by Ana Choi

Created on: February 28, 2009   Last Updated: March 19, 2009

Botox, collagen and cultured cell injections, chemical peels, contour thread lifts, and the latest promise of youth-in-a-bottle are just but a few of the existing revolutionary treatments for wrinkles and mature skin. If you have been tempted for just a fleeting second the possibility of using any of these treatments to erase those unsightly wrinkles to give your face more youthful appearance, you are not alone. According to the Euromonitor International's new 2008 cosmetics and toiletries database, the Western markets of North America, Western Europe and Australasia spent a combined $7.7 billion on wrinkle-reducing facial creams in 2007.*

It has become a global fad to erase the marks that life leaves on our faces, those facial badges of our victories and defeats. As a society we've come to worship the impossible and most desired state of being, that of eternal youth and beauty. Commercially this fires a whole multi-billion business, personally it makes us question, shun and even challenge the natural process of aging and death.

When you erase a line, you are erasing a series of experiences that you've gone through in your life. Those horizontal lines on your forehead and lines in between your brows appeared from the constant questioning of your inquisitive soul, every time you frowned at a truth that didn't sound true to you, followed by the thousands of times that you raised your eye-brows in awe during an aha moment. Those commercially attacked crow's feet on the outer corner of your eyes are but the witnesses of laughter, smirks and winks that has coloured your life along the way. Those freckles and sun spots on the top of your cheeks are but reminders of the sun's gentle kiss and also the reminder that you need to wear SPF. And last but not least, those parenthesis and creases around your mouth speak of all the emotions and thoughts that you have been proud to express and share, crowned with the trace of the uncountable times your face lit-up with the broadest of smiles when immersed in joy and happiness.

So why should it be beautiful to erase your history, that which reflects on your face? Your passage through life which has made you the woman you are today: mature, wise, loving, compassionate, opinionated, bruised and scarred, healed, naturally beautiful and perfectly polished by Life itself.

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* Diana Dodson, Cosmeceuticals Inject Innovation Into Anti-aging

http://www.skininc.com/spabusiness/global/ 17808874.html (Posted on: April 18,2008)

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