Tick, Tock, Nip, Tuck.(Editorial)

Byline: Linda Wells, Editor in Chief

Madonna hosted a party recently at which she raised almost $6 million for aid to Malawi and UNICEF, but all anyone could talk about was her face. New Yorkers who are ordinarily unfazed--or at least studiously blase--around celebrities were wandering past her table, gaping shamelessly, and then gossiping. "She's had a lot of work done," whispered one woman, her own lips ballooned with collagen, her cheeks pulled so tight you could bounce a quarter off them.

There's a hazard to being vehemently anti-age, and that hazard involves a face resembling a marshmallow. It is lineless, yes, but it hardly looks human. "What has she done??" my husband emailed from a restaurant where he saw, but barely recognized, a mutual acquaintance. "She's all puffed up! Scary."

Aging is inevitable. It's the story of our lives. And yet most of us want to prevent it or fight it so fervently that we seem to have lost the plot. One skin-care company is trying to offer some perspective by calling its face and body lotions "pro-age." They contain the usual alpha hydroxy acids and sunscreens ...