SOAP

Tell me about your skin care regimen!” the department store cosmetician cooed, admiring my young, innocent skin and welcoming me into the Club. This was decades ago, back when I had young, innocent skin and, as salespeople quickly gleaned, a young, innocent charge card in my purse to match.

“What do you use to wash your face?” she asked eagerly, inviting confidence and sisterhood.

“Soap!” I answered proudly, encouraged by her warm reception.

“Soap??” She leaned in, seeming riveted.

“Yes!” I replied, thrilled that I knew the answer to the first question on the very first day I was brave enough to approach the department store cosmetics counter. “Yes! I always wash my face with soap!”

“Bath soap??” She gasped.

I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, only that I was apparently no longer in the Club. I remember being hit with an overpowering blast of perfume as all the other cosmeticians in the department whipped their heads around to stare, sending all their over-the-top scents in my direction. I suddenly reeked of Wrong Answer. I turned all the colors of blush in my cosmetician’s display. I felt very unproud.

We don’t wash our faces with soap, I learned. We cleanse with a gentle, non-detergent facial cleanser. The cleanser is to be preceded by a hypoallergenic makeup and environmental toxin remover . . . then a mild exfoliating scrub . . . then the cleanser . . . then toner, serum, targeted fillers, and plumpers . . . and then we can start the complex moisturizing system, a different product for each dry or oily zone.

It took $235 to buy my way back into the cosmetician’s favor. Just to get to a clean face. Just to achieve the blank facade upon which I could, if I ever got a raise or was willing to skip a rent payment or two, begin to build my look.

It took two showers to lose the aroma of failure when I got home.

It took decades to lose the mental residue of being scolded for not knowing how to be a girl.

Who knows why we finally snap, but it finally happened. Today. 6:30 a.m. Cup of coffee number two. I rise up from the newspaper at the kitchen table. Stomp down the hall in my pajamas. Fling open the bathroom door. Power-glare at my morning face in the mirror. I grab a bar of soap from the plastic dish on the edge of the tub. Lean over the sink and for the first time in many years . . .

Wash my face with bath soap!

HAH.

I step back from the sink. No beauty alarms are blaring. I peek out the bathroom door. No police standing in the hall. I look in the mirror. No flaking, cracking, blotching, or any of the other signs of skin damage I was warned would occur if soap ever touched my face. I can’t believe it. My mind reels with rebellion.

What other naughty things can I do?

I reach under the sink, pull out an economy-size container of cheap discount store body lotion, squirt out a big blob, and use it to moisturize my face. I peek out the bathroom door again. Still no police. Hah.

The next hour is a beautiful blur of defiance.

I pull my hair into a ponytail without worrying that there are no cute casual wisps framing my face! . . . I pour cereal in a bowl without measuring three fourths of a cup! . . . Add berries without counting them! . . . Make new coffee with whole milk and real sugar!

I’m giddy with anarchy. What’s next? Lashes without mascara? Lips without gloss? Thighs without Spanx? Chocolate without guilt? Thank-you notes without apologies? White bread? Without fake butter? Outdoors without shoes? HAH!

I run out of my house in my pajamas and stand barefoot right in the middle of the yard. I lift my unsunscreened face to the early morning sun for a full two seconds.

I like being a woman. I like rules, structure, and tips. I want to fit into the Club, or at least be somewhere on the edge of the Club. But the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on skin care trying to preserve a youthful look and my decades of obedience to the rules of womanhood were never quite as rejuvenating as this.

I wiggle my bare toes in the grass and make a pledge to myself, to the part of me that got lost at the cosmetics counter that first day years ago. From now on, I promise to take fewer steps trying to achieve a “dewy face” and to take a lot more steps that lead to the happiness I’m standing on right now: dewy feet.