That Which Is Old Is New Again

In an era where we have all sorts of beauty aids, I have rediscovered an old one that has graced the beauty kits of women for years…Cold Cream.

My first introduction to good old-fashioned cold cream was as a child. I spent many hours with my grandmother. Now, she was not a lady who wore much makeup. In fact, I don’t remember her wearing more than lipstick. But some of the best hours I spent with her were giving and receiving facials. She had to entertain an eight year old, and one way she would entertain this over-active one was to do a facial.

Grandma would lie down on the couch in the den and I would slather the cold cream all over her face and massage it in. Then she would do the same to me. It was a time we talked. It was a time she calmed me down. It was time for us to be together doing “woman” things. It is some of my best memories of Grandma.

Between 8 and 18 I lost touch with cold cream. But then I got involved in theatre and ended up majoring in it in college. I was one of the “character” actors. That meant I had inches of greasepaint on my face every night for a month at a time…one year I did six shows, which meant I was in makeup nightly almost every night for a whole year. And there were only two things that would get that greasepaint off…Crisco or cold cream. Those of us too poor for a jar of cold cream used the good old cooking lard. But I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase jar after jar of cold cream.

It would take at least three applications of the cold cream to get all vestiges of the greasepaint off my face. (I should have bought stock in the cold cream and tissue companies.) Over and over I massaged the cold cream into my face to get every pore on my face cleaned out. Then it took several washings with a good soap to get the last of the cold cream off. I always hated the heavy feel of both the greasepaint and the oil in the cold cream. It was during the years I was involved in acting that my face was at its best.

Recently I felt the need to pamper myself a bit. I have watched all the commercials for face creams. I have looked at the shelves in both the pharmacy and the local department stores. There are so many choices. And then I had a lightbulb moment! The time in my life when my face felt and looked its best was when I was acting regularly. I reached for the jar of cold cream.

I am not dedicated to a nightly beauty routine. But every once in a while I need to pamper myself. The jar is in the cabinet ready to make me feel a bit special. I don’t need all the new products…all I need is the old jar that had been used by women for ever so long.