You use what? WHY?

Resslin' Around, by Casey Ressler

I am not proud of what I've done. It happened in a moment of weakness, I've told myself, and now I've got to live with my decision. And that's fine, because my decision is the right one for me, I believe. It may not be right for others, but for me, it's right.

I bought a "moisturizer."

And I'm using it. It's not even a cheap, box-store moisturizer, but a real beautician-recommended, beauty store-bought moisturizer. The kind where you pay $10 for what amounts to two days of moisturizer. The kind women use, although that'll be our little secret.

I did draw the line at buying it myself, however. I had my sister pick it up on her way through town, so I wouldn't have to go in the salon and do it myself. When she dropped it off, I nonchalantly thanked her, counting the seconds until she left so I could squirt it all over my dry bald head. "Oooooo," I told myself, "so soothing."

Maybe it was sitting through one too many episodes of "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" that got me thinking about buying a moisturizer. Maybe it was reading a magazine article about what a "metrosexual" is and realizing I fit one too many of the descriptions to really be comfortable about myself that drove me to buy it. But more than anything, it was the cold weather that was taking a toll on my shiny shaved dome.

My wife reminded me that in the last three months, I've bought four jars of nail polish and now a full-blown moisturizer. I skipped right past hand lotion and went for the top-shelf moisturizer.

I told her that the nail polish was for trout beads and the moisturizer was for the dryness, but her response was simple -- "you tell yourself whatever you have to tell yourself, but you're spending a lot of time with cosmetics, Buster. Don't be touching my Oil of Olay. I'm watching you."

The darkest secret of this whole episode is the fact that I love the moisturizer, despite everything I tell anyone who knows I bought it. "Real men don't use moisturizer. That stuff doesn't work," I tell them, yet this real man does, but only in the confines of his own home. That isn't a crime, is it?

I'm trying not to lose that "big guy with a shaved head who loves the outdoors and is a rugged soul" image, but when you spend some time shopping for a good scalp therapy moisturizer, it's tough to do. I'll admit that.

If the manufacturers of the moisturizer really wanted to make some money, they'd start putting their product in stores like REI, the fly shop and the sporting goods section. It would take all the awkwardness out of buying a moisturizer if I could also buy a handful of Woolly Buggers, a new tent and a new fly rod at the same location.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor and cosmetics expert.