23 October, 2008

Gracefully surrender the things of youth?



Everyone has their own "beauty" regime and things that they swear by and even though I barely have time some mornings to look in the mirror (yes, I have actually gone out the door without looking in the mirror - big mistake!) there are some things that I swear by.

  • Acupuncture. A few years ago I started doing acupuncture on a regular basis. Not for anything in particular, but to "feel better". Now I go for almost everything. When I was doing their "facelift" procedure I had people comment on how much better I looked. Not necessarily younger, but I found that it removed all the stress from my face. I felt better and as a result I looked better.
  • Moisturizer. My esthetician, Josee, got me hooked on Phytomer moisturizer and products. I love them. I have very dry skin (although prone to breakouts) and Phytomer products are incredibly rich without being heavy and greasy. However, now that I am becoming more and more adverse to putting "chemicals" on my skin how do I resolve this, especially since Josee just gave me a sample of creme riche thermo protectrice. It is without a doubt the best moisturizer I have tried. Loving it!
  • Sleep. Or maybe I should say the desire to sleep because I really don't sleep well. When I don't get enough sleep I am cranky, I have dark circles under my eyes and my skin looks all pinched. Right now on average I get about 5 hours sleep. Enough said.
  • Expensive tinted moisturizer. And it has to be expensive or the effect is just not there. This may be all psychomatic, but this is what works for me. Chanel made a beautiful tinted moisturizer called Brillance Lumiere a few years ago in a limited quantity. They no longer make it and I have never found a replacment that I like half as well. If you know of one or where I can get more of this stuff, please let me know. It looks very natural and people always comment on how well my skin looks when I wear it.


I also find as you get older you need to look funkier. I always find that women who get funkier as they get older and leave behind the more classic looks are usually the women I find the most interesting. A couple of years ago I was walking with a woman who is about 10 years older than I am. She has a very classic look, but well, she looks dowdy. We passed a woman on the street who was probably about 5 years older than her. She was wearing a blue fake fur coat that looked like it had dreadlocks, wide legged black pants and gorgeous, sexy boots. Her look was fabulous. She looked like she was au courant, hip, and like she had a great sex life.

After we passed her, my friend said simply, "Good for her." I agree.

About a month ago I saw a young women in the metro who was the absolute embodiment of sexy. Her hair was cut in a short black bob, she was in great shape and she was wearing an orange Lacoste (like) dress with cutaway sleeves where you could see her well worked shoulders. But the piece de resistance was the kickass scrolling tattoo across the top of her back that just went outside the cutaway sleeves. Awesome. I wish I was brave enough to do the tattoo thing.

This doesn't mean that to be great looking you have to wear a blue dreadlock coat or have a tattoo, a friend and I were buying makeup at NARS in Holt Renfrew and saw a women in who's amazing hair color and great cut made both of us take notice. I wish I could remember the name of her color, but unless I write things down I never remember.
So one of these days if you see a couple of big garbage bags in front of my house, it's just me throwing out all my classic clothes to make room for my fake fur coat.

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