When you make it past eighty, you start comparing yourself to famous people who are also octogenarians.  There are lots of aging glamour girls like Jane Fonda, who make us feel like we’re not keeping up as we should.  Another famous  beauty apparently wowed everyone at the Governors Award Ball in Los Angeles. I guess she looked okay from a distance.  But Sophia Loren’s strange eyelash extensions and cat-like eyeliner only made her look worse, not better.

There’s a point in every woman’s life when she has to face the fact:  less is more. Heavy dark eye makeup only draws attention to wrinkles and aging skin.  By the time a lady enters her eighth decade, all the cosmetic surgery in the world can’t make her  look 20 again. A trip to Palm Springs always amazes me.  There, you see aging  California celebrities  proudly walking  around with misshaped faces,  duck lips, and padded cheekbones. And of course, eyelash extensions are a must.

Cosmetic surgery on  an aging face may make someone look younger, but definitely not better. The same goes for too much makeup—especially around the eyes.  In this case, all the eyeliner and lash extensions made Sophia Loren look like she was at a Halloween party. I hope older women don’t start trying to emulate her.   Debra Winger, who is aging so beautifully, has bemoaned the “face lift epidemic” in the United States.  We loved her in “Urban  Cowboy, “ and she’s still beautiful in “The Ranch.” But you’ll never see Debra with the  “raccoon eyes,” that make anyone past 70 look older.

Sophia Loren’s  eyelash extensions and signature  cat- like eyeliner may have wowed them  in Hollywood.   But here in the Heartland, she would have simply looked strange.