The beast of beauty is that it’s so costly

Who said beauty’s but skin deep? Let me tell you, beauty is as deep as your wallet.

And who said beauty is momentary? He must have meant monetary.

Just look at the advertisements for plastic surgery clinics specializing in face-lifts, laser surgery, “peels,” and Collagen injections to rid your face of those unsightly spider veins. (Why worry about a few spider veins when the lines running across your face have come to resemble a coast and geodetic survey map?)

Then, there are ads for cosmetic dentistry, even a “Center for Smile Designs,” to be precise, which offers teeth whitening and porcelain veneers, similar to, I would think, those techniques applied to old claw-foot tubs that have cracked and yellowed with age. “Advances in modern dentistry make it easy to restore a lifelike beauty to teeth that are stained, chipped, crooked or missing.” (Missing? Give us a break.)

And, for “women who wish to look their best all the time,” there are specialists in permanent cosmetics: eyebrows, eyeliner, lipliner, beauty marks, etc., for “busy people with little time to apply makeup.” (They must be busy.)

“Imagine a better you,” the ad says before outlining the effects of a super-duper remedy that promises youthful-looking skin. The doctor merely prescribes a home-treatment program that will diminish fine lines and wrinkles, improve skin texture and elasticity and correct uneven pigmentation. (Age spots, we lay people who have them, call them.)

I have no earthly idea what blepharoplasty is, or abdominoplasty, but it’s all done in a clinic of plastic surgery, so the advertisement says. As for rhinoplasty, I can only guess.

Once, when visiting a women’s clinic down South, I heard a loud speaker announce to all within the building the day’s discount rates for liposuction, breast augmentation and whatever the procedure is called for lifting droopy eyelids. “KMart blue-light specials” is how the list read, yet here they were talking about tummy-tucks and fanny-tugs. Instead of playing tennis this afternoon, just check in for a few hours, take out a second mortgage on the house and have your double chin disappear.

Not all magazines carry these slick ads. I didn’t see any in Down East magazine, for instance, or in Yankee as I was sitting in my own dermatologist’s office the other day. There may have been one from Burt’s Bees for chapped lips or Corn Huskers for dry hands, but that would have been the extent of it.

No mention of obtaining dewy skin or eliminating crow’s feet. Nothing that promised, like a cycle on your dryer, “wrinkle- free.” Nope, no miracles for that day. Just another round of freezing off a few precancerous lesions caused by too much sun for too many years.

Now, that’s well worth the money.