The Barbie/Golda Effect

plus, four eye questions and four eye answers

Welcome readers, old and new!

We’re approaching the 150^th post in HNTFUYF’s ever-expanding universe and I’m proud to say that for more than two years, we’ve never missed a week together. Please hit the ❤️ above to send a celebratory cascade of falling stars over nighttime skies around the world.

Thank you for your readership and thoughtful questions, which (switching metaphors) feed the HNTFUYF engine. Also feeding our engine: your paid subscriptions. HNTFUYF is a bare bones operation. Though we’ve been approached with tantalizing partnerships, we’ve refused them in an effort to provide uncompromised reporting. We intend to continue on that trajectory—which means that, except for once a month, the beauty Q&A will now be available to paid subscribers only. If you can’t afford a paid subscription, write me at valeriemonroe.substack.com and I’ll comp you, no questions asked.

I have no idea why it happens.

One morning I’ll wake up, look in the mirror, and instead of seeing the familiar face I know and love, I see a strange old dog, who, looking back at me, seems as bewildered as I am. I wonder if the most recent transformation was residue from the Barbie movie; I saw it last week. It’s possible that staring at Margot Robbie’s doll-like face for nearly two hours made an unfortunate impression, which somehow got translated into me resembling a spaniel. I saw Golda not long after Barbie, and I believe it a) rekindled my love for Helen Mirren, and b) helped me refocus my distorted perception.

But the experience makes me think about context—and how difficult it is to free yourself from the disappointment, yearning, and self-abnegation resulting from idealized notions of beauty when they’re constantly in your face. In the Barbie scene where Robbie, having escaped into real life, turns to an old woman at a bus stop and says, “You’re beautiful,” I wondered at the old woman’s response: “I know!” she declares with aggressive surety. I thought, What is she, a witch? Had that been me, though I might have loved my 80-something-year-old self, I’d be doing a mirror meditation for the rest of the day after that exchange. At least till I’d recovered my equilibrium.

I’m always saying comparison is the death of happiness and it is. But when we’re surrounded by idealized (and manipulated) images everywhere, on mainstream media and social media and in advertising campaigns, it’s human to think, Why don’t I look like that? Should I look like that? Can I? And, It’s too late to even dream of looking like that. It isn’t logical. We know better. But those thoughts, powerful and unsettling, can distract us from what really makes us feel beautiful: looking life right in the face and seeing all its magnificence reflected in our own.

And what do you need for the looking? Only a pair of working eyes, (she said gratefully, after cataract surgery). Below, a couple of experts offer excellent advice about lash serums, mascaras, fake lashes, and why your sclera might be fading. Your sclera? Read on!