Might my quest for beauty in my thirties (far later than it should have been, but what’s done is done) lead me to a visage of “natural beauty” that in fact has nothing natural about it? I wonder with my latest interests in what techniques could help me be the best me I could be. I’ve already committed to being tan, blond, and fun in my new life, but how to do that exactly?
Tanning is simple enough: the midnight sun has already given me a tan, but with some unsightly lines, so I’ll need to embrace the power of the tanning booth over a sustained regimen to get that gorgeous golden tan evenly all over my body.
Being fun? Well, that’s an entire lifestyle change right there, but in terms of how it affects my face I really should do a lot more things a lot more often that make me happy. Believe it or not, when I’m enjoying myself I look like a fun person, toothy smile and all. The smile comes courtesy of the porcelain veneers I got earlier this year, which let me smile fully without being ashamed of myself and made the smile I did make look as gorgeous as it did natural. Pearly-white tier? Hollywood. Loving it.
There’s just one issue: I’m not a naturally happy person all the time; in fact it takes a lot to make me happy, and I’m not trained to give off fake smiles and grins all the time, so I end up the vast majority of the time with a neutral expression. Much of the time I look low-key disgusted or at least serious, if not grim; one of my friends has said my expression is very Russian, to give you an idea (and said friend is Russian, so they should know!). Like Russian people I think of it as just being normal, but I can’t help but wonder if the Americans I surround myself with in my real life find my usual expression off-putting; essentially, I might have whatever the male equivalent of “resting bitch face” is.
Just actually making myself happier, with whatever means it takes, is the simplest answer, but in researching the matter I came across a curious possibility: botox. Believe it or not everyone’s favorite neurotoxin can work for facial expression as well in addition to anti-aging, helping to soften the mood you give off, leading to a more serene look, and even flipping a natural frown into a slight natural smile, which can (allegedly) really make a difference for a person’s image and vibe. Very intriguing stuff, to the point where I wondered earlier today if I should get some myself.
But when I look at the before-and-after pictures I’m not exactly impressed. The results look subtle in most cases; worse yet, the few cases that did have a marked effect looked weird. Especially the cases that didn’t involve huge wrinkles and truly godawful natural frowns, neither of which I have. Indeed, at the age of 30 I have no wrinkles whatsoever, though I do have the forehead creases and “elevens” when I get stressed or upset; they promptly disappear when I start de-tensing, but they do provide a preview of what I’ll look like once age sets in more…and I don’t like it. Should I get botox for preventing that from taking hold?
The thought has crossed my mind, but I’ve been outright told by the nurse practitioner who’s done my filler that I’m not a candidate for botox, period. It’d just be a waste for me to bother with it. Filler, on the other hand, has already worked wonders for improving my face, from my jawline to the dark circles under my eyes, and even things in between such as my nasiolabial folds and my cheeks.
Filler too has been implicated in improving “resting bitch face”, but basically all the techniques that could help me (such as drawing up the fat in the face above and outward from the nasiolabial folds) I’ve already gotten! Am I already “looksmaxed” as far as my natural expression goes? I hope not, because if so, yikes. I’d like to look happy and young and bubbly and energetic and…well, fun.
My natural dark brown hair doesn’t help that, since together with my olive skin tone and hazel eyes it leads my image to look like a flat, dull, depressing dark monochrome. Blond hair will change that, not only brightening up my entire image and screaming “I’m young and have fun, look at me look at me look at me!”, but also helping to make the green tones in my eyes much more vivid, together with my olive skin tone and vaguely Mediterranean facial features making me look exotic, a major upgrade from how I look now, which is not “exotic” but rather “ethnic”. Platinum blond goes best with my skin tone, and I’m in love with those shades anyway; what’s even the point of going blond if you’re not going to go all the way?
I’m moving to Los Angeles soon, which mercifully is one of the few cities in the world (and I mean few; you can count them on one hand) where you can get anything done with your hair your heart desires, if you’re willing to get with the program and part with your cash; literally, the skill to do what I have in mind correctly doesn’t exist in a great many major cities. Which has gotten me thinking about the details of my blonding program.
Ideally I want not only platinum blond hair, but shiny platinum blond hair, and above all shiny platinum blond hair that’s curly, sporting the tightest of waves that bounce with every step and catch the sunlight on the beach. And I want those curls to be long. Currently my hair is wavy and extends to chin length. I’ve been trying to grow it out, especially over my three-month vacation (where it lightened due to increased sun exposure, a change people have noticed and I think is already improving my appearance and how people treat me and see me), but realistically blonding does damage the hair somewhat, meaning some will need to be cut off; worse yet, the curls will mean the hair I do have will be wound up tighter, meaning that chin-length hair might fall only to the ear somewhere, especially if I go for tighter curls like Baroque-style ringlets. What am I to do?
Well, it strikes me today that hair extensions might come to the rescue. It’s high-maintenance, but high-quality hair extensions can be done; indeed, in my case it might be easier to match them up exactly, since both my natural hair and the extensions would be dyed very severely anyway, and curled at the salon. Extensions can enhance the length of hair you already have, or they can be used to extend the overall length of your mane by pretty much whatever you want, assuming you’re willing to pay for it and put in the work to maintain it…which I am!
That’s pretty much the sort of treatment I need, at least if a series of before-and-after galleries I saw at a place in London that specializes in that sort of thing is any indication. Mercifully it’s even relatively affordable; at the same salon the total cost weighs in at under $1000, probably well under $1000 for the sort of treatment I’d probably be getting.
In my case my goal hair length would be somewhere in the chest area; enough for me to feel those delectable curls brush my shoulders with every step and every breath but definitely not extending past the nipple. Above shoulder-length is just so ho-hum, and shoulder-length hair is just awkward. Somewhere around armpit length is likely the sweet spot for me.
Especially once I reach my goal physique, which is all excess body fat gone, a brand new me with a flat tummy, followed by bulking up muscle to the point I get big strong-looking arms easily visible even in a tight-fitting shirt, plus a six-pack being visible, though sheathed underneath a layer of fullness. Typical Hollywood actor physique, I guess; along the same lines as the golden-era bodybuilders (though less extreme in terms of the mass being put on).
I can lift heavy weights a few hours a week but I definitely don’t have the discipline or the patience it takes to get the results I want from it naturally, so anabolic steroids may well be in my future; dianabol, in particular, might be just what I’m looking for. Of course I don’t want to take the slightest chance of impairing my future fertility, since I’m dead-set on having a family, so I’d never want to start such a cycle before I’ve had at least one child; ah, decisions, decisions…
I might actually just accept the risk and hop on, since looksmaxing will make it much easier for me to make something of myself enough to be able to support a family to begin with (something I’m not really capable of at the moment with the nest egg I have…).
There is a split-the-difference option: creating embryos before I start cycling, as an insurance policy in case something goes wrong, but even that is pricy (much less expensive than birthing the baby, however, assuming you have to hire a surrogate, as single fathers by choice must). We’ll see.
I do intend on putting the max in looksmaxing, however. I’ve loved the results of the full body waxing I got before I went on vacation, and after I find a new provider in Los Angeles I’m going to keep that up. Hair is for my head, not for anywhere else on the body; after I diet down to a new improved me, that flat tummy isn’t going to have a single hair on it. I’ll look into treatments to keep my body, and especially that formerly fat midsection, looking as supple and tight as possible, assuming they’ll even be needed (so far in my weight loss journey my skin hasn’t gone loose at all, but often the last few pounds are the most ornery…).
In the short term, I’ll continue my program of regular facials. For a couple years now I’ve gotten one every three weeks. And of course the best serums on my face every day (I got some new and very good stuff in Amsterdam that I’m using now, actually).
My hair and beard? That’s going to be taken care of professionally very frequently from now on; indeed, the blonding program will be very good for me, in as much as maintaining platinum blond hair dye with extensions and total curling will force me back into the salon every few weeks, instilling good habits when it comes to maintaining my appearance.
I think I’ll let the professionals take care of my nails too. Regular manicures and pedicures will be part of my new life. New me will have immaculate clear polished nails (not colored long nails, that’s far too feminine, but even for a man having well-groomed shiny nails helps).
My facial filler of course has to be maintained on a roughly annual basis, and I’ll be continuing that regimen. My face if anything is taking to it well, being trained into new me’s shape, so I might not need quite so much of it as I have. On the flip side, however, aging takes its toll, even when you’re 30, so I’m expecting the net effect is I’ll need regular generous helpings of it, and botox too before too long.
My stretch marks on my arms and abdomen have faded significantly but they’re still there after several microneedling treatments; those are expensive to the point I’m putting that on the back burner, but I really think there’s a way to eliminate them over the long haul. It might be long, difficult, expensive, and involve multiple treatments, but I’m confident it can be done.
Between veneers, hair dye, hair extensions, tanning, filler, and steroids…there will be basically nothing on or near my face that’s all-natural. Even my eyes might be in for some enhancement; I’m no longer interested in changing their color to blue with contact lenses, but in AI renditions of my face I look fantastic with circle lenses designed to match my eye color, the only effect being to make the irises look bigger. No idea how that would work or if it would even be worth it (as opposed to just enhancing them in photos with editing), but it’s on the menu…
Indeed, about the only thing that’s not on the menu is plastic surgery, for the simple reason that there’s really no feature in my face that could use any. The usual go-to for improvement, the nose, is pretty much perfect in my case, in both shape and size; seriously, I don’t even have the slight dents that mar the ski-slope in the vast majority of other people I see. Along with my shiny and pretty hair (look at any portrait painting of Emma, Lady Hamilton and you’ll get the idea; her hair looked a lot like mine does) it’s my best feature.
Well…at least I think so. The women I encounter in the wild all gush over how soft my hands are, more so than any other feature on my whole body. At first I thought it was just because the handholding is emphasized more in dance (the setting I met all these people in), but on a recent date in Amsterdam I got the same rather specific compliment, despite never having danced with that particular girl. Indeed, I might get that compliment more than any other, aside from the usual go-to that I’m “so sweet” (but that’s personality, not appearance, so I digress).
My posture, my speech, and my personality all cry out for improvement as well. I have decent posture courtesy of my dance training, but from what I’ve seen of people with ballet backgrounds I could take it much further. Voice coaching and acting training could really help me a lot out in the real world. And as for my personality? I can be a happy and upbeat person, but it requires everything going right for me to be all smiles instead of all resting bitch face. Building healthier habits will help.
Qigong and tai chi intrigue me, and I’d like to try that out; above all, however, I really need to get outside, in the sun, in the surf, breathing fresh air and listening to the rush of the ocean water as I feel the sand on my feet. That’ll help me be happy and healthy more than anything, and between the direct effects of my appearance and the salutary effects it’ll have on my posture and my physical fitness I’m starting to think the new improved me should enjoy full days of creative and physical pursuits outside the home, ramping up ever-so-gradually while my time hunched over the laptop and the phone is ramped down, all part of a strict wellness and self-care routine. Go all-out, even if it costs more in the beginning, because the new me needs to be the best me: tan, blond, and fun.
I want beauty: head to toe, body and soul, inside and outside. And I shall have it, no matter what it takes…