1 out of 3 "Top" Beauty Tips web posts

A couple of days ago I was scrolling through the AOL. homepage when I came across this: 

Emma Stone - GettyOne

"How to get Emma Stone's Super Pretty Bombshell Blowout from Last Night" 's red carpet event. And there is the beautiful and young Emma Stone. Her glamorous profile showing off her very glossy, healthy looking, gorgeous tresses, with of course, the teaser of "famous celebrity hair stylist reveals the rinse-and-repeat regimen she teaches  to her clients..."

I was intrigued. . . And after looking at Emma's hair and nose and eyes for several seconds, I clicked on the link.

I read the common sense "advice" which was basically to lather-rinse-repeat-but-rinse-really-really-well. Duh!

          I would love to know how much this "professional hair stylist makes for lathering and
          rinsing Emma's hair!
 
And then I clicked on the link in the last paragraph: Top Ten Summer Hairstyles. Though the summer is half over with, again, I was intrigued.

Stunned

Cranky

Stunned & Plastic

Angry & Plastic

Stunned & Plastic

I think my mom did this to my hair once. . . And only once.

Is it just me, or are these girls all very young? So these "top 10 summer hairstyles" are for 6 to 24 year olds who do nothing on their summer break except for hang out at the beach and/or the mall. Not one of these would have gotten me in the door at my office. Okay, maybe if my office were actually The GAP, then any one of these lovely hair-dos would fly. But certainly not in real life.

Which led me to the question: Are there any good beauty sites out there for middle-aged women? Sites that give real advice for real women on how to apply make-up to our thinning, sagging faces. Or sites that can show us middle-agers some hot new summer hairstyles that are age appropriate and that won't get us laughed out of our offices - or the grocery store.

I wondered. . . And then I Googled.

This is what Google came up with:

1. 5 Beauty Tips for Older Women (on HowStuffWorksdotcom) - This was obviously written by someone quite young and without much couth. Molly Edmonds uses phrases like this: "However, not every piece of beauty advice is as evergreen. Just as your face and body change as you age, acquiring wrinkles and age spots, so too must your cosmetics regimen." I don't know about you, but I was a bit offended. Her mother must have been on vacation when Molly received this assignment and the poor girl had no one to get Older Women make-up tips from, so she invented them.

2. The second link was: Older Women Makeup Tips - How to conceal wrinkles, crow's feet, crepe-y lids & much more (on Aboutdotcom) - Most of these tips are taken straight from Glamour magazine and just applied to "Older Women". I've heard of all of these before and there is nothing new to learn here. Apparently the beautifully aging face of Susan Sarandon is supposed to make us all feel right at home here. I wonder how much Julyne Derrick makes being the beauty expert for Aboutdotcom?

3. I stopped at the third link because it seemed to be written by someone who has a knack for writing. It seemed she is actually one of us and s able to convey her tips and thoughts without being insulting. Instead, she kept me wanting to read more and adopt her way of thinking about her love of make-up. Beauty tips from a middle aged diva by Melinda Maher on Examinerdotcom. Melina included a photo of Mandy Moore. How's that in comparison to Susan Sarandon? I absolutely loved her last line: "My goal is not to look ten years younger, but instead, to be the best-looking 51 year-old I can be."

Obviously #3 is my top choice for beauty advice. Though none of these were actually beauty sites, I got the most out of Melinda's post. It was a pleasant read and I didn't feel like I was separated from the masses. Instead, I felt like Melinda was a kindred spirit for all middle-aged women who, probably because of her age, was able to convey genuinely helpful tips that can help any of us girls feel more beautiful.

And she did it without making it sound like we're all a bunch of pine trees!