Nineteen Days to Gorgeous (c) 2010
"It is never too late to be what you might have been." George Eliot

I'm going to say up front, right now, that ageing sucks! We women hit our summer years and everything seems to fall apart. We find ourselves confronting unwelcome issues such as the onslaught of grey hair, spider veins, age spots and bunions, plus we have to deal with the general southward migration of everything that once pointed north!
We notice other little things too; people in the service industries are somehow not quite as courteous as they used to be, we feel we are overlooked when the good promotions are handed out, and when we pass a mirror we fleetingly wonder when we became our mother!
Worst of all, many women reach menopause, hit a wall and simply give up. They feel they've become invisible, that life is pretty much over and they are no longer making a mark on society.

However, those of us in our summer years do have a choice. We can carry on as we are, wear beige and stay in the background. Yes, we can continue to live in our own little world where its nice and safe, where its familiar, where they know us!

Or we can reclaim our self esteem and step right out and shake things up.
We baby boomers know how to do this. Our generation truly changed the world. We've never had an issue with re-writing the rules to suit ourselves as we've moved through the decades, so why wouldn't we reinvent our later years?
We're not going to accept the proverbial golden handshake (although generous redundancy packages are welcome!) and shuffle off into senescence and the retirement world of sports clubs. Equally we are not going to knit, crochet, tat or write cranky letters to the editor of the local newspaper. No, no, no!
We are going to stride through our summer years with poise, purpose, grace, strength and vitality.
And we're going to look fabulous doing it!

Have you settled into a fashion and beauty rut? Do you buy the familiar brands you've
worn for years without bothering to update? Do you stick with the same hairstyle "because it's easy and it suits me" and whack on the same old shade of lipstick "because the others are lost in the depths of my purse and this will do!"?
Well, actually, no, it won't do! You've come to the time in your life when you need to push the envelope, to develop new attitudes and establish a new and youthful mindset.

Nineteen Days to Gorgeous provides you with a comprehensive plan of attack on ageing - without plastic surgery or cosmetic procedures. Not that I have anything against either; I've had my own experience of cosmetic surgery having successfully undergone a rhinoplasty procedure many years ago. Plastic surgery isn't always the answer in the quest to look youthful. It might stretch away the wrinkles but if you look as though you've had a face lift then it is obvious that you are old enough to have had one. The smart woman never advertises her age by her looks, her attitude, her deeds or by the cosmetic work she's had done!

At this stage in our lives most of us don't have surplus dollars to spend on prohibitively expensive pots of creams and potions, no matter how effective the manufacturers claim the contents to be. Brainwashing marketing implies the more we spend the better the results will be. This is simply not true. There's no need to fork out $400 for a tub of moisturiser even if one of the ingredients came from the Dead Sea and another two were scraped from the moon!

There is a bewildering choice of merchandise in the anti-ageing arsenal. How do we know which product will deliver the result we require? Which colour should we choose? What style is going to best suit us?
Looking great needn't cost a fortune, there are heaps of clever tricks and mountains of less expensive products to help stop the clock and cut costs at the same time. We can all be gorgeous, even those of us on the tightest of budgets.

I've been involved in the beauty industry since I left high school. In my early years I worked for a cosmetics and fragrance company. I've been a photographic and catwalk model, and now I'm involved with personal shopping, image, colour and style analysis.
When it comes to slathering on creams, slapping on make-up or sandwiching myself into garments there isn't much I haven't tried in the name of beauty!

So, I've done the leg work for you. I've investigated, researched, personally bought and tested hundreds if products, many of which you'll find in the "retail details and magic products" lists at the end of each section or chapter. To make the list each item had to do what it claimed it would do, it had to be simple to use, not come tricked up in excess packaging and most importantly to make the cut it had to be reasonably priced.
Some of the best products are found in the aisles of your local supermarket or variety store. I hope the lists will help you navigate the beauty maze to find what is right for you. Every beauty and style tip, and every piece of research and suggestion is shared from my own experience. I won't hold anything back, later I'll even include my Secret Magic Diet to kick start weight loss!
Nineteen Days to Gorgeous is about appearing youthful without feeling uncomfortable. As you progress you'll look and feel younger and slimmer.
And it's all about you! I've written this expressly for you, not for your friends or your family. It is designed to cut through the jargon of what's new and what's hot, the season's must-haves and all the confusion the fashion media presents us with.
Do bear in mind that most fashion publications target a readership aged from eighteen to thirty-five years, and much of the featured fashion is a bit silly and a lot inappropriate! What might look fantastic on Beyonce, Angelina or Sienna may not translate as well when you put on the exact same thing. Having said that, often all it takes to transform a look to age appropriateness is a lighter touch of colour or a tweak of a hemline.

Nineteen Days to Gorgeous is about rejuvenating your image, reinvigorating your outlook and finding the balance between looking youthful and looking too young.
It's about looking youthful and looking current - letting the world know you're aware what year it is!

In the coming weeks we'll cover all the aspects of gorgeousness from hair, skincare and make-up, personal style and colour confidence, accessories, lingerie and shopping, through some of the more confronting issues such as health and exercise, menopause magic, and secret women's business (how to help friends or family who have cancer), to other more trivial issues of interest to us such as how to look good in photographs, how to flat pack a holiday wardrobe capsule of 13 garments and dress for success! There are lots of lists and a few quizzes to come too.

I'm looking forward to sharing with you!
Kisses,
Dawn Short