Obsessions For as long as I could remember cleanse, tone, and moisturize, had been the routine that launched my day. The next hour I would unavoidably spend pouring over the garments in my closet for what shirt would flatter the exact bottom fitting jeans. It was the most daunting of task, and only grew worse. After the face was prepped and the attire was painstakingly chosen, the arsenal of cosmetics that were certain to make me look and feel good about facing the world, was ready to perfectly and strategically adhere to my flawed blank canvas.

If someone would have asked me how I would describe myself in two words, I would have said, a “Product junky.” I was a bona fide slave to fashion and beauty, and I had the products and garb to prove it. There was no doubt that I had become obsessed, and it all began as a young girl growing up, thinking I wasn’t pretty because of my dark skin and kinky hair. Society had pounded into my head that I was not the archetype of beauty.

In the 80s, I never saw anyone on a magazine cover or television that looked like me, and no boy ever expressed his interest an, if he did, it was for one thing and one thing only. All those emotional scars followed me into those edifying years and eventually into adulthood, still lying to me and draining my pockets.

There wasn’t a magazine or commercial ad that didn’t have the subliminal powers to lure me to buy whatever it was selling. Over the years, what had started out as an infatuation, rapidly turned into a full-blown addiction that produced a medicine cabinet and dresser full of half-filled bottles and jars unable to be completely emptied before the replacement came along.

As I licked my thumb and pointer finger to help leaf through countless issues of ELLE, VOGUE, and Marie Clair with ease, I dismissed anything that resembled an article and scampered directly to the myriad of advertisements or editor’s picks that immediately bombarded me with images of size zero, perfect faced models clad in designer’s clothes who I could only dream of wearing. I would have been untruthful if I said I didn’t love it. I salivated and my eyes would shift erratically as I dog eared or ripped out pages for a visual note for what I planned to dash off to the nearest beauty supply store or cosmetic counter to purchase.

For so long, the world was my nemesis. It had beaten me down mentally and verbally in many ways telling me my type of beauty was wrong. And, along came the product pushers promising to enhance and reconstruct my looks and ebb away the aging process all with a dab of this and a dollop of that.

All of this obsession for perpetual youth in a jar because society and the media has fashioned a counterfeit archetype of what beauty looks like. As a result, I have spent enormous amounts of time, money and effort trying to correct things that only plastic surgery can fix. I have used all the tips and tricks camouflaging and contouring what I disapproved of and enhancing others while increasing the revenue of cosmetic manufacturers who capitalized off my insecurities and need to feel good about my image.

The desire for aesthetic perfection and eternal youth or the delusion of what those nouns suggested will exist as long as there are images of celebrities and models invading the covers of my issues of VOGUE and ELLE, with their splendor, reminding me of my external deficiencies that don’t fit the superficial standard of beauty.