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| Kohl - the Eye-liner of the Ancient Egyptians. |
The legendary beauty Cleopatra
took an interesting approach to her skin care and beauty routine. From bathing
in donkeys' milk to Dead Sea salt and clay masks, lipsticks made of tallow and
ochre, and, of course Kohl - the ubiquitous eye-liner of Egypt, she tried most things. She was even said to sleep in a mask made of
gold as well as using a clay one regularly, to deep cleanse her skin. Of course, she had little time for age to bother her, as she committed suicide at the age of 39. Other cultures have used stranger things than gold, such as the
nightingale dropping and snail slime favoured by the Japanese. But are any as
strange as our current ideas of injecting toxins and fillers and cutting the
skin to tighten it? It seems that many women – and growing numbers of men –
will try almost anything to retain their youthful looks.
I am not sure how healthy
this obsession our culture has with youth really is, but it seems that beauty is linked with youth, especially for women. One woman told me that she became
invisible once she was 50, but her husband remained distinguished looking and
attractive! It seems that our culture, for all the forward strides that have
been made in the area of women’s rights, still only recognises the value of
women’s looks when they are below a certain age. I’m not so sure that the
French think this way; older women there have always been chic, often more so
than their gauche juniors. This seems to be something else we have acquired
from America, so it becomes easy for advertisers and Beauty sellers to trade on
the insecurity of ageing women and offer them the Elixir of Youth in
the form of various potions and unguents which promise the earth and take
your money, generally with limited results. It seems unlikely that there
is a true Elixir of Youth, or there would be no-one having plastic surgery in
Hollywood and elsewhere. I also wonder how healthy it is to worrying about our
“ageing” faces to the degree that we would put almost anything on them, or in
them, though I’m pretty sure that the Nightingale droppings and Snail slime
would be safer than some of the products on offer.
GENTLE
CLEANSING
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| Rhythmic Night Conditioner |
There is really no need to wither, though! I
think that the best way forward is to relax a little about ageing, and look at
the rôle models appearing: I don’t think Dame Helen Mirren
suddenly became invisible at 50! If you
haven’t already done so, it is time to develop a really good and gentle skin care routine –
ideally the Dr Hauschka cleansing method, as that actually supports your skin
rather than stressing it by exfoliating aggressively.* Using a water-based
product like Rhythmic Night Conditioner to support the skin at night will allow the skin to regenerate and
cleanse itself far more efficiently than using a heavy night cream, as the skin
is free to respire and detoxify. This will help to slow ageing of the skin.
CLEAN
EATING
Keeping
your diet clean and healthy and choosing your vices (as few as possible!) with
care, will do more to keep your skin and your body looking good. Ask me for my
Radiant skin eating plan, for a week of attention to foods which feed your
skin. (Most people lose a little weight as well, which can be a bonus!) Foods
which feed your skin tend to be great for the rest of you as well, particularly
the brain.
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| Facial exercises slow signs of ageing |
EXPERT CARE
It always
pays to get advice from an expert. A Dr Hauschka Esthetician will treat your
skin, show you how to get the best results at home and advise you on which
products are best for you currently. You shouldn’t still be using the products
you started with at 16, yet many women are. Many of them can also teach you the brilliant Dr Hauschka
facial exercises, which keep your skin nicely plumped, soften lines and tone
drooping contours. This is a brilliant way of ageing slowly, rather than
freezing your face into a taut Botox parody of youth.
FACIAL
EXERCISE
The true
Elixir of Youth is probably a potent cocktail of good skin care practice, clean eating
and exercise, particularly facial exercise. For a truly rejuvenating effect
that even husbands notice (!) a focussed regime of Dr Hauschka Facial Firming
treatments and Facial exercise sessions is quite unbeatable. Add a course of
RNC and you’ll be looking as great as Dame Helen!
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| Dame Helen - agelessly beautiful |
*All these
people who tell us to exfoliate, do you think they consider the telomeres+ shortening?
It is a distinct possibility that over-stimulation via cell removal leads more
rapidly to the “Hayflick limit” where the telomeres have reached their limit and
the skin becomes sluggish and less able to regenerate.
+The spell checker thinks that I should change "telomere" to "omelette"! Intriguing.
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