Member-only story
Corona Turned Me Into Cruella De Vil
I spent most of my life being told that I don’t look my age. I entered my 30s with a theme party where I pretended to be a spoiled adolescent in an episode of MTV’s My Sweet Sixteen. I bought a princess dress, a tiara and a 2x5 meters reproduction of the Disney Castle. I indulged in my Peter Pan’s syndrome, a lot.
A couple of months ago the cleaning lady stopped me by the stairs. She said “Giulia, how old are you? You look too young to have all those white hair!”.
Needless to say, I got a horrible day.
“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”
The sudden and premature hair whitening goes beyond the name of Marie Antoinette syndrome. Marie Antoniette is best-known for the phrase “Let Them Eat Cake”. This inaccurate translation from the French language — which referred to butter croissants — was the solution the regent proposed to her people lacking the bread to eat. Apart from her dearth in common sense - or humanity, one could say — the Queen of France is believed to have turned full white-haired three times in her life, including when she was incarcerated during the French Revolution and sentenced to decapitation. Historically speaking, the first reported episode of this phenomenon even dates back to…
