That's My Bix!

Going back to grad school has been both terrible and great for my ego.

My classmates — most of whom are between 25 and 30 years old — often tell me that they thought I was 27 or 28 years old until they discover that I’m, well, almost double that. New MFAs who come in at the tender age of 22 frequently refuse to believe that I’m older than their mom. Either there is a conspiracy afoot to polish my vane little ego or I really might be hypnotizing everyone from recognizing my slow descent to the grave. They all say exactly the same thing:

“You have amazing skin.”

To me, my skin looks old. After all, it’s the same skin I’ve had all of my life. I see the eye crinkles and the enormous CREVICE on my forehead where my eyebrows raise and wrinkle deep thoughts together until they settle in the valley between. But I’ll admit — while I look old, if I look closely at the people around me, people I know are easily a decade younger than me? Okay, I see what they’re saying.

My graduate coordinator and beloved professor is six years older than me. She often grabs my cheek and says “How? How? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?” As she also is a head editor for the Norton Anthology, my skincare routine feels positively sanctified by the Powers That Be of higher literary education.

I’m going to tell you how this is possible.

Before you start thinking genetics, let me tell you this — my mother looks easily twenty years older than her real age. But here’s the difference: Not only does she smoke habitually, she also worked in environments where everyone smoked. She also never used sunscreen and while she didn’t worship the sun exactly, her idea of a good relaxing weekend was at the beach. She inherited much more Native genetics so assumed that none of her children needed sunscreen, and only brought coconut oil to the beach to prevent burning. Yes, somehow she equated burning with needing moisturizing. She failed to parse the fact that tender little Bix was indeed the product of her DNA, but also contained an entire 50% of Brand W, which included a healthy dose of Scandinavian paleness thank you very much. I burn faster than an unwatched pot of caramel on Great British Bake Off. Luckily, my great grandmother took the reins and started supplying me with the best SPF she could find at the time, which was SPF 20. Better than nothing but not great and it only marginally worked, so she pulled out the bigger guns with big sunglasses, hats, light coverups and gauze sheets to throw over me when I wasn’t swimming. I survived beach outings by wearing long-sleeve white t-shirts, actual zinc oxide and then graduating to rash guards.

We can’t do anything about the sun damage we’re already carrying. That ship has sailed. But that’s not a reason to stop caring about sun protection from this day forward, preventing all sun damage going forward. I’m usually lazy about daily SPF, I buy and wear only mineral foundations that offer between 30 to 50 SPF, unless I’m going to be in a situation where I don’t want to wear makeup at all, and then it’s either a mineral sunscreen or clear zinc in SPF 50. (I prefer SunBum products because they’re vegan, don’t contain things I’m allergic to and are easy to obtain at Target, plus they smell like 70’s Coppertone, but if I had my druthers, it would be Korean Biore UV Riche all the way — I’m just too forgetful to keep it on hand regularly, plus it’s pricy and I’m poor).

But what we can do? Moisturize. I moisturize like it’s my JOB, and I think this is why my skin has been getting so many compliments in Las Vegas. I mean, I’m sure part of it is the comparison to the usual denizens of Las Vegas, who are assaulted with intense UV rays 330 days of the year with zero cloud cover AND who potentially grew up with a lot more oxidizing factors and environmental exposure, like the high alkalinity of things like chlorinated pools, desert sand and dust blowing constantly, and probably more cigarette smoke exposure than usual (most Vegas movie theatres, for instance, are inside casinos, which means you have to walk through smoke to see Frozen 2). Plus it’s likely that everyone is walking around with low grade dehydration most of the time.

It’s not that I wasn’t moisturizing in Wisconsin, it’s just that I take it so much more seriously here. Here’s what I do:

Mornings are the most product-filled for me. My morning routine:

• Oral hygiene : Brusha brusha brusha! My teeth are in good shape and that’s because I prioritize fluoride toothpaste. My toothpaste of choice is Sensodyne and then I hit it with Listerine Ultra Care (which also has fluoride in it) afterwards. I used to rinse my mouth with water after brushing but I learned that it was washing away the fluoride, so now I don’t do that, and I also wait at least 30 minutes to get coffee or drink water. It helps to do this first because then it can work while you’re doing the face stuff. If I were a better person, I’d floss every morning, but I don’t.
• Eye cream — Specifically Cerave Eye Repair Cream — I like this because it’s about $10 and you can usually pair it with a deal at Target or Ulta where you either get a second one for half off or it stacks with a coupon or $5 Target card. Seems to be almost a duplicate of my old favorite Kinerase, but a fifth of the price.
• A facial moisturizer — I flip between Philosophy Renewed Hope in a Jar which I buy because I like how it smells and Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream which has no scent but seems to make my rosacea happier with its bland Canadian “get it done” attitude. I really don’t have a preference here other than it needs to be gentle and it needs to happen before my foundation/SPF. What really matters most here isn’t so much the brand but rather the frequency.
• Foundation with SPF: I used to live and die by Bare Minerals or MAC powder foundation because my face produced a lot more sebum but things have settled down now that we’re in Perimenopause Land (the least fun of all theme parks) so I’ve switched back to liquid foundation. I really loved Philosophy’s Miracle Worker foundation with natural SPF 30 but they seemed to have discontinued it as I can only find old stock on Amazon now. I’ve now been quite taken with IT Cosmetics CC Cream with spf 50. It’s kind of outrageously expensive, though, so I tend to only buy it when it’s at least 20% off or a deal at Ulta.
• Leave – In conditioner: My hair stylist Patty has schooled me on conditioners. What I could get away with as a not-that-grey color enthusiast who never uses heat on her head and lives in the humidity and has a low-shampoo maintenance plan is NOT what I can get away with now, as I have significantly more grey, I live in a place with maybe 5% humidity most of the time, and then there’s the afore-mentioned constant barrage of UV rays. Since I have so-called fashion color, my ends had to be bleached and double-processed, which makes the ends of my hair very fragile, so every day, a quick swipe of a leave-in conditioner for daily maintenance just on the ends. If I do any further up, I’ll be a slime head by Day 3 so nothing higher than the shoulders. My leave-in of choice is Living Proof Restore Repair Leave In — I’ve tried cheaper brands and they turn my head into a grease slick so this is worth it to me. I also like Aveda Damage Repair spray quite a lot and the Bumble and bumble Invisible Oil is good too but each about the same price as the LP Repair so I use whatever I have on hand.
• Then makeup — although most of the time, this is it unless I have to teach or give a public talk, which is when I would amp that up. That’s so detailed, it’s really a separate post.

At night, I need to have a streamlined process because by the time I get my ass to the bedroom, I probably should have gone to bed an hour ago.

• Drink a glass of water. Yes, a full glass before bed. I like to live dangerously but also, you dehydrate overnight. Peeing is normal and a full glass — for me — doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night, but it definitely gets me out of bed in the morning. I like to hit at least 8 ounces before I brush my teeth (see above re: fluoride) and then sleep with another 8-10 ounces next to my bedside for when I inevitably wake up with a dry-ass desert mouth.
• Remove all facial products: I used to do the full face wash routine with Philosophy Purity and still keep it around for when I want to go the full process, but what has helped me stay consistent is just a pack of makeup removing wipes. I’m partial to Cerave Facial Makeup Removing Wipes but I also like the micellular water wipes that Trader Joe’s sells and the coconut water wipes from Say Yes. It feels like an extravagance to buy and throw away these wipes, so when I’m done with them, I use the clean side to wipe something else down — usually my dog’s eye boogers but sometimes just the faucets on the vanity.
• Brush and floss the teeth: Once again, a swish of Listerine Ultra Care (I like the purple one the best) and some Sensodyne toothpaste, followed up by a full flossing. Very few adults actually floss regularly — and sometimes I’m one of those adults who doesn’t, but I remind myself that it’s one of the easiest self-care things you can do and seriously — time yourself doing this. You’ll find that you can floss your entire mouth in 90 seconds. You can give 90 seconds to prevent actual bone loss in your jaw, right? Because that’s what you’re doing when you floss. Once I’ve done the fluoride and floss routine, no drinking or eating beyond this point, for at least an hour. My favorite floss is also Listerine-brand, although it doesn’t have fluoride in it — it does have a nice stretch to it and a weirdly satisfying snap when you finish a tooth. It’s enough so that I go from tolerating a task to mildly enjoying it, so that’s a good enough reason to find a brand you really like and run with it.
• Night Eye Cream: This is where I had to make a paradigm shift. You could totally and easily just use the same stuff you’re using for morning eye care here but I decided that a) it made me happy to use a more robust eye cream at night b) I wanted the ingredients that shouldn’t be worn in the sun, so that means I needed two eye creams no matter what. My choice is Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Eye. It smells really nice too. What matters most here, though, is the frequency — if you’re also a lovely older lady at the gates of Perimenopause Land (meet me by the Chin Hair Jungle ride! Just past Hot Flash Rollercoaster) you need to do eye cream every twelve hours. Shush. I know you don’t want to. Just do it. It takes honestly ten seconds to swipe, swipe, done, now you look slightly less haggard so yay.
• Face overnight masque: Okay, so I think this is the real secret to the compliments I get on my skin. The other stuff — especially the water — are all supporting great skin but the thing that puts me over the edge is a nightly masque. And I mean every night. You’ll notice that for everything else I’ve said “Eh, use something you like, it doesn’t matter just use it” — for this one thing, I swear by Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Overnight Hydrating Masque and nothing else. I also wear a CPAP to sleep (aka the sleep snorkle) and the lines from the masque typically leave indentations in whichever side of my face is pressed against the pillow. But you know what? Not if my skin is properly hydrated and for me, that means a glass of water at bedtime and also this specific masque. Every night. You will take this from me when you pry it from my cold dead hands. When I stop using this or run out? I look like this.
• Go to sleep for at least 8 hours. See, I put the hardest one at the end, but I’m writing this right now at 10:44 pm and I have to leave tomorrow for work by 8 am, which gives me just enough time to hit save and start this bedtime routine myself.

Get some sleep this week, friend. You look like you need some rest.