Is it Time to MILFmaxx?

A higher-maintenance beauty routine seems required to be a hot middle aged woman.

I am now almost the same age as Stiffler’s Mom. Please clap.

Fun lore about me: despite loving fashion and spending inordinate amounts of time sewing and shopping for clothes, I actually don’t spend much money or time on beauty.

In fact, I do everything myself, and I really mean everything. My husband cuts my hair. I haven’t had a professional manicure or pedicure in about fifteen years, save for one that I had to do as a bizarre team offsite at a previous company. I use skincare products, but I have never been to a cosmetic dermatologist for any reason, let alone gotten Botox or fillers. I even do all my own hair removal, including waxing with a $9 kit from Amazon and shaving with they/them generic bulk razors. My hair “style” is sleeping with it in a fuzzy sock with a scrunchie tied around the end and then brushing it in the morning. I work out entirely from home and I haven’t had a gym membership since I stepped on a poop-smeared yoga mat at a 24 Hour Fitness in San Francisco in 2016.

I’ve written before about the point of diminishing hotness and my belief that certain beauty enhancements, especially once you’re already in a relationship, will generally be a waste of time and money. Most men without a foot fetish do not care if you have a professional pedicure. Most men can’t tell the difference between box dye and a professional dye job. And once you’re already married to someone as I am, changing the structure of your face with injectables and plastic surgery seems like something that might actually turn him off.

But I’m having second thoughts, because as I get older and the standards for what is required to look “nice” seem to be rising. My older child recently started going to a new school and the first thing I noticed at the parent events were that the moms (most of whom are a little older than I am) have barrel-curled hair, highlights, professionally-done nails, and about half of them clearly have filler. I’m sure many more have other cosmetic enhancements I’m not noticing. We recently took a family trip to Europe, and on our way to the plane, I saw a mom who was probably about forty, who was wearing a full face of subtle makeup, had (again) barrel curled hair, lip filler, probably Botox, and was wearing a “real” outfit instead of plane sweatpants. She had three kids, and was groomed like this for an eight hour flight! I’m sure nobody was judging me for looking as slovenly as I did, but when I go on an eight hour flight with my kids, I’m mostly concerned with pure survival, and a curling iron is about as far from my mind as the syllabus of my tenth grade chemistry class.

I’ve always prided myself in having such a low maintenance beauty routine because it saves money (which, frankly, can be used to buy vintage Gunne Sax dresses) and saves time (which is used scrolling for the aforementioned dresses—I mean, playing with my kids) I’m starting to wonder if the “point of diminishing hotness” is just different for women of a certain age. Assuming I look my age (and I think I do) maybe I just need to do more. Maybe I need to MILFmaxx.