The Menopausal Dress Code

When I was in my twenties, I used to look at my mother and her friends and wonder why they all seemed to look alike. It was as if there was a uniform you wore when you reached a certain age. They each had really short hair, wore large glasses, and seemed to never be without a sweater draped around their shoulders. I would look around the mall and the place where I worked and once again see this same "genre" of woman. If I was my daughter, I would have been saying. "Hey, what's up with that?"

Now, thirty-something years later, I now am part of that genre and the mystery of the "uniform" has been solved.

Let's take a look at that really short haircut women of a certain age sport. I used to think maybe it was a statement about not having to prove their beauty or sexiness by having long, flowing locks, After I had children, I realized it was probably because most women don't have time to do their hair. But, now, after going through menopause, I realize it has everything to do with sweat.

During menopause, I discovered an uncomfortable truth. I have millions of sweat glands on the back of my neck. In fact, it is the only spot on my body that sweats regardless of the temperature inside or outside my body. The long hair I once had to have, has now gone the way of my mini skirts and bikinis. After talking to other women my age, I have discovered that we are all sitting around with the sweat rolling from our necks in a stream down our backs. And, after pulling my hair up, twisting it into knots, and cramming it under hats, I finally gave in and just cut it off.

As for wearing those big, round glasses; it has very little to with style and everything to do with being able to fit bifocal lenses into the frames. When I got my first pair of bifocals, I tried on dozens of frames, each one inching up, larger and larger, until I got a pair that could fit the bifocal lens. I was astonished that this was even an issue, since I was getting the line-less kind. That is when it occurred to me why my mother, whose glasses were positively owl-like, wore the glasses she did. Thankfully for her and her peers, Jackie Kennedy made those round "mod" sunglasses such a fashion trend at the time.

Now for the sweater that's neither on nor off; that is a direct result of the "hot one minute, cold one minute" phenomenon of menopause. All you ever hear about are hot flashes, but the truth is that after the heat subsides, you freeze. This usually happens to me in restaurants, although it's not uncommon for me to be putting on and taking off a sweater at home. So, to solve the dilemma of putting on and taking off that infernal sweater, my mother and her friends simply wore the sweater over their shoulders. Apparently this is still a good idea for many, because I can look around at church or a restaurant and see this technique being used.

Recently, my sister and I discovered another reason behind another menopausal phenom. We have noticed that many women of our age group either color their hair much lighter than it was naturally or opt to let it go gray. We thought the reason for the light hair colors was because we seemed to have paler skin than we used to. But, the reality is that we choose a lighter shade of hair because we have less hair, which means you can see more scalp. A lighter hair color seems to blend in better with our scalp color, giving us the appearance of having more hair.

And why is it that as the hair on my head thins out, the hair on face thickens? But, that's the subject of a completely different hub...