I have been thinking about the Britain’s Got Talent showcase of Susan Boyle. Her appearance and vocal rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream,” from Les Miserables was captivating. Then came the endless news stories and the blogs. I’m still struck by the hoopla. From what I read and heard I think people aren’t getting it and are missing the obvious.

First of all, she wasn’t an older woman, she was 46 going on 47, by any standard other then someone in their teens or twenties; she wasn’t old. She was dowdy, but what did that have to do with anything. There are lots of powerful, talented, successful, influential women who aren’t beautiful by traditional standards and who you could absolutely call dowdy, Margaret Thatcher, Oprah Winfrey, Janet Reno, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Maya Angelou, Kathy Bates, to name a few of the thousands upon thousands of women that are not cover girls.

And on a smaller level there’s people like me. Without my coifed, dyed hair, makeup, heels, and tailored clothing covering my ample hips, I would be Susan Boyle. I have never been traditionally beautiful or even attractive without a lot of work. But even without that, there are millions of average looking women who excel by the grace of their talent, flexibility skill, creativity, strength, brains, fortitude, stamina, and willingness to put themselves out there. In reality there are lots of women who can do that and lots of women who can’t. Not everyone can be a “star” or successful. Not everyone has what it takes to propel themselves to the next level, and the next, and the next.

Being beautiful isn’t a guarantee of anything. If anything it can get the way. Beautiful women can get all the dates they want but you only have to look at Hollywood to see beautiful women who can’t get jobs, have miserable, painful divorces or short-lived relationships, and grow old with the embarrassment that they no longer meet the standard of beauty they had in their youth. Bad face lifts abound to prevent the inevitable change in status.

Women like me and other average looking women don’t have the expectation traditionally beautiful women have. I like that. I don’t need to date Brad Pitt or that stunning looking guy with the muscles who is sitting across the bar from me flirting with the 25 year old blonde. I know happiness and success is never about looks. It takes more and at the end of the day success is only one measurement of life and there are many ways to define that. What happens to Susan Boyle will be interesting, but what it will be about in the long run is how well she can handle the requirements of a new job. Just like all of us that can mean success or failure. Actually, given everyone fails along the way, how we handle failure of any kind defines how successful we really are, beautiful or not.

The May issue of Harper’s Bazaar arrived with a stunning photograph of Halle Berry on the cover and an article inside about whether or not a daughter will inherit her mother’s face. The skin care-themed article actually had several good pointers on what to do to avoid making the same mistakes that Mom may have made such as not using sunscreen, smoking, and engaging in yo-yo dieting. Also included were several snapshots of younger celebrities and their mothers. Of course, in every case the younger women looked better than the older women. A woman in her 20s or 30s isn’t going to see much sagging or pronounced wrinkles, but that’s typically not the case as she enters her fourth, fifth, or sixth decade of life, especially if sun protection and sun avoidance wasn’t practiced daily. But in this case, most of the older women (including Ivana Trump and Goldie Hawn) have so obviously had cosmetic corrective procedures done that there’s no way anyone would believe that they’ve chosen to age naturally (just compare their faces to younger pictures of themselves, something Bazaar didn’t include).

Here’s what really got me about this article, though: if you read between the lines, you’ll see it’s essentially a thinly veiled advertisement for the latest anti-aging products from Chanel, Lancome, Estee Lauder, and Olay. All but one of the experts quoted are those behind the very products the article recommends for women at various ages. Noted dermatologist Patricia Wexler recommends women use a sunscreen with antioxidants. OK, that’s great. She doesn’t recommend one of her own products, which is rather objective, but instead her idea of what qualifies as a good sunscreen with antioxidants is Chanel’s UV Essentiel SPF 30+. This sunscreen contains a hefty amount of zinc oxide, but its base formula is mostly water and alcohol (which causes free-radical damage and that hurts skin). Antioxidants or any other beneficial group of ingredients are in short supply, with all but one appearing after the fragrance. And it costs $48 for 1 ounce, so you’ll be replacing this every two weeks if used correctly (meaning liberal application). Talk about bizarre! Dr. Wexler what were you thinking, did they pay you to recommend this?

The article also recommends Olay’s expensive Pro-X eye cream with no mention that their Nutrients, Definity, and Regenerist brands offer nearly identical products for less money. Olay Nutrients just launched and they are as well formulated as any in the Olay groupings, and less money. Other new products that get a sterling recommendation with no regard to formula or packaging include Lauder’s Time Zone daytime moisturizers (the ones packaged in jars—which mean the ingredients won’t stay stable) and Lancome’s overhyped yet truly underwhelming Genifique serum (this formula is just embarrassing). All of these products were deemed “best anti-aging buys” but when you consider what you’re getting for the money, all but one of them are mediocre buys, and that’s being generous. I’m not sure others will notice, but just a quick scan makes it impossible to ignore that it can’t be an accident half of the products recommended in this article had glossy ads appearing elsewhere in Bazaar.

I am not one to think of fashion magazines as a secular version of a Bible, laden with must-haves for the season. In or out, I mean really, who cares? On the other hand, I’m critical. Not just of cosmetic products, but I always notice how a person is put together. One of my favorite sections of any magazine in the world is one found in Glamour. I don’t read this magazine for their articles on orgasms and the nitty-gritty details of how to get there, but for their often-hilarious their Do’s and Don’t section. You know, the section at the back of the magazine with pictures showing what clothing looks bad on a woman and what looks good.

Skirts and T-shirts that are so short or skimpy skin is popping out all over, and often rolls of skin hanging out.

High heels that are little more then stilts with the wearers barely able to stand up more or less walk.

And then they show the women who look put together. Clothing that matches, blouses and pants that fit, and accessories that don’t look out of place. Stuff like that. I love it.

While the clothing analysis is always great, what I wish they would include are makeup critiques. I would like to see that. I always wonder why women leave the house with their makeup looking as if they applied it without looking in the mirror even once. Don’t women notice that their mascara and liner is smeared all over the place, their eyebrows are etched on like a stripe of grease or a press-on decal resembling anything but brow hair, their foundation is so thick and mottled they look like they spackled on their makeup, or that their lipstick is so greasy it has traveled deep into the lines around their mouth. And then there’s the one we’ve all seen before: the dark lip line around the lips with a lighter color painted inside the line. Does anyone (including men) think that lip look is remotely attractive? Apparently, yes—I still see this today, in cities large and small.

Okay, I know I’m critical and perhaps my thinking a bit schizophrenic: on one hand I know none of this matters in the scheme of things, but I really do notice, and given how much time most of us spend getting dressed day in and day out, shouldn’t we be vested in getting it done right? Actually, I’d settle for presentable if “right” is too hard to achieve on some mornings!

The View is one of my favorite shows to do, mostly because it has one of the best Green Rooms in the world. For most of the shows I’ve done over the years (and I’ve done a lot) celebrities are kept separate from the other regular guest like me and you never get to see them. The View has everyone sitting in the Green Room together before the show starts and for the entire hour until they are on. I’ve sat next to Alanis Morissette, Debra Messing, Dermot Mulroney, Donald Trump, Angelina Jolie, Andie McDowell, Michael Douglas, and Jerry Orbach and Jesse Martin (actors from Law and Order) to name a few. Now that’s worth a trip to New York any day!

Over the years I’ve been interviewed by each of the women, and of whom did great interviews, especially Barbara Walters, (though Star Jones was much more kind and happy once she started to lose weight and fell in love, before that, well, that’s fodder for another blog). Perhaps one of my favorite View  stories is the time Barbara Walters was interviewing me and at the end of the interview wanted to know if she could take some of the products I had showcased. Of course I said yes, though I’m fairly certain she thought the companies had supplied the products gratis. They hadn’t. These were my own purchases! It was truly adorable, I was flattered that she respected my recommendations and amused that getting them for free was her prerogative. In any event, I look forward to my next appearance on The View. Maybe I’ll get to share a few words with some other fascinating celebrity!