Not By The Hair of My Chiny Chin Chin

One strong memory of my teens is that of my mom… standing by the bedroom window, hard at work. In one hand she would be holding a mirror, and another, a pair of tweezers. She made faces that will put modern day face yoga practitioners to shame, and twisting and turning to get the best light, attended to her chin hair. It was a ritual, whenever we needed to go out. Even when plans were made on the fly, the chin could not be ignored. Well, as the good obedient children of the 80s, we never questioned it, or even complained about it. It was just something we accepted. Not understood, mind you. Just accepted.

If you’ve ever wondered why chin hair after 40 feels so relentless, it’s because the body quietly re-negotiates its terms in midlife. In your thirties, a stray hair feels accidental. By your forties, it feels strategic. Estrogen lowers its voice, other hormones speak up, and the polite fuzz that once kept to itself suddenly develops ambition. You don’t notice it in theory. You notice it when your fingers brush your chin and encounter that tiny, sharp resistance. A small, stubborn reminder that biology has opinions.

And now, in my 40s, when I’ve been battling with those pesky chin hair for more years than I care to admit, I finally understand why. Before you jump the gun and scream Vanity, let me correct you. It is not vanity. Okay, not 100% at least. Those long protruding dark chin hair admittedly make an ungainly sight, but that one can live with. What is the most irritating thing about them is that they are like thorns. Literally. First, they are buried deep. Tiny on the outside, humongous on the inside. Like an iceberg. Only, the inside is a sharp prickly spear like construction. Imagine that embedded into the seven layers of your epidermis. You’d be irritated too. Right? Of this constant reminder of cactii sprouting off your chin.

Now, if you have a beard, you probably can relate to this better. But I couldn’t. Not then. Only now, I have understood why a good tweezer is a woman’s best friend, Did you think it was a diamond? Oh no, you fell for the commercial line. Your best friend girl, is a nice sharp tweezer that is easy on the skin and relentless on the hair. Why? Because it gets worse. Wait, what, you ask? Worse than Perimenopause? Yes, the double whammy of Presbyopia and Perimenopause. On a side note, look at me dropping all these terms – epidermis, perimenopause, presbyopia – I remember high school biology. Yay! Okay now, back to the double whammy. And why you need a good tweezer. Well, picture this. You can feel the hair, but you can’t see it. Infuriating. By some miracle, or a face yoga contortion, you are able to latch on the to hair, and start to tug. Of course you are smart enough to know pulling won’t help. That pesky hair is not only ungainly and thorny, it is also elastic. Pull too much and it contracts right back into the event layer of the skin. Lodged in there, but infuriatingly out of reach. And then will begin the twelve hour wait for it to come back out. Twelve seconds of impatience, twelve hours of wait. If this isn’t a life lesson, what is?

Bottom line, you need a good tweezer. One that won’t slip, one that will allow you to gently tug and coax that little thorn out. And then wait patiently in your dresser for the next 20 hours, when the next one needs to be attacked!