Is it Valentine’s Day on Monday? In 23 years of married life, I have never celebrated that. I would even say that we make it our duty, my boyfriend and me, to run away from a party where we have to love each other on a particular day. I’m sure couple bickering escalates on February 14, because one or the other feels disappointed or obligated. It’s way too much pressure.
Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
I’m not going to tell you nonsense like “we don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day because it’s Valentine’s Day at home every day”. How would I know, since I never celebrated it anyway? Valentine’s Day is like a wedding: it’s not because we devote an ostentatious day to love by putting out the flowers and the beautiful clothes (or alluring underwear and handcuffs) that we are able to cross time together.
For a couple to work, you have to take care of yourself first, because it is not the job of the other to do so.
Nothing prevents the little attentions, which are important, but without wanting to type in the cliché, you have to know how to have fun and love yourself so that the other can do the same on his side. English speakers call it the self care, which in my opinion is the royal road to a happy couple. Its importance is very well demonstrated in the excellent file of my colleague Émilie Côté.
My boyfriend and I are not big consumers, but we have our personal whims. He is the soundtracks of horror films and luxury cheddar, and I, the small pots of cream and perfumes.
I have no interest in fashion or decoration, but the bathroom is my kingdom and proves that I am a specialist in self care.
It all started with the Yves Rocher brand, a kind of Columbia beauty products club. I then learned to take advantage of gifts with purchase by excitedly receiving boxes full of body products.
So I started creaming myself when I was 20, and I haven’t stopped since. Holt Renfrew or the beauty counter at Pharmaprix is the equivalent for me of the happiness that a child can have at Toys “R” Us. In the confinement of the dreadful month of January that we have just passed, the Holt Renfrew’s algorithm found me by offering me a “beauty and wellness kit” worth $800 for $200. I know the price of these products, it was quite a deal, and I hadn’t shopped for a year. Without forgetting that I fidget as soon as I hear the word “kit”.
And then there is the poetry of the beauty products, whose descriptions seem written by specialized writers: Amore Pacific Unique Vintage Extract Essence, Aura Inner Beauty Resilience Beauty Powder, Bathorium Charcoal Crush Detoxifying Botanical Bath, Magic Serum Crystal Elixir by Charlotte Tilbury, The Beauty Skin Key Serum, the Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Repair Complex, Guerlain Abeille Royale Youth Oil-in-Water…
Poetry, I tell you. Science fiction it, I want to add.
I’m not stupid, I know very well that these little jars of cream will not stop time and that they are less effective than Botox or fillers. But they are beautiful, they smell good, they make me happy, I like to test them.
Of course, when we admit this, there are always people who say to go watch the Pharmacist in order to understand the scam of the cosmetics industry, but I react like a child, covering my ears and singing lalala.
In truth, by frequenting beauty products, I have become reasonable. It’s pretty simple, what you need to do to have beautiful skin. Protect it from the sun, moisturize it (creams basically work when they moisturize, no matter the price), always remove makeup before going to bed. I stick with my favorite products – Skinceuticals, CeraVe, Clarins and the Dennis Gross peel – but I just can’t resist the sample kits, which are like loot bags.
It’s not my boyfriend Who could give me that as a Valentine’s Day gift, because he doesn’t understand anything about it. And when he laughs at my weakness, I attack him with Valmont’s “Initial Healing Face Mist” or threaten to remove the blackheads on his nose.
Well beyond the banal coquetry, it is a ritual, a kind of small communion with oneself, a little gentleness towards one’s own body which faces this life without pity.
Because love is a bit like letting the other pamper themselves. After all, I don’t cry when he puts pineapple on his pizza…