Isabella Rosselini has a new perfume. As I watched the program where she was talking about the process of making this perfume a reality, she said that her logo for the perfume was that it should be a scent representing not this mystical thing that we strive to be but who we really are.

Which, of course, made me think.

There is an entire set of products whose job is to make us look and feel better. Perfume and makeup are easy to recognize members of such a club. Most of their function is in distorting reality. In hiding the blemishes and highlighting the strengths.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

For all intensive purposes, striving to be better is wonderful. It gives you drive, motivation and direction. Nothing wrong with a healthy dose of self-competition.

Healthy being the operative word.

I think these industries have gone so overboard that we feel ugly without make-up. We feel obligated to buy seventeen skin products to look decent. There's nothing wrong with trying to accentuate the positive and go the extra mile on special occasions. As long as they don't distort our idea of who we are.

I know many people who won't even buy milk without putting makeup on, or wearing heels. Argh. Looking spiffy is nice, but who you are is so much more than that and why do you really have to be this "mystical entity" all the time?

I like the idea of celebrating who we are. Putting light makeup, dressing comfortably, being happier in your own skin. I wish more of us did that. We're so busy being fed the person we have the potential to be, that we never enjoy being the person we already are.

It's like people who live for the freedom they'll have once they're retired but their entire life is torture until that moment. We live in a society where plastic surgery and diet programs thrive. One where size 2 is the norm and one where normal-looking people are never good enough. Images get doctored, blemishes covered. Views are skewed.

What's so bad about just being you?

Previously? Trust.