Day 4, Marvelous Make-up

I just want to say here that I have never been paid in any way to endorse any make-up products in Nineteen Days to Gorgeous. Actually, I have not been paid for any product recommendation, whether it be clothes, make-up, hair care, accessories, etc. I’ve researched, personally bought (at my own expense) and personally tested (or imposed upon my daughter or my friends for their evaluation) every item listed in the retail detail sections or within the body of the text.

Day 4. Marvellous Make-up
Getting gorgeous
Don’t you just love cosmetics? Those glamorous pots and shiny creams, glittery pigments, shimmery colours and golden liquids all hold a mystical enticement, an attraction that’s as old as history.
Make-up appeals to the imagination; it allows us to be whatever we want to be. We don’t apply make-up and promptly turn chameleon-like into an ethereal being, the pleasure is the knowledge that make-up provides us with the ability to do so if we want to!
To put it in a nutshell, make-up enables us to play up the features we like and play down those we consider less attractive.

What do you want to enhance about your face? Examine it without make-up.

• What are your best features?
• Do you have great eyes?
• Perhaps you have a gorgeous smile or fabulous skin?
  Focus on the feature that inspires and enlightens you, the one that gives you confidence. Then work on emphasizing it. Don’t take any notice of the characteristics you consider to be less attractive; sometimes the little imperfections that make you unique also make you beautiful.
  

Do you pause at the ‘stars without makeup’ features when you flick through the gossip magazines while you wait at the hairdressers? There they are; Cate, Jennifer and Nicole going about their daily business - with no make-up on! The accompanying article usually implies it is rather unacceptable to be going about au naturel. Well, you and I both know there’s nothing wrong with going out with a naked face, just as we know that when we have used make-up our self confidence and esteem is higher!
We are so used to seeing glamorous photographs that we have unreal expectations of how we ourselves are supposed to look. Celebrities change before our eyes; they get thinner or blonder or more bronzed by the week. Sometimes we watch with prurient interest as they plunge in the opposite direction and bulge out of their clothes, or, shock, horror, dare to show some cellulite! Those unflattering photographs (often shot from afar) are published untouched.
A celebrity photographed in glamour mode on the front cover of the fashion mags will have been through a gamut of hair dressers, colourists, make-up artists, manicurists and fashion stylists, and that’s before an airbrush touches the photograph!
Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that beneath the gorgeous designer garments and beautifully applied make-up is a real person with the same insecurities as everyone else.

Make-up can’t change the actual shape of the face. Features such as high cheekbones, a shapely nose etc. can be enhanced with clever contours, colours and shadows while lesser features can be downplayed with camouflage and concealers; but we are stuck with the shape unless we spend a lot of money on a procedure involving an anaesthetic and an inordinate amount of trust in a stranger wielding a scalpel!
Having said that; weight loss can contribute towards a changing face shape. Obsessing over face shape though is really a waste of the time that could be productively spent playing up your great features or correcting issues that aren’t so great.

Pots of promise
Now we’re stepping through our summer years (and while we’re talking about it, no one wants to be in their ‘Autumn Years’!) we have the ideal opportunity to edit and adjust our make-up. The newer way is to appear as though you are not wearing make-up at all. The conundrum is that to achieve this look we probably need to use more products now than we’ve ever used before!

Buy only the products you know you’ll use. If you race out and purchase every single item described here the financial outlay will be enormous. Tread slowly, and assemble your new cosmetic arsenal gradually. Check the make-up you already possess against the shelf life of make-up guide at the end of day six which is about navigating cosmetic counters. Obviously finish up any item that’s still good before you replace it with the latest new formula, new colour products.

Most cosmetics last quite a long time, so you might consider it worthwhile to invest a little more in a product you know you’ll use every day for a couple of years. I have a pot of Laura Mercier’s Secret Brightening Powder and a pan of Laura Mercier’s Secret Concealer (they’re not so “secret” now are they!) that I’ve used every single day for more than three years and as I write there are still many applications left in them. I believe they were worth the extra outlay.
Remind family and friends that make-up is a very acceptable gift! They often haven’t a clue what to buy you so give a gentle nudge towards cosmetic and beauty presents that will benefit you both!

Make-up explained
The process for complexion perfection involves most of the following products:
This is the order skin make-up is applied:

Primer
Foundation
Concealer
Camouflage
Loose Powder

Whether you use all these products depends on the condition of your skin and how much product you actually want to wear. To get longevity from your make-up (that is if you want it to last from dawn to midnight) or if you have skin issues and concerns you’d prefer to conceal, you may well find you need to use all the products listed above.

Not everyone wants to wear lots of make-up and that’s fine too. Just wear the amount of make-up that you are most comfortable wearing – it could be none, and it could be a face full of cosmetics. The main point is that you’re empowered with the knowledge of what’s available out there for you.

There aren’t many problems that make-up can’t address. Red patches, blotches, blemishes, age spots, freckles, sun spots, dark under-eye circles and blue veins can all be smoothed out and hidden. Today’s products are so advanced and user-friendly, possibly the most difficult part is selecting what to use! Also, new products have been developed to extend, prolong and complement the old favourites we have used forever. So, although newer make-up remains a pleasure, the method of application and what goes where has definitely changed!

First things first: Primer
Primers are “cosmetic undercoats” designed to create a base and provide a key for the cosmetic to glide over the top of.
Foundation primer is a serum-like gel used to seal moisturiser and smooth the skin, preparing the surface for the make-up foundation that follows – just as an artist primes a canvas prior to painting a picture.

Foundation primer prevents the skin from ‘grabbing’ the foundation in patches and helps keep the foundation in place throughout the day so there’s less need for touch ups. The life of your foundation product is extended because you don’t have to use so much to get an even coverage.
Most foundation primers contain a smidgeon of silicone, (a fabulous ingredient that temporarily tightens the skin and helps fill in lines, wrinkles and pores) plus other elements to deflect the light from the face (which aids the diffusion of fine lines) and add radiance and freshness.

• Make-up experts suggest we warm products before applying them to the skin.
• Put a dab of the foundation primer onto the fingertips of one hand and rub gently with your other fingertips to warm it. Spread it over your face on top of your moisturiser and gently massage it into the entire facial area, including the eye area.
• If you forget to do the palm thing and end up smoothing foundation primer on straight from the tube it doesn’t seem to make much difference.
  

Step up to the base: Foundation
The days of slapping a layer of thick pancake foundation over a slurp of any-old moisturiser have long gone! Despite the light textures, newer foundations are formulated to reduce the appearance of minor redness, to blend patchiness and cover blemishes. Generally newer foundations even out the skin tone and give your complexion a gorgeous, smooth appearance.
If you aren’t into foundation perhaps you’d consider wearing tinted moisturizer containing a sun protection factor (SPF) instead? Tinted moisturiser is a great skin friend to everyone regardless of skin type; especially for those days we prefer to go light on make-up but want to retain a groomed appearance.
Liquid foundations in tubes are the easiest foundations to apply, but identifying your correct colour can be tricky, especially if you shop for cosmetics in your supermarket where testers are not available and products are sealed in blister packs.
Department stores and mass variety stores often stock the same brands at similar prices as the supermarkets and usually have testers (and consultants) to help you.

You’ll use less foundation when foundation primer is applied first.
Use your fingertips (clean of course!) to control foundation application. Make-up artists advise apply foundation with a brush or a sponge, but a lot of product is wasted - more product is left on the bristles of a brush or in the depths of the sponge than actually makes it onto the face.
Apply foundation over your face and blend it lightly below the jaw line and into the hair line. Don’t apply to the area around the eyes because eye shadow base and concealer, the next steps, will be applied there.

Hidden Secrets – Concealer
We all love something that hides our flaws, and while some people can get away without wearing foundation, most people benefit from a little concealer beneath the eyes to cover any dark circles and to brighten shadows that might be lurking there. And let’s be honest, those shadows and circles are very noticeable - slap bang in the middle of the face, so who wouldn’t use the product that hides them?
Concealer is applied after foundation. If you’re use tinted moisturizer instead of foundation, concealer still comes next. Concealer needs to have a bit of oomph; essentially it needs to provide good cover. Don’t bother with sheer, thin liquid concealers as they don’t perform well enough on mature skin.
Your concealer should be the consistency of room temperature butter – gorgeously thick and creamy; it should just melt into your skin.
If the colour is too light you’ll end up with raccoon eyes and look as though you left your sunnies on during a sun bed treatment. They are both really uncool - raccoon eyes and sun bed treatments!

The best concealer colour:
Does the area beneath your eyes look brownish, or are there undertones tending towards yellow or green?
A pinky-beige concealer is the one to suit you.
Is the area beneath your eyes inclined to blue? Do you have noticeable purple circles?
A concealer in warm beige tones is the one for you.
Some concealers have built-in light reflecting pigments and others are specifically formulated with yellow pigments to counteract and neutralize heavy purple shadowing and circles.
Again, like liquid foundation, make-up artists recommend we use a brush or a dense foam wedge to apply concealer to the area beneath the eyes. If you don’t have much luck with brushes and end up wasting product and flicking it all over the place, use your (clean!) fingertips. Sponge applicators absorb and waste a lot of product.

• Take a tiny dab of cream concealer on the pads of your ring fingers and gently press the product onto the delicate skin immediately beneath the eyes. Blend and stroke it into the surrounding area.

Brightening powder is fine white powder used to set concealer immediately after it is applied. It covers the concealer and keeps it in place while introducing a light and lifted look to your eyes. If you’re prone to hot flushes, brightening powder helps prevent the concealer sliding down your face.oad a soft flat brush with a tiny dab of brightening powder and press it over the area you’ve covered with concealer. It may seem strange to use a white powder, but it blends into the skin tone quickly and really does bring a dewy-eyed freshness to the eye area.

Camouflage. To disguise.
Keep a compact of camouflage in your cosmetic drawer to cover up the skin issues you don’t want other people to notice. You may not need to apply camouflage every day.
Camouflage is more pigmented and less slippery than concealer so it stays in place well. It has a thick texture and gives excellent coverage on skin imperfections such as moles and freckles, redness around the nose, sun spots, discoloration, scars, veins, sudden break-outs or anything else that needs to be hidden.

• Apply camouflage with a fine pointy-tipped brush. Build it up, little by little over the area to be disguised. Good, less discernable results are obtained from several light applications rather than one big hit.
• Use fingertips to apply camouflage over larger areas - to hide rosacea, red patches or dark blemishes.
• Gently push and blend the product into the skin to give a nice light layer. If the product is spread around too much it’ll end up caking in one spot and drawing attention to the very area you’re trying to disguise.
• Apply it gradually and with a light touch.
  Camouflage can be used as a neutral base for eye shadow. Smooth it over the eyelids from the roots of the eyelashes right up to the eyebrows.
• A little camouflage cream pressed around the edges of the lips helps prevent lipstick from bleeding into the skin surrounding the mouth. Apply it lightly around the corners of the mouth to deflect light and make feathery lines visually recede.

Green based mineral camouflage is a terrific neutralizer for rosacea or any ruddy-coloured skin blemishes. The green pigments contrast with the skin’s natural redness.
Yellow based camouflage helps disguise and cover purple circles and dark areas beneath the eyes.

Hidden extras
While tattoos are fashionable body art, there could be occasions when you may not want to reveal yours. MAC ‘Studio Finish Concealer’ gives excellent full coverage that totally conceals tattoos, scars, birthmarks and serious blotches. You may need to order it as not all MAC stores or cosmetic counters carry the product as regular stock.

Loose powder – dust
If you hear the alarm bells of old age clanging when you think of face powder you are absolutely right! Those elderly desiccated pressed compacted powders settled into every facial crack and crevice, caked over dry patches, visually deadened the complexion and tended to look ashy. The heavy formulas were chalky, but at one time pressed powder was the only way women were able to achieve a matte finish on their skin.
Beautiful, feathery loose translucent powder containing light reflecting pigments that leaves the skin looking luminous is the newer finish for flawless complexion perfection.

Translucent powder sets everything beneath it in place, so foundation, concealer and camouflage stay exactly where they’ve been applied.

Mineral powder helps reduce oily shine and prevents make-up from slithering southwards!
Powder should feel smooth, silky, slightly moist and never grainy.
The newer way to apply loose powder is to use a rolled velour powder puff.

• Tap a little powder out of the pot and into the upturned lid. Use only a tiny amount, a pot of translucent powder goes a very long way and should last a very long time!
  Take the velour powder puff and fold it in half around your finger - like a taco. Dip it into the powder and work the product into the powder puff by dabbing the folded puff onto the back of your other hand a few times.
  With the puff still folded around your finger lightly press it against your face, roll it and lift it off.
  Continue like this, lightly pressing, rolling and lifting over all the foundation, concealer and camouflage.
  The puff should have picked up enough powder on the first dip to cover your entire face.
• If you’ve already applied cream blush skirt around it to retain the creamy glowing look.
• Applying translucent powder with a big fluffy brush is the older way. It doesn’t provide the same fine even application that a velour powder puff produces; plus a brush can easily smear the make-up it’s covering.

A specifically formulated completely translucent powder without any pigment in it at all (it actually looks flat white) is designed to give darker skin a luminous appearance. Pigmented translucent powder tends to look ashy on darker skin.

Blusher – a cheeky lift
Do you oscillate between powder blusher and cream blusher?
Do you actually wear blusher?
Maybe you whack on whatever came in the cosmetics gift pack you received for your birthday a couple of years ago and hope for the best?

No other make-up will give you a look of healthy freshness or enhance your colouring more beautifully than blusher. People notice our cheeks simply because they are the largest facial area, so wouldn’t you like your cheeks to look pretty, natural and glowing?

The older way was to use blusher to sculpt and contour the face. Unless you’re exceptionally adroit at this, sculpting is best left to professional make-up artists. Besides, sculpting is done with bronzer, not blusher. Those fabulous jutting cheekbones seen in celebrity photographs are manipulated by an army of professionals who are able to control the photographic environment. If you attempt it yourself you’re more likely to end up with a couple of pink tyre tracks racing down your cheeks and the look of a demented chook about you!

And no more sweeping the colour in a straight line across the top of the cheekbones, beneath the cheekbones, or in some sort of odd inverted geometric tick around the cheekbones!
Cream blush is the pathway to a youthful appearance. You’ll notice a huge difference when you switch from powder blusher to cream blush.
The downside of cream blusher is that it doesn’t last as long on the cheeks as powder blushers last, so you may need to do a quick retouch during the day and again before you go out at night.

Basically blusher should make you look as though you’ve just had an amazing time in the bedroom. Most of us are flat-out trying to remember what that was!
The newer way to wear blusher is to create a flush of colour radiating from the apple of your cheeks, blending it upwards and outwards, feathering the edges into your foundation.

• Find the apples of your cheeks by looking in the mirror and grinning. If you can’t find them; grin harder. The apples are placed quite high on the cheeks.
• Keep blusher away from the area between the bottom of your nose and the corners of your mouth. It emphasizes the lines.
• Blusher looks brighter in the pot than it does when it’s blended into the skin.
  Pale rosy pink is a good blusher colour for pale cool skin. A warmer blusher in apricot tones will blend into warm, light skin tones.
• Stronger coloured blusher is more complementary to deeper coloured skins. A dark skinned woman with warm (golden) undertones might select a mango coloured blusher containing a hint of antique gold whereas a dark skinned woman with cool (sapphire) undertones might consider a rose coloured blusher with plum tints to be her best choice.
• Use a blusher in the same colour family as your favourite lipstick – provided it is right for you.

I'm going to show you how to establish your personal skin tone, and we'll delve into the realm of colouring in next time. Meanwhile have a go and perfect the basics so you have a perfect base on which to apply your make-up. Kisses to you, Dawn

Day 3 of Nineteen Days to Gorgeous.

Sensational Skin

Face:
The only treatment that permanently irons out wrinkles involves a surgeon, a scalpel, severe tugging and stitches followed by a couple of weeks’ convalescence. Unfortunately there is no face-lift in a pot, a box, a tub or a tube and when there is we can be sure that Oprah, Judy or Kerri-Anne will let us know!
Mature skin is unable to shed cells as quickly as it used to and the result is that the surface can appear dull, muted or ashy. The layer of natural fat beneath the skin thins out and the skin loses its firmness, while the natural collagen and elastacin lose their snap. Not only that; mature skin doesn’t retain moisture as well as it did when we were younger.
Basically skin functions slow down, less natural oil is produced and the surface becomes dry and flaky. Ageing sucks!
Skin care products make big bucks for the manufacturers. Women the world over spend billions of dollars on skin care every year. An online survey of 5000 women by Notebook: magazine revealed the average woman spends more than $130 a month on beauty products; and around $72 of that amount goes on skin care - with moisturiser being the most popular product. This amount equates to the same in every monetary currency.
It seems everyone has jumped on the bandwagon to produce magical potions that claim to reduce the visible effects of ageing; or is offering over-the-counter non-invasive alternatives to cosmetic surgery procedures, Botox, chemical peels and everything else. These use-at-home products profess to slow down the signs of ageing, hydrate the skin, stimulate collagen or decrease redness, and are available at every price point.
However, results are limited. Deep wrinkles will not disappear, dark spots and uneven skin tone will not be erased and broken capillaries will remain broken.
One of the skin’s many functions is to protect the body within from microbes, chemical agents, dirt, grime and water absorption. The outermost layer of the skin (the epidermis) is the protective layer that helps prevent topical penetration into the deeper layers of skin beneath it
Botox and collagen are effective only because hypodermic needles are used to penetrate the skin and inject the formula to the muscle tissue beneath the epidermis. When the same formulas are applied topically (rubbed onto the skin) they are ineffective, otherwise we’d all be vigorously scrubbing them on!

Advertising floss
Sometimes we come across advertisements inviting us to buy a product to ‘wash wrinkles down the drain’. If only wrinkles could be washed away!
The words ‘clinically proven’ used in marketing are often just floss designed to bamboozle and impress. Upon closer scrutiny you may find a claim of ‘clinical proof’ is actually the result of a study based on 20 women who continuously used a product, unsupervised, over an 8 week period.
When you think about it you’ve got to ask – Does that really qualify as a robust scientific trial?


Complexion Perfection
It is never too late to help your skin.
Over the years many of us have reverted to the slap happy approach – a token swipe with a damp flannel to remove what we can before going to bed, then a haphazard slap to put it all on again in the morning.

If you look after your skin from now on and follow a simple skin regime you can help prevent more lines and wrinkles creeping in.
Today’s skin care has come a long way from the lanolin based lotions and creams of our youth that simply promised to give us softer, smoother skin.
The three basic steps towards healthy youthful-looking skin and its maintenance haven’t changed. We still need to clean and tone and nourish the skin each day. However, the products enabling us to successfully do the three steps have changed dramatically. We have a choice of formulas – foams, washes, scrubs, tonics with and without alcohol, creams, milks, gels, serums and lotions, at all price points and all with sorts of applications. But when it comes down to it, the basics are still the same. I
f you follow no other beauty routine, do try to remove your make-up and thoroughly clean your skin every night.
Cosmetics left on the skin overnight are an open invitation to blackheads, flare ups and break outs.

Cleanse
Slather a make-up removal product onto your face and neck, massage it in.
Use a tissue or damp washcloth to wipe it off.
Foaming cleansers with rich creamy bubbles remove make-up build-up and pollution without stripping the moisture out of the skin.
The toiletries aisle of the supermarket carries a range of disposable make-up remover cleansing towelettes to lift off cosmetics and dissolve dirt, oil and pollution on the skin. They come in re-sealable packs of 25 or 30 (enough for a month), they are moist and gentle on the skin, and will even remove waterproof mascara.
Take a towelette, reseal the pack, and wipe the moist towelette all over your skin.
Wipe it over your eyes to remove eye make-up.
Although the towelettes remove make-up, a slightly oily residue can remain on the skin.

Tone
Use a mild toner once you’ve finished with the towelette, cleansing cream or cleansing foam.
Drench a cotton ball or a cotton pad with toner and wipe it over your face and neck to remove all traces of make-up and cleanser.

Nourish
Follow the toner with a dollop of night cream. Massage it into the skin.
Pat some eye cream around the eye area and go to bed!

Exfoliation
Exfoliating is a positive step towards sensational skin. Mature skin cells don’t slough away as quickly as they used to and the skin surface can end up with a blotchy texture and looking dull. Exfoliation boosts circulation and encourages fresh cells to move from deep within the skin up to the surface to give a dewy youthful look.
Most exfoliants contain miniscule grains, so the product usually feels slightly gritty. Some exfoliants are applied to dry skin; others are mixed with water or applied to moist skin. Don’t take any notice of any beautician who tells you granular exfoliants scratch the skin. They don’t. Exfoliants should be washed off with clear, warm water.
Most skins benefit from bi-weekly exfoliation followed by a deep drench of moisturizer and a good night’s sleep!
Expect to exfoliate sensitive skin less often and only apply exfoliant to the patches that need restoration. You will know your own skin type and which category you fall into.

Restoration
Serums rich in vitamins deliver concentrated doses of antioxidant restoratives that help plump up the skin beneath wrinkles. Apply a squirt of serum morning and night to your fingertips, rub them together to warm the serum and then massage it into your face. Allow a minute or so for your skin to absorb the serum before you apply moisturizer on top.
Serums are pricey and while you need only a smudge, there are alternative products such as radiance boosters to revive a dull complexion (fantastic for dark complexions that are tending to look ashy) or brightening masks that plump and hydrate the skin.

Moisturizing
Moisturizers plump the skin, making it appear dewy and fresh.
The hero ingredients of antiaging moisturizing treatments are peptides. These are formed by amino acids upon which protein is built. Peptides stimulate what is left of our natural collagen production into action by signalling to the fibroblasts (these are our cells that make collagen) that they need to produce.
Peptides effectively repair sun damaged skin and help it rebuild itself without redness or irritation.
Look for a day cream and a night cream containing peptides – Olay Regenerist Micro-sculpting Cream is reasonably priced and widely available.
Rub moisturiser between your finger tips to warm it before applying to your face. Smooth it evenly over your skin, working upwards from the chin to the forehead. Stroke it on gently, don’t leave a thin film spread over your skin; make sure you’ve massaged it right in to give your skin the maximum benefit.

Don’t underestimate the effects the sun can have on your skin. Whether you live in the Arctic Circle or a tropical island or somewhere in between your skin will benefit from a moisturizer containing sunscreen. Most moisturizers contain at least a Sun Protection Factor 15 (SPF15); check the container.

Eyes
The most delicate skin on our bodies is the skin surrounding our eyes. It is even more fragile than an eggshell. The eye area has very few oil glands so moisture evaporates quickly leaving the skin dehydrated. Blinking, talking and smiling all move the skin around, plus we unconsciously squint (especially when we really ought to put the glasses on and we have N.F.I. where they are!).
Our once youthful skin no longer bounces back into place because the natural collagen production has slowed down with maturity. All those years of rubbing, squinting, laughing, and crinkling, coupled with exposure to the elements often leaves the mature eye area with more lines than a train track
Eye creams do help minimize the effects of ageing. The formulas are carefully balanced with moisturizer, skin-firming and anti-oxidant protection ingredients specifically for the eye area. You may feel decadent and luxurious when you use a gorgeously rich face moisturizing cream around the eye area, but it isn’t good for the skin and in fact it blocks the pores. This can in turn cause those little white cysts called ‘milia’ that we invariably end up poking a needle at (when we know they should be professionally removed)!
Eye creams have the annoying tendency to migrate into the fine lines around the eyes. These little fine lines can act as conduits, channelling the cream into the actual eyes, causing irritation and redness. Eye gels stay in place more readily than eye creams.
So, carefully apply your eye product:

• Load a small dab onto the pad of your ring finger, rub it together with your other ring finger to warm the cream, gently smooth the product into the clean skin beneath your eyes starting at the nose and working outwards. Press any left over product onto the upper lids.
  Leave the area for a few moments to allow it to dry and set (gels take a little longer than creams to dry) then carry on with your skin regime.
• A pot of eye cream lasts a very long time and is well worth spending a reasonable amount of money on.
  However, a decent night’s sleep is always the best remedy of all.

Dark circles beneath the eyes can cause a dilemma. Often the circles are genetic and are simply small blood-carrying veins situated close to the skin surface. Eye creams containing light refracting minerals such as mica and silica can minimalize and soften the dark bluish tint of dark circles and make the eyes appear brighter.

For you to know: A topical bruise treatment cream will temporarily lighten shadows beneath your eyes if they start to look too dark. The product stings if it comes into contact with the eyes. I also be use it to diminish those patches of dark purple spidery veins that plump out around the backs and sides of my knees when the weather is hot.

Lips
Although we might not want obvious fake pumped up lips, possibly the only part of our body that many of us would really like to be fat is our lips! Some of us would be very happy to accept fat hair, fat eyelashes and fat-ish eyebrows too!
Thin lips that are surrounded by cracks are a tell tale sign of ageing. Cracks or feathery lip lines are usually caused by years of talking, smoking, facial expressions or by regularly pursing the lips around soft drink bottles, cans or straws. They can also be hereditary.
Retinol creams help flesh out the skin and diminish the appearance of lines around the mouth and elsewhere. Retinol creams are topical treatments, available only on prescription from your G.P. Retinol is not a quick fix, good results take time.
If dry lips are an issue, condition them with lip balm. Good old Chapstick or Blistex protect lips from the elements while they re-hydrate.

• For quick lip enlivenment, gently rub a damp toothbrush back and forth for a minute to irritate and plump them.
• Remember to exfoliate your lips when you exfoliate your face.
• Massage wrinkle cream into your lips each night to help soften surrounding lines and wrinkles.
• Smother lips with lip balm, lipstick or lip gloss to keep them hydrated.
• There is really no permanent short or medium term solution to fatten thin lips. In the long term hyaluronic acid filler treatments are available from cosmetic surgeons and facial aestheticians.
  

The Neck
Apply sunscreen to your neck and moisturise it every day when you apply your face moisturiser.
If you’ve ended up with a turkey gobble the only permanent solution is surgical - either liposuction to remove excess fat or a surgical neck lift.
If surgery is not your thing the answer is to deflect attention to another area, so here’s the heads up:

• Wear interesting earrings to draw the eye up, and away from your less than perfect neck.
• Incredible eye make-up or whitened teeth has the same effect of drawing the eye away from a problem neck.
• Camouflage the neck with a collar– Grandpa collar with the top buttons undone, or a mock turtleneck collar (halfway between a crew neckline and a full turtle neckline) are the most flattering choices. Any too high collar is in danger of drawing attention to the neck and causing people to wonder what you are hiding.
• Short chains, short necklaces, a choker, thin necklaces or scarves emphasize a less-than-perfect neck. Long dangly earrings direct attention to the neck area.
  

To recap:

• Warm creams or lotions in the palm of your hand before applying to the face.
• Body temperature products are more readily absorbed by the skin.
• A dab of moisturizer smoothed over smile lines over the top of your make-up plumps up the lines before going out for the evening. Eye cream will smooth out fine lines.
• An oldie (but a goodie!) to rejuvenate dry facial skin is to fill a basin with hot tap water. Add a few drops of lavender oil (or a favourite essential oil) for a comforting and pampering perfume. Pull a soft towel over your head and shoulders and steam your face over the hot water, like a little sauna. Steam your skin for a few minutes to open the pores. Dab and blot the skin with the soft towel to dry it, then drench with moisturizer. Go to bed.
  

There are dozens of topical creams on the retail shelves containing a bewildering range of ingredients, all of which claim to be anti-ageing in some way. The most popular products are creams containing peptides which are high-tech amino acids that can soften fine lines and smooth the appearance – for a few hours.

Women of colour
Darker skin contains more melanin (brown skin pigment) than lighter skin, which results in the darker skin shade, more natural sun protection and less visible signs of ageing. Women with darker skin tend to have less deep wrinkles, fewer fine lines and less sun spots than women with light Caucasian skin.
Skin of colour is prone to pigmentation issues and uneven darkening or lightening.
Melanin-laden skin tends to be ‘reactive’. A rash, scratch, irritation, pimple or inflammation can trigger the body to produce excess melanin which results in dark areas or dark patches on the skin that can be disfiguring and devastating because they can take months or even years to disappear. Less commonly, melanin production can decrease in response to trauma such as burns, resulting in light areas and patches.

Dark skin responds to gentle handling and the wearing of sunscreen.
While dark skin is less susceptible to being sunburned, the sun’s UVA rays can still cause sun damage. Use a sun protection factor sunscreen (SPF30) that typically lasts around 4 hours. It is interesting that an SPF30 allows only 4% more protection than an SPF15 – but use the higher sun protection factor as we need all the sun protection we can get!
Scars, dark marks, and ashy patches can be faded. Exfoliation removes traumatized and damaged cells, exposing new and healthy skin cells to give a fresh, dewy appearance. A mild facial scrub will polish off and remove damaged cells, encouraging more even-toned, less pigmented luminous skin.
Dark mark damage is usually caused by skin breakouts such as blemishes and pimples. Follow a regular, comprehensive skin care routine to help prevent these.

• Clean your skin at night to remove any traces of make-up or pollutants that may have settled there during the day.
• Use a mild tonic to remove any cleanser residue. Follow with moisturizer, and pat it gently into your skin. Make sure it is fully absorbed.
• Apply a rich body lotion to your skin to keep it looking radiant and healthy.
• Women of colour who regularly exfoliate and apply body lotions are less susceptible to dull, ashy-looking skin which is the result of dry skin build up.

We will delay the ageing process. We will stop wrinkles in their tracks, we will boost the skin’s self repairing power and we will improve the tone and texture of the skin.
Best of all, we can do this without forking out a major contribution towards the cosmetic surgeon’s mortgage!


The Body Surface
Did you know the skin is the body’s largest organ?
The average skin weighs around 4kgs and covers around 2 square metres. It is waterproof, tough, light, and elastic.
Our skin has extraordinary functions – it protects against physical injury, regulates the body’s temperature, it cools and warms; heals and regenerates, holds all the other organs in and it keeps intrusive pollutions and toxins out. Our skin works hard for us, it deserves care and respect!

Beauty from Within
Beautiful, healthy, radiant skin is dependant on what is happening within the body. Youthful-looking skin has a lot to do with diet, digestion, hormone levels, stress and nutrition. When these are maintained within normal healthy levels, coupled with regular exercise, drinking plenty of water and avoiding sun exposure we are doing everything we can for ourselves and our skin.
In an ideal world if you religiously do all of the following you’ll give yourself and your skin the best possible chance of health, radiance and longevity.
Give up smoking
Drink alcohol in moderation, or give it up
Avoid stress
Wear sunscreen with an SPF30+
Drink lots of water (8 glasses a day)
Follow a healthy eating regime
Use skin care products
Exercise regularly
Get plenty of sleep

The Sun
How can something that feels so good be so bad? And BAD it is!
The Sun Is Our Mortal Enemy.
If you take nothing else from this, please, please take this advice: Apply sun protection to your skin every single day no matter what the weather is like - rain, hail, snow or shine.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last few years you’ll know that skin cancer is the greatest danger from exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays.
Australia and New Zealand have the highest incidence of melanoma (skin cancer) in the world, and it is almost entirely preventable when the correct sunscreen is regularly applied.
Sunscreen is our most important beauty product.
To be effective sunscreen should have a SPF (Sun Protection Factor) of at least 15. Use a face moisturizer, foundation or tinted moisturizer containing SPF15 too.

For you to know: If moisturizer, foundation and tinted moisturiser individually contain a SPF15, this does not add up to an SPF of 45 when they are all layered onto the skin. Unfortunately the sun protection factor remains at 15!

Did you slather your teenage body in coconut butter and baby oil and bake yourself beneath the fierce midday sun at every chance available as I did? In your desire to get the deepest tan did you coversheets of cardboard with tinfoil to mirror the sun’s rays and redirect them with extreme intensity onto your skin. As a school girl I sat in the sun during the lunch hour with small coins placed on my upper legs so I could monitor my tan's progression. There are many recollections encompassing our innocent overexposure to the sun.
And now we know better! To pay for all that damage we have no other alternative than to slap on sunscreen and have our skin regularly checked by our doctor.

All skin whether it be dark, fair, medium, olive, etc. needs sun protection.

Skin cancers often lurk in overlooked areas such as the soles of the feet, the small of the back, behind or inside the ears and on the scalp beneath the hair. If you notice or feel anything even slightly unusual happening to your skin it’s important to consult your doctor immediately. Melanomas and sun spots can be successfully treated if they are detected in the early stages. Treatment is not as successful as the stages progress, so do make that visit to seek early attention.

Some of us find it well nigh impossible to give up the sun altogether. If this is you, then limit your sun exposure to the hours before 11am and after 3pm. The four intervening hours are when the sun is hottest and strongest, and when the skin is more likely to burn.
Wear a hat, sunscreen with SPF30, and sunglasses.

Fake a bake
Tanning booths and sun beds present the same melanoma dangers to the skin as the sun does. Exposure to ultra violet rays, whether from the sun or a tanning lamp, can burn, sizzle, cause skin cancer or kill you! There are healthier and more modern paths to a sun-kissed glow.

There’s no denying that a sun tanned body is perceived as a healthy look even though we’re well aware that we shouldn’t equate bronzed skin with good health.
When we are tanned we feel fantastic and a lot slimmer than we do when our skin is pale and pasty looking.
So, as sun exposure is simply not an option, how do we get a tan?
The safest choice for a gorgeous, youthful golden glow is a faux tan.
A sunless tan is easily achieved at home with self tanning lotion.

• 
  Exfoliate before you apply a self tanner for successful results. Sometimes this is called “body polishing”, but essentially it is the same as exfoliating.
• Apply a moisturizing body lotion to your skin and pay particular attention to dry areas such as elbows and knees. The moisturizer helps smooth and even application of the next step – the self tanning lotion.
• Self tanning lotions need to be applied 2 – 3 times a week depending on the depth of tan required. Be careful not to overdo it; you want to look youthful, not like a desiccated lizard!
• Body moisturising lotions containing self tanning ingredients are quick and easy to use. The formulas contain enriching ingredients such as aloe vera to boost the skin’s moisture. A flawless even-looking tan can be gradually built up with daily applications. The fragrance used to be off-putting, but manufacturers have addressed this and the products smell better now. Some offer you the choice of the depth of tan you require – light, medium and dark.
• Self tanning products do not contain sunscreen (SPF), nor do they protect the skin against sunburn. Sunscreen still needs to be applied over the top of a faux tan.
• Coat your hands with hair conditioner containing silicone before using any bronzing product to protect the palms from absorbing the tanning stain, or use gloves.

Many beauty salons offer spray-on tans where you stand (either naked or wearing paper knickers) in a private booth in front of a stream of tanning spray. There’s usually a choice of colours. Go with the lighter to medium bronzers at first! A spray tan lasts for about three days, or for three showers. One treatment costs around $35. Spray tans do not contain sunscreen or protect the skin against sunburn. Apply sunscreen over the top of your spray-on tan.
Spray tan is notorious for rubbing off onto your clothes, sheets and chairs, in fact anything it comes into contact with.
There are leg-specific tanning products available to give your pins a quick boost. Do-it-yourself products are available from mass beauty retailers.
Tanned legs give a youthful vibe in the summer.

Retail details and magic products
Sunscreen
Banana Boat Faces SPF30 $6 per tube. Very high Protection for faces from supermarkets and most mass retailers.
The Cancer Council Australia Everyday Sunscreen SPF30+ 110mls $12 from the Cancer Council or Priceline
Cleansing Towelettes:
Neutrogena Make up Remover Cleansing Towelettes $8 1800.678380 from Coles, Woolworths and mass retailers
Dove Essential Nutrients Cleansing Towelettes $7 1800 061027 Woolworths, Coles and mass retailers
Cleansers:
Johnsons 3 in 1 Foaming Facial Wash $8. 1800.029979
Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser $14 1800.800765 ideal for sensitive skin
L’Oreal Paris Gentle Eye Make-up Remover $13 1300 659259, removes waterproof and long-lasting make-up.
Garnier Re-density for Mature Skin. $10 1300.659259, contains soya nutripeptides
Olay Total Effects Foaming Cleanser $13, 1800 028280
Toners
Neutrogena alcohol-free toner 150mls $8 Priceline 1800.678380, won’t strip the skin’s natural moisture.
Masks and Boosters
Clarions Beauty Flash Balm $57 02-9663.4277 or from Myer, David Jones, leading pharmacies.
SK-II Facial Treatment Mask $25 1800.012169
Avon Ultimate mask $40 1800.646.000
Eye creams
L’Oreal Revitalift Double Lift Eye Cream $32 1300.659259, lifts and firms the eye area. Dr. Lewinns Private Formula R4 Eye Repair Cream $6 contains peptides to help battle wrinkles, from Priceline.
Avon Anew Clinical Eye Lift $50 1800.646100
Clarins Revive Beauty Flash $49 brightens refreshes and tightens the eye area. From department stores.
Nivea Visage Q10 Plus Anti-wrinkle Eye Cream $19 from Priceline.
Nivea Visage Aqua Sensation Anti-Shadow Eye Cream 15mls $14 Priceline and mass retailers.
Olay Total Effects Antiaging Eye Cream $28 from mass retailers 1800.028280
Hand cream
Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Antiaging Hand Cream 50mls $6.50 1800.678380, will help reduce the appearance of age spots
Moisturizers
At the upper end of the market luxury creams such as Estee Lauder Re-Nutriv Ultimate Youth Crème ($270) or Lancôme Renergie Morpholift R.A.R.E. Extra-Rich Repositioning Cream (around $340) are fabulously indulgent. Available from David Jones and Myer.
Excellent results can be obtained from less expensive products such as Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream or the L’Oreal Paris range of anti-wrinkle skin care options available from PriceLine, supermarkets and mass retailers such as K-Mart, Target and Big W.
Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream Contains Peptides, $50 1800.028280
Olay Total Effects 7-in-1 Anti-Aging cream $30 1800.028280
L’Oreal Paris Revitalift/Age Perfect/Age Re-Perfect Creams SPF15 $30 - $40 1300.659259
Nivea Visage Anti-Wrinkle Q10 Plus Day Care $20 1800 103023 Fabulous day skin cream!
Garnier Clean Detox Antidullness Foaming Gel $10 from Coles
Clarins Beauty Flash Balm $57 02-9663.4277
Artificial Tanning Products
Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs – 3 colours $15, David Jones, Myer and some pharmacies
St Tropez Body Polisher, 120ml, $15, followed by St Tropez Tinted Self-Tanning Lotion, 120ml $53, Priceline.
St Tropez Self Tan Bronzing Mousse $44 1800 358999 easy to apply and gives an even tan.
ModelCo Tan Airbrush in a Can $45 02-8354 6700
Johnson’s Holiday Skin Body Lotion, 250mls, $6 Coles, Woolworths, mass retailers. 1800 029 979
Dove Summer Glow Beauty Body Lotion $7, 1800 061027 is a gradual tanner that allows you to transform pale skin with two applications and keeps the skin hydrated and soft.
Body Lotion
Keri Lotion, 500mls, $13, Priceline and pharmacies nationally
Sorbelene Cream 1 litre $4 Priceline Own Brand
Redwin Skin Cream 1 litre $4 Priceline
The Body Shop Mango Butter $28 1800 065232 Gorgeous, thick and sweet smelling
Exfoliants
St. Ives Apricot Scrub 150mls $9, from mass retailers
Natio Spa One Minute Miracle Body Polish $19 03-94159911 rich exfoliating formula that contains herbal extracts such as lemon balm, sesame and ginger.
Nylon mesh sponge ball $4, from supermarkets and mass retailers
Nylon knitted gloves $5, Priceline
Soaps for sensitive skins
Simple Soap $4 from supermarkets, fragrance-free
Sorbolene soap and dettol soap around $3.50 from some supermarkets, Priceline, etc.
Eulactol Heel Balm 100g $15 from Coles, for painful cracked heels
Manicare Pumice sponge around $4.50 from pharmacies, Priceline.

Colour
Forget natural and embrace fabulous! Your hair colour has the power to subtract ten years off your appearance. And it can add ten years.
Most of us don’t want to do ‘natural’ in our summer years. We want hair that looks alluring, youthful, bright and expensive! Not that hair colouring has to be expensive, far from it; do-it-yourself colour has never been more affordable or easier to do at home.
What colour?
The general rule is: the older we get, the lighter we should go. This applies to all women regardless of skin colour. As we mature our skin becomes paler and cooler-looking than it was in our youth and our eye colour loses intensity too. Take these issues into account when you colour-assist your hair.
A solid panel or swathe of hair colour does not look youthful.
A highlighted, sophisticated multi-toned range of colours within the ideal shade for your skin tone does look youthful.

Here’s the thing: If you go two shades up or down from the natural colour your hair was when you were a toddler you really cannot go wrong.
Dig out some old baby photos and analyse your hair colour, at the age of two years everyone’s hair is at the peak of its natural brightness. This is a safe starting place to ensure your new elegant colour will complement your individual skin tone and eye colour.
Hair that’s coloured too dark will enhance facial lines and in fact make the entire face look severe. No matter whether you are brunette, red-headed or raven haired, lightness around your face will always look younger.
Black hair is hard and unnatural on the mature woman (even when it really is natural and without a hint of silver) because the wearer’s skin tone will have definitely paled.
Hair is always most flattering when the colour is lightened up a couple of notches.

Are you a ‘Silver Fox’?
The grey hair perceived to be most attractive is hair with gloss; its shiny metallic – silver, platinum, pewter and steel. The most attractive white hair is icy-clear and frosty-white. Alas, few of us are naturally blessed with this purity of hair colour; so when we choose this look we’re going to need professional assistance to maintain it.
If you’re curious how you’d look with a head of grey hair, jump online and go virtually grey. Upload your photograph onto Clairol’s website – www.clairol.com and follow the links to test-drive grey shades on your own photo. This is a great way to establish if grey is the way you really want to go.

The transition to grey needs planning. Collaborate with your hairdresser and work out a strategy to maintain a polished look while your grey grows in. Hair grows at a rate of about 5cm every 3 months, sometimes it grows a little more quickly in the spring so in a 3 month time span you may find you have closer to 6cms growth. Keep your hair short while you are growing in the grey, it will be less conspicuous. To help lessen the contrast between the growing roots and the established colour already on the ends add a few highlights around your face.
Once your grey hair has grown out conditioning and colour clarifying products will help to keep it soft, shiny, silky, and smooth. Silver hair attracts and retains yellow from the sun, hard water and other sources such as nicotine (you’re not really still smoking are you?).
Purple tinted shampoo formulated for blonde hair eradicates yellow tones, streaks or odd colours - the deeper the purple the more effective it is.

• Some Silver Hair Facts:
  When the hair is cut in an up-to-the-minute style the silver colour can look fantastically glamorous particularly if you have a killer body, an ‘out there’ personality, effortlessly chic style, if your clothes are in complementary colours for your skin tone and if you always wear updated make-up.
• Short silver hair needs a structured, edgy well defined style to look chic.
• Silver hair can look fantastically frumpy if you let any of the above go. Silver hair requires unwavering attention to personal grooming. If you are out there tooling around in daggy trakkie daks or haven’t bothered to put on your make-up you are seriously undermining your look.
• Unfortunately grey hair works against women in the business world. Grey haired men are perceived as distinguished while grey headed women are often seen as ‘old lady-ish’ and are sidelined. Unfair, but it is a fact of life.
• Going grey is not a quick pathway to easy hair maintenance for the rest of your life. To look elegant and groomed you’re still going to be up for a haircut every 4/5 weeks; and expect to use products specifically formulated to maintain the texture and colour. If grey hair is a drastic colour change from your previously colour-enhanced hair you may find changes to your make-up and wardrobe colours are required for you to look your best.

Finally, while a mane of silver hair can look fantastic, it will never look young. Silver hair communicates your age as being old enough to carry a senior’s card. It adds ten years.

Are you a ‘Super Fox’?
Lightness and illumination help the face to look fresh and glowing. Blonde hair is generally perceived as the most youthful of all the hair colours.

• Subtract years by adding warmth to blonde hair with hints of gold, honey or caramel.
• Add flashes of paprika or copper to your dark hair if the blonde tones are not for you.
• The incorrect tone of blonde can result in an overblown one-piece panel of solid colour and make the skin, eyes and hair appear lifeless. Reinvigorate blonde hair by breaking up the colour with lowlights from another palette such as copper or add slices of a different blonde for contrast.
• Unless you’re in a hurry to look your age avoid any colour that says ‘Ash’ on the packet. Ash blonde or ash brown hair worn by women in their summer years is interpreted as drab, grey and matronly. And we don’t want that!
• Generally, the colours of your clothes are an indication of the right shade of blonde for you. If you have mainly cool, blue-based garments in your wardrobe then beige-blonde streaks are likely to be the highlights for you. If your clothes are mostly in the warm, yellow based colours you’ll find golden-blonde or sandy colours will probably suit you.
• Highlights have the ability to create a beautiful halo affect around your face. Your skin will look brighter when highlights are two or three shades lighter than your base hair colour, luminosity will be brought to your face and you’ll look ten years younger.
• If all this is too much for you and you’ve chosen to be gracefully grey, how about rejuvenating your look by adding a few fine highlights and lowlights in several colours either around your face or throughout your hair? Discuss colour choices with your hair colourist. You might be after a look that requires foil highlights and lowlights in up to four colours to cover the spectrum from medium/dark to light. Multi-coloured highlights and lowlights do not mean multi-visits to the hairdresser. A skilled hairdresser can apply them all at once.

The hairdresser– god of crowning glories!
You owe it to yourself to have the most amazing haircut and colour you possibly can.
If everything about your hair has been same/same for years – the same stylist, salon, cut and the same colour, you and your hairdresser have become stale. It’s time to switch things up, probably to change stylists and perhaps even try another salon.
Younger stylists, just out of apprenticeships and hairdressers’ college are technically up to date and itching to test their skills! Consider consulting a younger hairdresser to design a new and edgy haircut or colour (or both!) for you. Younger salon staff often need to build up their own clientele, and they usually cut, colour and style under the supervision and watchful eye of a senior stylist. Be wary of the stylist sporting his or her own weird hair – style, colour or cut. You need to be on the same wave-length as your stylist!
There is nothing unusual about having one person to cut your hair and a different person to colour it. Most hairdressers acknowledge they prefer one technique over another, and their preference is usually the one they’re best at.
If you find that everyone looks similar (including you) when they leave your hairdresser’s salon, the hairdresser has become lazy and you need to end your relationship. You don’t have to explain, send an email or write a note.
You might find it hard to break up with a hairstylist, but you owe it to yourself to have a hairdresser who approaches your hair in a fresh and modern way. Remember that hair is the first thing people notice about you!
We’re often reluctant to change our hairdresser because of a misguided sense of loyalty. Most of us don’t wish to hurt the hairdresser’s feeling but why should you accept mediocre attention to your hair? You’re not exactly committing adultery by going to another hairdresser!
Stylists and colourists worth their salt regularly attend seminars, workshops and demonstrations to keep abreast of evolving techniques and new products.
Tell your stylist you want a new, more youthful look and take along pictures from magazines or from the internet of celebrities and models wearing hairstyles you like. Hairdressers love pictures! You may well discover your stylist or colourist has wanted to suggest an update for ages and hasn’t known how to broach the subject with you!
Anyone can have anything. You might find you need to compromise with regard to colour and length because your own face shape and hair texture is likely to be different from the model or celebrity in the picture. The bottom line is: if you don’t get what you asked for, move on.

Try celebrity hair and make-up looks on INSTYLE.COM. Go to ‘makeovers’ and upload your photograph to the website. Then use the Hollywood Hair and Makeup tool to pull hundreds of different celebrities’ hairstyles and makeup onto your own photo. It’s free. And it’s addictive!

Walk the walk
Ok, now you’ve taken the plunge and have a gorgeous head of coloured, fabulously cut, youthful hair. How are you going to maintain your new look?
If you’ve spent a small fortune in a ‘you-beaut’ swept up salon and love what they have done but know you really can’t spend that sort of money every five or six weeks maintaining your hair there are solutions.
Be honest and tell the ‘you-beaut’ stylist/colourist you love your new look, but can only come to them a couple of times a year (you don’t have to say why).
Then, and here’s the thing, ask for suggestions on how you can maintain the style and colour between times. Most professionals want you to look and feel good, plus they’d like your repeat business. They know word-of-mouth references are the best advertising, if you’re happy then they are happy.
The most likely suggestion will be to return to the ‘you-beaut’ salon every few months for the full treatment you’ve just undergone, and in between times have your local salon boost your colour with a few highlights around your face.
You could ask to see someone less expensive at the city salon if you came more regularly, or you could go to a less expensive salon and get a load of fine highlights all over the hair in between full treatments that would blend into the re-growth.
It’s all about looking gorgeous
The majority of women with colour-enhanced hair colour it themselves. Many women alternate between having a professional colour at a salon and doing a simple colour enhancement or re-growth touch up at home between salon visits. Do it yourself kits have the same chemical formulas as professional salon formulas and come with application tools, gloves and simple to follow instructions.

1. Five D.I.Y tips for professional-looking colour
   Don’t shampoo or condition your hair immediately before colouring it. Most conditioners make the hair slippery and this makes it difficult for the dye to stick to the hair.
2. Follow the instructions on the packet to the letter. All brands and products have slightly different application methods - from whether the hair should be wet or dry to the amount of time the solution should be in contact with the hair.
3. Apply the colour to the roots first. The ends of the hair are usually dry and porous, and so the colour grabs more easily.
4. A thin coating of Vaseline applied to the skin around your hairline will stop dye stains. Use a creamy facial cleanser to remove any colour drips from your face afterwards.
5. Avoid colour extremes when you choose a new shade. The most flattering results are achieved when the colour is kept to within three shades lighter than your natural colour.
   

Terminology
With so many different hair techniques available, if you know exactly what to ask for from your stylist, colourist or from a packet you are more likely to get what you want.

Base colour
This is the overall hair colour, whether it’s natural or dyed.

Rinse
Non-permanent enriching colour that lasts until it’s washed out.

Semi permanent colour
A formula that doesn’t contain bleaches so it does not lighten the hair. Semi permanent colour darkens each strand by coating it with colour that lasts for around 10 to 12 washes.

Permanent colour
Permanent colours are dyes containing bleaches – peroxide and ammonia that take the hair a few shades lighter or a few shades darker. The colour lasts until it grows out or is cut off and it is the most efficient and effective way to cover grey hair. Expect to dye the roots (re-growth) about every 4 weeks, less if your hair is permanently coloured several shades lighter than your natural colour.

Highlights
A permanent lightening formula is applied to the hair in fine slices to give a ‘sun kissed’ look. Highlights are created by applying the formula to individual strands of hair to create contrast with the existing base colour and bring luminosity to the face. Most hair colourists will charge you the same amount whether they use one, two or three different lightening colours– for example honey, caramel and flaxen blonde.
Highlights can be applied by the cap method when a tight fitting latex cap (like a swimming cap) with hundreds of little holes punched into it is pulled over the hair. Small tresses of hair are drawn through the holes to the outside of the cap with a crochet hook. The colour solution is applied to the drawn-through tresses, leaving the base colour beneath the cap untouched.
Cap highlights are the most natural looking highlights and ideal for short hair. Cap highlighting is not recommended for longer hair because the tresses are difficult to hook through the holes in the cap, and it’s painful!
Foil highlights are common, quick and painless. Small fine blocks of hair are separated from the rest of the hair, brushed with permanent lightening formula and wrapped in tin foil to ‘set’. The downside to foil-wrapped highlights is that if they are not expertly and carefully manipulated you can end up with stripes or tufts of colour instead of multiple dimensions of blondeness.
Highlights used to be called “streaks”.

Lowlights
These are streaks or highlights in reverse. Instead of applying lightening formula to the individual hair strands, permanent dye is applied in the same way as highlights (using either the cap or foil method) to darken and add depth to the base colour.
Lowlights and highlights work well in conjunction with each other for an elegant, polished look.

Balliage
Balliage is the technique of painting highlight and/or low light formula directly onto the hair with a brush without using a cap or foils. When balliage is done well it looks fantastic. If it is not well done it can make you look like a tiger. If you find a colourist who has mastered balliage you have truly hit the jackpot!
Feathering
Thick plumes of hair are separated from the rest of the hair and coloured with a strong contrasting colour –white plumes on black hair, bright red feathers through flaxen blonde hair etc. Feathering is not a subtle or natural look and although it makes a definite statement it is not for the fainthearted. Feathering looks incredibly fashion-forward when it is done well. The downside is the risk of ending up looking like a mad Rhode Island rooster!
Relaxed hair
Thick, textured, curly or afro hair can be chemically relaxed to straighten it – a bit like the old fashioned perm in reverse. Once the hair has been relaxed you are then able to have it cut into any style you want. Relaxed hair needs daily attention with heat tools and styling products to keep it looking good. The regrowth requires a chemical relaxing touch- up every five or six weeks. Relaxing formulas can weaken the hair so a fortnightly deep conditioning treatment will help to strengthen it. Relaxed hair is high maintenance because to maintain shape it needs regular cutting. Hair relaxing should only be done by a professional.
Hair weaving
The natural hair is plaited tightly around the head then extensions are sewn or woven into the plaits. The extensions are then cut and styled to look like natural hair Weaving is a healthier option to relaxed hair as it doesn’t require daily use of heat tools or fierce straightening chemicals. It works extremely well with afro hair and well enough with Caucasian hair. It’s expensive, but once the weaving is completed the upkeep is minimal as it is usually home-treated with regular shampoo and conditioner.

Stripping

• The process to remove colour (dyed or natural) from each individual hair strand involves a strong bleaching formula, accurate timing and is best done by a professional in a salon. Stripping works most effectively when the bleaching formula is applied within 12 hours of the colour that is to be stripped away was applied as it won’t have quite set. After 24 hours stripping takes longer and isn’t always as effective.
  So if you’ve put a too-dark dye onto your hair at home and it’s a disaster, you hate it, and want to have it lightened, get to the hairdresser quick smart!
  
  
  
  The hit parade:
  Too young:
  High ponytail, plaits of any kind, plastic headbands,
  Ribbons of any kind, dreadlocks, scrunchies
  Toys of any kind, little girl clips. bulldog clips
  Middle parting, glitter of any kind, lots of little jaw clips
  
  Too old
  Transparent plastic slides, perms, blue, pink, violet or apricot rinses
  Ash blonde highlights, high hair and tight updos, grey hair, helmet hair, too dark hair
  Dandruff, long straggly hair
  
  
  Bad hair days
  Everyone has days when the hair just won’t go right! Try the following when you have a bad hair day:
  Wet your hair with a splash of water then give it a heat-blast with a blow dryer, styling and lifting with your fingers as you direct the heat just as you would when your hair is newly washed and still wet. The heat and the water work to reactivate the products already in your hair.
• Use a fabric softener sheet as a quick remedy to fix hair that has caught a lot of static and is sticking out at all angles. Just run the sheet of fabric softener over the hair to settle it down.
  
• Dab a spot of moisturizing lotion or lip balm onto your palms, rub them together and pat it through to the ends of flyaway hair. Hair static often originates from stiff-bristled synthetic brushes. Ditch your stiff bristled brush in favour of a softer, natural-bristled brush.
• Tuck your hair behind your ears. Hair pulled away from the face is instantly youthful. Secure it with a couple of modern decorative combs or pretty clips.
• Curling tongs and straightening irons were invented for bad hair days. Whip ‘em out, switch ‘em on, heat them up and run them through your wayward hair! Voila!
  
• New tricks and old wives tales!
  Auckland hairdresser, Kelsey Smith says that purple shampoo and conditioner are the most effective products to counteract yellow staining in blonde, silver or white hair. “The formula penetrates the hair follicle and neutralizes the stains.” Kelsey says. “If you are going to buy only one purple product, buy the shampoo.”
  A tiny blob of body oil rubbed onto your palms and patted through dry hair will put a shine into it.
  To quickly eliminate stinky smells such as cigarette smoke or food odours from your hair swipe a fabric softener sheet through your tresses to absorb the smells.
  To enrich brunette hair mix one teaspoon of cocoa powder with a dab of shampoo. Wash and condition as usual. The colour will look like shining chocolate and will smell fantastic. Or use a professionally formulated chocolate coloured, aromatic shampoo and conditioner.
  Blond children are more likely to have white hair in maturity, whereas brunette children are more inclined to turn silver
  A blow dryer on low setting is much kinder to your hair than fiery blasts on the highest setting. Keep the blow dryer moving all over the head rather than concentrating it on one spot at a time.
  Continually touching your hair, vigorous brushing and rubbing your scalp stimulates the oil glands to produce more oil.
  Sun and chlorine are mortal enemies of colour enhanced hair. Chlorine can impart a green tinge to blonde hair. Dry, brittle hair grabs any liquid it comes into contact with. If your hair is in dry condition, wet it prior to diving into chlorinated water so it won’t be as susceptible to absorbing the pool chemicals.
  Rinse blonde hair with water as soon as you get out of the pool. In fact, rinse any coloured hair!
  Buy yourself a beautiful silicon bathing cap (please, not one of those seventies numbers with floppy little rubber flowers) to protect your hair while you are in the water.
  Rinse your hair under a bubbling shower as soon as you exit the pool or ocean to wash away sea salt or chemicals.
  Leave-in conditioner is the repair solution for hair that has been over-exposed to the sun.
  Of course a sunhat will protect your hair investment at all other times, but you know that!
  

Removal of Body Hair
There isn’t anything more off-putting than a pair of hairy calves and there’s no excuse for hairy underarms, or hairy anywhere that we expose to the world daily!
A razor is the fastest, cheapest and least painful route to hairlessness. A quick once over in the morning shower and you’re done for the day! Expect to shave daily to keep your legs and underarms smooth and hair-free. Buy and use your own razor - much more hygienic than shredding your shins with your partner’s disposable Schick! Try saying that out loud!

The smoothest legs are legs that have been waxed, so waxing may be the way for you to go– depending on your pain threshold! Hair takes longer to re-grow on waxed areas and it comes through feeling soft and silky whereas shaved areas produce sharp, prickly stubble the very next day. Try a do-it-yourself waxing kit at home, or treat yourself to a salon hot wax treatment where everything is done for you and the beautician will be ruthlessly quick! Waxing can whip out the hair roots and many people find that after a few years of waxing, treatments are no longer necessary because there’s no hair left to remove. Those of us with strong dark hair growth won’t be so lucky though, waxing will become less painful as the hair thins but treatment is likely to be on-going. Rub the skin with a loofah a few days after having a wax treatment to avoid ingrown hairs.

Hair removal creams have come ahead in leaps and bounds from those foul reeking white paste formulas we smeared over our legs with paddle pop sticks in our youth. Newer, pleasant smelling hair removal creams enriched with aloe vera and vitamin E are applied to the skin, left on for up to 10 minutes then rinsed off with water. What could be easier than that? Great for those who have sensitive skin or allergies, the hair removal lasts for about four days.

Epilating is another alternative. An electrical device rips out each individual hair by the roots. The upside is that eventually there’s no hair left because its all been torn out. The downside it that it hurts like hell and leaves you prone to ingrown hairs. Wet/dry battery-powered epilators used in the shower provide a more gentle treatment. Exfoliate afterward to prevent ingrown hairs or use a loofah. Epilation lasts for up to one week before it needs to be re-done.

Intense Pulsed Light therapy (laser hair reduction) is a progressive treatment performed in a salon by a trained technician. Laser treatment is useful for smaller areas such as the face and the bikini line, the more applications you have the weaker the hair follicles become. Several appointments are required to treat a full cycle of hair.
Lasers work by distinguishing the contrast between skin colour and hair colour. If you have dark hair and light skin for example then you are a likely candidate for laser treatment.
Women who have very little contrast between their skin colour and hair colour may be wasting their money as the laser cannot ‘see’ the hair. If you have light skin and light hair or dark skin and dark hair then I.P.L. therapy is probably not for you.
The upside of laser treatment is that it is permanent. It does not stop the underlying hair from growing, but it does remove any hair visible at the time of treatment.
The downsides are that it can be expensive, you may need several treatments, it is very painful (a numbing cream can be applied about an hour beforehand to the area to be treated) and the lasered area cannot be exposed to the sun for at least two years.
Laser technology is mostly unregulated; in many countries anyone can purchase laser equipment and set up business. Lasers are powerful high-tech tools so do your research and find a medically trained technician or practitioner who has performed the procedure hundreds of times before you let her loose on your body. In untrained hands, a laser can cause very serious burns.
Do it yourself laser hair removal tools such as E-pens (to remove individual hairs on the face) and E-pads that treat up to 4 areas at once are available from retailers or on-line if you want to have a go yourself. A full salon laser that treats up to 60 hairs at once and comes with an instructional DVD is also available. To be honest, it is worth having a few treatments by a trained technician in a professional salon before you go ploughing in yourself. The outlay for do-it-yourself laser machines is not cheap and the results can be varied. If you’ve undergone some professional treatments you’ll have at least an idea of what to expect.

Women of colour need to be particularly careful when considering laser hair removal treatment. Thoroughly investigate the practitioner’s experience with dark skin colour because hypo pigmentation is a real risk. Hypo pigmentation is the dark area or patches on the skin that develop in response to skin trauma such as scarring and burns. Check the practitioner has had plenty of experience with your skin type. Ask for references.

That's it for today. Next week we'll be addressing all aspects of make-up - our favourite tool in our anti-aging arsenal! Until then - kisses from me, Dawn!

Retail details and magic products
All these costs are approximate and relate to the Australian and New Zealand retail market because Nineteen Days to Gorgeous was written there.
However, as I’ve travelled through other countries I’ve researched the markets, in the UK and US I found there is actually not much difference, given the exchange rate. As I now live in Spain I’ve also researched the EU market, most products are available in one form or another, and prices are similar to those listed – none of the products listed suddenly take a huge price hike!

Shampoos and Conditioners
Pantene PRO-V Deep Fortifying Shampoo 750mls $13 1800 028280, from supermarkets
Pantene PRO-V Deep Fortifying Conditioner 350mls $13 1800 028280 from supermarkets
Matrix Biolage Hydrating Shampoo 500mls $27 from hairdressers – a little more expensive but it lasts a long time so it’s worth it!
Matrix Biolage Conditioning Balm 25mls $27 from hairdressers
Schwarzkopf Extra Care Colour Shine & Protect Express Repair Leave-In Conditioner $8, 1800 022219
Klorane Oat Milk Dry Shampoo $17, 1800 678302, is an excellent gentle shampoo to remove dirt, product build-up and excess oil from the hair without water.
Shampoos and Conditioners for colour enhanced hair
John Frieda Collection – Brilliant Brunette, Sheer Blonde and Radiant Red, all in shampoo and Conditioners, all $16, 1800 468318, from supermarkets, Priceline and mass retailers.
L’Oreal Professionnel Expert Vitamino Color Shampoo and Color Conditioner 250ml $24 each 1300 651141
Redken Shampoos and conditioners - All Soft (in a gold container) for dry, chemically treated hair, Extreme (in a blue container) for chemically treated hair or Colour Extend (in a red container) for protection of colour treated hair. Shampoo 300mls approx. $27, conditioner 250mls approx. $27, from hairdressers.
Dandruff Shampoo
Head and Shoulders Anti-Dandruff Shampoo $6 from mass retailers and supermarkets
Shampoos and conditioners for grey hair
Edward Beale Ultra purple highlight shampoo $10 from Priceline. Covers yellow streaks in grey or white hair. Purple ultra highlight conditioner $10 from Priceline and hairdressers.

Styling Products
Redken rough paste12 $27 1300 650170, from hairdressers
Tres Semme mousse $4, from Coles, Woolworths, mass retailers
KMS Curlup Control Crème $42 1800 506060, controls fly-away hair and frizz, gives defined curls and a little goes a long way.

Hair Volumizing Products
Fudge Salt Spray $18 Gives a raw textured ‘just got out of bed’ look, adds extra body to dull hair – from Priceline, hairdressers and pharmacies
Samy Fat Hair $15 puts a coating on each hair shaft so it will add thickness, from Priceline
John Frieda Luxurious Volume $16 1800 468318, from mass retailers
Kerastase Resistance Volumatic Mousse $39 1300 365552, gives volume and strengthens and repairs the hair.

Restorative Products
Pantene PRO-V Restoratives – Time Renewal shampoo $9, conditioner $9 Reduces breakage by 98%, use if your hair is dry and brittle from blow-drying.
Pantene PRO-V Shine and fortifying tonic $12 1800 028280
Organix: Coconut milk nourishes: Split Ends Mender $16, Mousse $17, Self Heat Oil Treatment $16, Instant Repair $17, Styling Cream $17 Tea tree/Mint hydrating Shampoo$15, conditioner $15, Leave in Moisturizer $16 White Tea/Grapeseed Reviving shampoo $15, Conditioner $15 all from Priceline and mass retailers
VO5 Hot Oil Moisture Soak $5 from mass retailers.
VO5 Hot Oil Deep Moisturising Soak. $5, from mass retailers. Heat the product in a cup of hot water for a minute, massage it into wet hair, leave for a minute and rinse, then shampoo and condition as normal

Permanent Hair colour:
Do-it-at-home hair colouring products cost around $14 - $17 a box and are stocked by mass retailers, supermarkets, pharmacies and hairdressers.

Styling Tools
Electric styling tools such as blow dryers, curling tongs and straightening irons are available at most price points. Check out your local small appliances stockist, but also check Target, K-Mart, Big W, plus outlets and department stores.

Hair Removal
Nads Facial Wand, $14. Priceline. Hair removal gel for eyebrows, chin, upper lip, etc.
Veet Hair Removal Cream with Aloe Vera and Vitamin E 100g $8.50 from supermarkets
Gillette Venus Breeze razor $19. Spare blades impregnated with gel $16 for a pack of 4, from supermarkets
Braun Xpressive Epilator – Wet/dry use, 2 speed settings and rechargeable. Around $180 from department stores, often reduced in the sales
Panasonic Wet/dry Epilator, Double epilation heads and includes small epilation head and a shaver head for underarms and bikini line $160. www.shavershop.com.au or freecall 1300 742837
Laser Hair Removal from a clinic
Bikini around $29,underarm $30, half leg $70, Full leg, Brazilian and underarm $350 approximate costs only.
Do-it-yourself laser:
Rio Salon Laser X60 $995, Verseo E-Pen $189, Verseo E-pad $229 all from the Shaver Shop www.shavershop.com.au or freecall 1300 742837
Waxaway Wax pack includes heater, hard wax, applicators and after-waxing oil $70 from Shaver Shop.

Day 2. Hair- Let it Shine!

• 2. Hair: Let it Shine!
  First Impressions
  There are three areas that are worth spending a reasonable amount of money on - eyewear, swimwear and our hair!
  The first thing we notice when we encounter a person is their hair. We take just a moment to scan the colour and the cut, detect the condition, observe how well the hair is groomed, and then, based on what we’ve discerned in that micro-second, we categorise the wearer. It’s a sad fact that once we’ve mentally pigeon holed a person we seldom change that first impression. What is your hair saying about you?
• One of the quickest ways to turn back the clock is to have a fringe cut.
• Everyone looks younger with a fringe (Americans call fringes ‘bangs’). A fringe-benefit is that it camouflages lines, forehead and frown lines, and hides a receding hairline whilst diverting attention to the eyes – where we want people to look!
• A fringe is hair of any shape, length or thickness that falls across the forehead.
• The most youthful and flattering fringes are long and swept to one side; or graduated (wispy) and straight.
• Geometric fringes with sharp angles, puffy fringes, or those that stick out due to a strong cowlick are difficult to tame and generally unflattering. If this is your fringe try having it cut into a youthful graduated fringe. If you hate it you can always grow it back again!
• Thick curtain-like fringes that come to a stop on the cheekbone or brush the eyelashes (and hide the eyes) lead people to question the wearer’s self esteem.
• A fringe is always current and in fashion. Have your fringe trimmed regularly to maintain the shape.

A cut above
Many women have stuck with the hair style they wore when they felt their most attractive. Often that was years ago and now, with the chin showing signs of sagging and the eye colour not quite as intense as it used to be, the old hairstyle has lost its edge and looks a great deal less than youthful! If this is you it’s time to update and give yourself and your hair a new lease of life!

• A good haircut has the power to shave years off your appearance. It doesn’t have to be a cut that requires a lot of maintenance, and it doesn’t have to be a dramatic or sudden change.
• The best makeovers start gradually and evolve slowly; after all you’re the one doing it so you have to be comfortable with the transformation. Start with a small subtlety such as having graduated layers cut around your face, or switching the side you part your hair on, or moving your parting to a slightly different position. Tweak the length and ask the stylist to chop texture into the ends.
• If you decide this is your last ditch chance to grow your hair continue to have it cut regularly to retain the style and shape during the time it takes to gain length.
• The most attractive hairstyles are those in proportion to the body. A smallish head and curvy, fullish physique is visually balanced by hair worn in a fuller style. If the hair is short and worn flat against the head with little or no texture chopped into it, the overall appearance looks out of kilter.
• On the other hand, a tiny trim body topped with a cascading mane of hair can give the head a pumpkin-like appearance!
  
  

Keep your hairstyle evolving
How often do you come home from the hairdresser looking fantastic and feeling gorgeous, then the next day when you do your hair yourself it doesn’t look anywhere near as good? Its unlikely there’s anything wrong with the cut; you are probably the one doing the sabotaging in the way you’re styling it!
Watch how the hairdresser styles your hair.
Is it finger-dried?
What sort of brush is used?
In which direction is the blow dryer angled?
Ask to be shown how to style it yourself at home. Professionals want you to look good and they’ll guide you towards achieving your best hairstyle.

Some things to know:

• Natural healthy hair looks younger and more current than a helmet of bouffant, hair that has been sprayed rigid.
• Teasing and backcombing your hair to be up nearer to God is dated. Hair stands away from the scalp naturally when texture has been cut into it.
• Styling products such as rough paste enable you to mould and deconstruct your cut with ragged texture and create any extreme or funky style you want. Look for holding products with names such as fudge, gum, toffee, mud and spike.
• Youthful-looking hair bounces! It is ruffled, tousled, shaken and stirred and the perfect cut softens and frames the face.

Pump up the shine with brilliance sprays and hair polishes. Products containing micro-shine particles refine and clean the colour and add healthy-looking lustre.


Long and sensual or short and sexy?
Unfortunately long hair is more inclined to split, tangle, dry out and thin at the ends. There’s no getting away from the fact that long hair is high maintenance.
Hair caught into a tight, structured up-do pinned on top of your head not only looks old fashioned, it’ll give you a headache! Equally, scraping hair back into a tight pony tail or coil every day encourages the strands to drop out and the hair to thin.

• A shoulder-length cut gives the illusion of longer hair, even more so when the hair is graduated around the face.
• Soft, shiny, healthy hair grazing the shoulders always looks sophisticated, smart and feminine.
• If your hair grows long and doesn’t grow evenly (not everyone can grow their hair long!) and you end up with three sad bedraggled rats tails (one on each side and the third down the back) cut your losses, get with the programme and have a short, textured haircut!
• Fine oily hair benefits from regular trims. Daily shampooing and conditioning helps the appearance.
• Width and volume at the cheek line flatters, softens and lifts the face. Every centimetre counts; when width and volume are cut at the jaw line the opposite happens – facial lines are emphasized and the face shape appears rounder.
• Don’t be afraid of using hair products. Layering and texturing products applied with a light touch help create a full, soft and natural look.
• Hair worn in a medium-short length style rejuvenates the face, elongates the neck and thins the appearance of the upper torso.
• Short healthy hair carries bounce, is easy to care for, can add a little height and looks feminine, smart and sophisticated.
• Generally people perceive short hair as young, energetic and athletic.
  

Let it Shine
Shining hair is youthful hair!

• A deep conditioning treatment applied once or twice a month helps to keep hair healthy and shining.
• Newer shampoos have very different formulas from the shampoos of our youth that were mainly detergent - masked by fragrance. A small amount of modern shampoo, applied once, goes a long way.
• While modern formula shampoos do thoroughly clean the hair with one application, most hair benefits from two applications, the second will give it That Shine!
• Over-the-counter inexpensive shampoo containing silicone will deposit residue that sticks to the hair shaft. While this initially makes the hair feel soft, over just a little time the silicone residue builds up and the hair becomes lifeless and dull. The silicone build-up is almost impossible to dissolve.
• A more expensive shampoo from your hairdresser is a more viable option. Why? Because you use less! Usually a puddle the size of a dollar coin in the palm of your hand is enough. If you need to use any more than that either the shampoo’s a dud or you have exceptionally long hair!
• Brilliance sprays and polishes revitalize dry hair, refine colour tones and provide natural-looking shine. Buy them from your hairdresser.
• Dandruff is scruffy. It’s a telltale sign of over-processed dry hair on the head of someone who is careless about their grooming.
• Newer anti-dandruff shampoos quickly clear up dry-scalp induced dandruff.

A stroll down the hair-care aisle in a mass beauty or store will assure you there are plenty of products available at competitive prices to address any hair issue you have. Take your time and read the fine print on the labels. Take your reading glasses!

We're coming to Colouring the hair in the next few days - watch this space! Kisses, Dawn