The Best Advice I Ever Got From Heather Locklear

An expert in beauty I am not. As I trudge up the hill toward 50, it is apparent I missed out on many of the things my friends learned decades ago.

Armed with knowledge from 80’s teen magazines, my friends could wield lipsticks and eyeliner with stylish panache, whereas I could barely follow the instructions on the back of the eyeshadow case.

A bookworm by nature, my personal library was filled with Stephen King, V.C. Andrews and Robert Lynn Aspirin. I’ve never even held a copy of Cosmopolitan.

However, even a fiction junkie can be pulled from the pages of the paperback. In my case, it was the soulful brush strokes of despairing artists or the haunting melodies of weeping guitars that got my attention.

So it happened, one fine summer evening in nineteen-eighty-something, my teenage self accepted a date with my guitar-playing boyfriend to attend a jam session. For those unfamiliar, a jam session is a group of musician buddies who get together to play whatever chord, riff, solo or song moves them in the moment. There could be two musicians, there could be twenty.

In the right circumstances, being audience to a jam is exciting and entertaining. Other times, such as the fine summer evening in question, it is not. So there my teenage self was, trapped in an agonizingly boring jam session, listening to several guitar players break down and analyze the same song over and over and over (and still not getting it right.) And me without a book to read!

With nothing better to draw my attention, I picked up a music magazine and began to leaf through it. Among the glossy pages I found an interview with Heather Locklear, who at that time was married to Motley Crue drummer, Tommy Lee (although I knew her better as Vicky McGee.)

Much of the article has long since left my memory. But at some point, the interview turned to a discussion about the use of sunscreen. In a time when sun-tanning was almost a national sport, sunscreen was a highly debated topic.

My teenage self was a natural tanner, turning deep brown by the end of May and holding most of my summer colour well into the cold, Canadian winter. I scoffed at the use of sunscreen, even though I too, had started to experience the occasional sunburn.

Heather Locklear, however, had a different view on the matter. She freely admitted to using sunscreen on a daily basis. She also confessed that it was not for noble, health inspired reasons like preventing skin cancer. No. Heather Locklear wore sunscreen because, as she put it, the sun gives you wrinkles.

Her open admission to vanity notwithstanding, my teenage self was compelled to adopt that advice. Like most teenagers, I was sure old age started somewhere around 23. Being a sun demon, I had, on occasion, noticed minor signs of protest around my eyes after marathon days in the sun. It was just a matter of time before it became permanent.

Sunscreen was still relatively new, but it was definitely easy to find in the beauty aisle. Both face moisturizers and foundations had begun offering products with an SPF of 15, making it pretty easy to add sunscreen to my regime. And just like that, I too, had a beauty trick.

My cosmetic ambitions have been dreadfully erratic in the thirty-odd years since that jam session. My only consistency has been to wear moisturizer, with SPF, every day regardless of weather, season or occasion.

Teenage Me: 1989

Through the ensuing years, broad spectrum sunscreen has become a staple for skin care, making me feel a bit like a pioneer. Regardless, the older I get, the more possible the threat of things like cancer become. I am sincerely grateful to have stumbled upon this sage bit of advice early enough to reap the protective benefits.

Now Me: 2019

While I have never been able to master lipliner or how to keep my hair from falling flat on one side, I can attest to the regular use of sunscreen. And for that, I must say, thank you Heather Locklear!

My Mom, AKA The Avon Lady

My mother, Carole, was not the idle type. She usually had a least one or two projects in the works. Sanding down and refinishing an old china cabinet. Removing layers of orange, flowered, kitchen wallpaper to paint it a warm buttercup yellow. Diligently adding wainscoting to save the wall from dining chairs ruthlessly slammed about by us kids. Daring to add a rainbow border to the bedroom walls of my almost-teenaged sister who insisted said walls be painted a dreary, lifeless grey.

Nothing shines brighter in my memory, however, than those days when I would come home from school and see her in the living room, surrounded by cardboard boxes; unloading and sorting the beautiful bottles and jewels to be put into paper bags and delivered to waiting customers.

My mother, you see, was the Avon Lady. And she loved it. Did she make any money? No, not really. But that wasn’t why she did it. She enjoyed strolling the neighbourhood with her lipstick samples and campaign catalogues. She delighted over the new nail polish pens, fancy perfume bottles and ceramic collector steins.

I cannot even recall at time when I didn’t get an Avon goodie bag of bath soaps and body lotions for Christmas and birthdays. It’s safe to say, when I think of Avon, I remember my mother.

And so it happened, when I came across an Avon post, I simply could not keep scrolling. Instead, I clicked on the post, and accepted that alluring invitation to join the ranks of women, who, like my mother, proudly call themselves the Avon Lady.