Frankly, I’m one of those women most women hate. I have very smooth pale skin with an even tone. In high school everyone was jealous of my lack of zits. As I get older everyone is jealous of my youthful face. At 35, I was once mistaken for 18. Routinely, I am taken for 10 years younger than my age. So what did I do when I started seeing crow’s feet developing by my eyes?

I freaked out.

It so happened that I received a sample of Olay Regenerist in the mail not long after. (Right near a birthday too. Talk about sadistic.) It's supposed to make your skin more elastic so it won't wrinkle so much or so fact. Since I was visibly aging and about to add a year to my age, I was ripe for the stuff. I am also the cheapest person I know of. I made that sample last for weeks.

It worked great. It went on smooth. Not greasy at all. In fact it felt like I hadn’t put anything at all on, only my skin felt softer and more elastic than it had before. Quite often when I get out of the shower my skin feels a little tight, but that feeling went away as soon as I used the lotion. Even my crow’s feet stopped growing.

Suddenly my 33-year-old face wasn’t telling people I was 25 anymore. Now it was telling people I was 16. (Woohoo!) The rest of my body wasn’t corroborating the lie, but so far Olay isn’t making a full body version.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. My little freebee ran out. I went to the grocery store bound and determined to buy me some of that magic goo. At least, I was determined until I saw the price. $17.99? Please, with my income at that time, I was lucky to be buying food at the grocery store let alone little vanity items that didn’t really need. So what if people started guessing my age more accurately? So what if I was going to have to hear Ma’am more often than Miss? It was a fact of life that people got older and it showed through gray hair and wrinkles. Que sera sera, right? After all, I’d found my first gray hair at 18 so what if I was getting the wrinkles to match.

That lasted about 2 weeks before I found myself standing in Giant Eagle with the package in my hand doing the emotional math that added up to a greater need for wrinkle cream than the Brownberry bread my husband preferred and maybe one or two other items. If it wasn’t such fabulous stuff it would have been a lot easier.

D*** you Olay for making such a great but expensive product!

It’s been a couple of years and I’m still using the stuff, though not as lavishly as the directions say. They want you slathering on a pea sized gob daily morning and night. What do they think I am, made of money? I apply after showering, in place of moisturizer, a small pea sized gob and since coming to Korea have alternated with a Tea Tree Oil deep cleanser so i'm really only using it every couple of days. I still have Koreans looking from me to all my official paperwork and saying "are you really 36?" My favorite question from the kids is: how old are you? Because then I can make them guess. So fun!

I haven't been able to observe any UV protection because that wasn't in it when I started using it and now that I'm in Korea my sun exposure has changed a lot. I'm also not using it as often as they recommend. Sorry, but you're on you own for that one, but I don't think I'd rely on it completely because it's wrinkle cream not sun lotion. Besides, it's too expensive to use anytime you need UV protection.

It’s expensive stuff, but it really does work. Plus, if you’re stingy like me you can make a bottle last 6 months to a year. Then your favorite question can be "how old are you?"


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