THE OVER-FIFTY LOOK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16350, 12 February 1921, Page 6

THE OVER-FIFTY LOOK.

(By A MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN.) , ' w -. ia . a go should a self-rospectine woman lay down the weapons with which she'has combated tho appearance ° Art?"paint, and powder and hair-re-storer an amiable weakness till, say, fifty, and an “unforgivable obscenity for' ever afterwards ? I ask myself these questions anviouslv. They contain the problem confrontevery married woman, but par-H-nlarlv 'those with husbands of the Carlylean brand who abhor (when they are old) or profess to abhor (when they are virtuous) all simulacra. • An mlforrdvablo obscenity is the verdict celiverod by my husband m none too dulcet tones at breakfast yesterday. To-dav I am fifty-one. On my dress-ing-table in dainty pots and jewelled boxes, "in shards and tubes and sachets, 1 see the whole armoury with which I began the warfare for good looks thirty years ago. , At tiie clangorous decades 1 kept ar bav the over-thirty and tho over-forty look, find now I have parried, with the aid of a, semi-transformation Cmacie from my own brown combings of thetwenties’), the inroads of deadly fifty. A prying world, fit any rate, is noii© the wiser. . , But—ah! that bat—my husband, vrho is by turns critical, sentimental, scornful and sometimes even peevish in this matter, has now ranged himsell definitely upon the side of the adversary. Ho urges me to display the virtues of sincerity and honesty. In acid tones he asks me when j propose to look like the mother of a son of twenty and or a daughter of twenty-two? He wants us “ t>o grow old together.” I verily believe that lie would prefer to see by light of day the abundant hair of delicate silver which rw»w lies hidden beneath that semi-transformation. But how can T change so suddenly from golden brown to the hues of fifty, outfacing tho furtive glances oi neighbours and my friends? Nature did not cast me in such heroic mould. 1 blame my husband- From him 1 Wave never concealed the rouge, the balsams and tho salves, the powders nnd virtuous oils and creams. He was early aware of the semi-transformation. Except this last, they confronted him openly in our chamber even in honeymoon .days. But there was no ope.n questioning or reproach; hb behaved as though my gallipots played an accepted and acceptable nart m the charms oi womanhood. It was ungracious to permit me without remonstrance to walk unguardedly into these traps of fifty. Of course we women use these devices to keep our husbands. TV© fear man’s bigamous nature. Always, or so wo think, he desires to feast on youth, and with arts and aids we present t.o him the simulation of perpetual youth - —or try tt*. It is woman’s eternal quandary. Shall wo risk the possible coming of that dreaded day when middle-aged eyes turn again to twenty-five with admiration when our own white hairs are a hopeless handicap? Or shall we counter it with fabrications? T find that it depends upon the kind of husband life’s lucky bag presents to 1 seem to have drawn the ulfera-vir-tuou?s sort.