Right now mine is red and splotchy. It seems I'm allergic to home improvement. Well, not to home improvement exactly, but to the dust it causes. If you're allergic to nuts or shellfish or even wheat, you can avoid them. I can't avoid dust unless I avoid breathing.

Usually a coating of foundation, topped with a layer of makeup, dotted with concealer and dusted with blush can keep me from looking like the travel version of connect the dots; but my dermatologist says it's better to let my skin breathe naturally.

Well, my formerly fair, but now flushed flesh, better do some deep breathing because I have to go out tonight. I may see red after the Homeowner's Association meeting, but I don't want to look red before the meeting even starts.

Maybe I could improve the breathing of my enigmatic epidermis with some skin-to-skin resuscitation. No, I think trying to breathe life into my face by rubbing it with slices of apple or cucumber or a dollop of sour cream would clean out my refrigerator better than it would clean out my pores.

Becoming a vegetarian definitely cleaned out my refrigerator. No more beef, chicken, pork or the occasional liver - which my sons had tried to avoid by telling me it caused liver spots. Basting liver with a jalapeno barbeque sauce and barbequing it on the grill made it slightly more palatable for my sons, but where were the creams and lotions with SPF numbers when I was using baby oil to barbeque my teenage body in the sun? That question not only gets under my skin, it gets under my wrinkles.

My grandmother believed a woman could have the face she wanted until she was fifty. Then she had the face she deserved and makeup couldn't hide. Grandmother believed that diet and exercise are better than makeup because they're more than skin deep.

Although I know Grandmother's right, I still want an easy fix. I still want to believe the makeup propaganda I see in print and on television. Because there are millions of women like me, makeup is big business. If you believe the ads, you can't afford not to buy the products. You can't afford to be a skinflint.