By Adriane Berg
If you watched even a moment of the Winter Olympics you got to see some truly beautiful faces. Of course, they were mostly young g faces, but age alone is far from what made them such pretty people.
Clear skin, dancing eyes, taught jaws, and pearly white teeth all glowed from the TV screen. Is it possible to have that kind of skin radiance after a certain age?
It sure is. Surgery, fillers, Botox, and Dysport are topics for another article. What I’d like to concentrate on here is what you can put on the inside of your body and the outside of your skin to make it the picture of health. You can get the glow of, ok, let’s say “youth.”
Through the years of studying successful aging I have concluded that the goal is not staying young, but being young. And what we call “young” when it comes to skin is only incidentally chronological. It is much more biological.
Most of don’t have a clear picture of what makes for really great skin. Objective and subjective beauty, especially a beautiful face, has very little to do with actual wrinkles.
Three major components go into having young looking skin. The first is brightness. As skin ages free radicals, less rapid cell regeneration, and pigmentation wreak havoc on the glow and dewiness of the skin. Second, is “sarcopenia” or skin sagging, which takes place both because of the force of gravity and years of happy and sad facial expressions. The third factor is the lack of fat stores under the facial skin. Sophia Loren, still a beauty in the movie Nine, said, “After fifty you have to choose between the face and the figure.” What she meant was that a thin body makes for a collapsed face.
There are hundreds of products on the market that are designed to deal with one or more of these agers. I have chosen the ones below because I use them myself with no after effects. Most are unique and you may never have heard of them. All the companies are in constant research mode. Of course, new twists make for good business, but also good science. None of them cost a fortune.
From the Inside Out:
A sachet of blueberry, red raspberry, elderberry, and alpha lipid acid and other goodies comes from Isocell products of Paris. When mixed with water, it provides a bioactive neutriceutical that detoxifies the body and tastes like watered down pomegranate juice. Add a couple of gel tablets from the same company under their skin brightening system called “GliSODin Skin Nutrients. They contain vitamin e selenium, lemon balm, Q10, and borage. I saw a real difference in “glow” within a week.
Soothers:
Annemarie Borlind has a complete skin care system, but my favorites of her line are the cleansing emulsion, NatuRoyale Biolifting serum, and Biolifting Night Repair. Borlind is a German company, and one claim to fame is the very pure water and pure non-perfumed ingredients they use. I find these soothing moisturizers and protectors important, especially when using a peel.
Peel:
My favorite is Kerstin Florian’s At Home Professional Peel with glycolic and lactic acid. These individual pads are very powerful, and marinate in the jar so they get stronger over time. Make sure to test the product first. If it works for you, it is a cost-effective at-home peel that slogs off dead cells and stimulates the skin to produce new cells.
Firmer:
YonKa, a line you may know from spas, boasts PHYTO 58 a rejuvenation cream together with a companion eye firming cream that also works on dark circles. The not so secret ingredient is rosemary, which shrinks swelling. I use it only on the saggy bits, like at jowls, but not to close to the eye.
Body Skin:
The Avene line from Paris offers high-end products at low price points. It is “sans parfum” which makes it friendly to sensitive skin, hypoallergenic, and non-comedogenic. Body EAU Thermale Baum or Cream plumps dry skin with thermal spring water and remarkable dry skin moisturizers. The thermal water also comes alone, in a spray bottle for refreshing the skin at any time. Avene’s facial skin line uses Retinaldehyde and the antioxidant Pre-tocopheryl, for glow.
If all this seems unnecessary to you, then it is. Yes, we may focus on one small imperfection, but probably no one else notices or cares. I howled when the gorgeous Meryl Streep, in the movie It’s Complicated, went to a plastic surgeon to have only one eye done! She went running from his office when she discovered that she needed a full brow lift to fix that tiny imperfection that only she saw.
So whether you cherish your crow’s feet, obsess about wrinkles, or fall somewhere in between as most of us do, remember to keep your chin up!