February 9, 2025
Every Woman You Know Has A Secret Pair Of Car Tweezers

I’ve recited the lyric from Disney’s “Frozen” that mentions Joan of Arc a few dozen times with my four-year-old niece: “Hang in there, Joan!” One time, she stopped to ask who Joan was, and exactly how do you explain “burned at the stake” to a four year old?

But the question that took me off guard the most was “Why do you poke at your chin in the car so much?”

Now reader, please know that I’ve recently crossed over that proverbial hill, and as any person of advancing (middle) age will tell you, things change. Seemingly overnight, I became a person who had to tweeze errant hairs from my chin. I don’t know how I got here. My tweezers were meant for my eyebrows. And suddenly, they weren’t.

I gave her all the honesty I could muster: “I have little hairs that grow on my chins and I don’t like them.”

The rest of the answer was “and the light in the car is better than any other light. You will learn this one day.”

The Right Light For The Job

I don’t know how I came to know this fact. Perhaps a meme on Instagram or a friend who is similarly entering this phase of life made a passing comment in conversation, but one day, I took a pair of tweezers to my car and now they live there. They are my Car Tweezers.

Why? Because the best light for plucking is in a car. You can buy all the enhanced mirrors on the market, and they will never be as good. Not ever.

Across America, folks lower their sun visor, pop open the mirror cover, and begin their work. While the car warms, in school pick-up lines, at the drive-thru, even when picking up a Target Drive-Up order (my favorite), we survey and scrutinize and pluck.

The light is perfect. There are no long shadows cast by overhead lighting. The mirror is inches from your face, not a foot or two across a big sink. It’s like the car was made for this exclusively.

“If you see me in traffic using my car tweezers to pluck hairs from the various areas of my face, I’m going to need you to just mind your own business,” says TikTok user ohthatjenny. “Because the lighting in this car shows me things on my face that I did not need to know were there. So just look away. Let me do what I need to do.”

And you know what? It’s OK if the people around us see. Why? Because they need to know this truth, too. The word should be passed.

The Community Of Chin Hair Pluckers

No one asked for this, the chin hairs that is. (Or the honesty of a four year old for that matter.) But here we are, and I want to encourage you to share this news far and wide.

So much of aging is shrouded in mystery and even embarrassment. It shouldn’t be. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis said, “The word ‘anti-aging’ has to be struck. I am pro-aging. I want to age with intelligence, and grace, and dignity, and verve, and energy. I don’t want to hide from it.”

I can still slather on my moisturizers to reduce fine lines (and because my skin is suddenly parched year-round—I guess that’s part of aging too). I can request hair styles that make me feel vibrant and, sure, younger. I might even try my hand at some new fashions (never wide-leg jeans again). But there’s no reason to hide from the changes that are coming, big and small. Chin hairs and otherwise. Embracing them, accepting them with a little enthusiasm, and a good bit of laughter will spread the message to others and importantly to yourself that aging is fun and joyful and beautiful. And it’s also a little bit awkward and funny.

Tell your friends about the jeans that hold you in at all the right places. Pass along a link to those sweat-wicking pajamas. And yes, tell them to get Car Tweezers and take them to the car and show them just how wonderful this place can be.


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