Looking Good in Later Life 1 
                                                2001

Anyone who has looked after her (or his) appearance over the years has the edge in later life compared to ravers who burned all their candles at both ends. But skin, hair, eyes, lips, silhouette still show the years after fifty. Extra skin dryness, puffy eye areas, sagging around the chin, wrinkles – they all can benefit from special treatments.

A vast industry is out there to help with all and every beauty concern. In this column every month laterlife.com will visit one of the great cosmetic houses or one of the up-and-coming beauty collections that are just breaking into the market with new ideas and products. The practical results of everything from creamy cleansers to mud baths will be brought to you. All with the focus on maturity of course.

Sheer habit and unfamiliarity with new products are the main reasons why people stick to old products, but sometimes the fact is that nothing can beat them. So look out below for the ultimate test…The Test of Time

This month (November 2000) Maureen visits Estée Lauder for laterlife.com

In the blue brocade drawing room of the Mayfair house..............

Latest Tips

Although skin care and general repair come first, make-up can make an enormous difference to mature faces, overcoming that loss of radiance and disguising minor blemishes like broken veins. Some newer colours and textures work very well on older skin, and nothing is more unflattering than clinging to favourite shades and techniques that may have looked good fifteen years ago but no longer lend enchantment. So watch the space below for latest tips and make-up secrets all with that mature slant.

They definitely get skimpy - eyelashes on older faces. Mascara helps, but for best effect try Eyelash Filaments, produced in Denmark by Mastell Cosmetics. The process is to apply a layer of mascara and while wet apply the filaments, which is done with a small wand. Do one eye at a time so that the mascara is really fresh and wet when you apply the filaments. Then re-apply another layer of mascara. Thick and luscious lashes are yours! Unfortunately they are not suitable for use with contact lenses. Available in London, England from Lisa at Stephen , David and Joseph 11a Hay Hill, London W1X 7LF price £15. Telephone 020 7499 3680. Also available from Denmark from Mastell Cosmetics via email on john@mastell.dk

Skin specialists are now warning of the possible dangers of creams containing AHA’s (Alpha Hydroxy Acids). Creams with AHA’s minimise wrinkles by removing part of the outer layer of the skin. But Professor Nick Lowe, clinical professor at the University of California and Los Angeles has now warned "this can mean the skin is unprotected and more sensitive to the sun". Since sun is the primary agent in skin ageing, this warning applies particularly to older skins. The US Food and Drug Administration is investigating, and so is the European Commission which could limit the quantity of these acids used in skin creams. Salons have always used products with higher AHA content, but the warning applies to over-the-counter versions too.

The Test of Time

Products with true staying power, recognised as the best in their field

Visible Difference Eight Hour cream skin protectant from Elizabeth Arden launched in 1935 remains in the top ten list of every model and mature beauty expert. It was rumoured that E. Arden used the product on her horses’ ankles (she was a great race horse owner in her day), but those without horses will find that it is a soothing, transparent unction that calms skin problems, sunburn or ski burn or wind chapping, dry skin or lesions, and it doubles as an excellent lip gloss too. It costs £17 for a 50ml tube that should last about a year.

Boots Aqueous cream is another old favourite, and a great budget item as a cleanser. For £2.50 you get a HUGE pot. I know one salon that uses it to cleanse hands and feet before manicure and pedicures, and it’s good for face and neck too.
www.boots.co.uk

Do you have any all-time favourites? If so, share them with us on laterlife.com, by sending an email to maureen@laterlife.com

Storm in a pot of face cream

It began when Anita Roddick, founder and soon-to-retire head of The Body Shop, the international chain selling creams and shampoos, soap and scents, was innocently signing copies of her new book Business as Unusual, at a literary festival in Cheltenham. Valerie Grove of The Times asked with all that a journalist can muster of innocence, "you say in your book, page 103, that the only valid skincare is a moisturiser".

"Yes," jumped in Anita. "They work. Everything else is pap. Anything which says an oil and water emulsion can magically take away your wrinkles is a scandalous lie. You’d be better off buying a good bottle of Pinot Noir".

And so a legend was born.

Other journalists immediately leapt onto a good controversy and started handing out fabulously expensive pots to staff and asking "does it do anything for you?"

They noted the "Well, maybe" responses " and then asked, "Are expensive creams better than cheaper ones?"

TheTimes, listed everything from Creme de la Mer (£115 for 60 ml) to Shisheido's Cle de Peau at £350 for 30m1. The Evening Standard trawled through the history of beauty treatments; reminding readers that when Cleopatra bathed in sour milk 2,000 years ago she was actually giving herself a weak chemical peel- in her case with lactic acid. They examined the claims of AHA creams containing fruit acids which are marketed to clear away "dead cells" and help in skin renewal.

Dermatologists and heads of clinics were employed to answer questions about retinoic acid, and antioxidants like vitamins A and E, which many cosmetic houses add to creams to prevent and rectify skin damage. One was quoted as testifying in The Guardian, "there are some creams that make claims for age reversal that do work. These include some which contain retin or retinova, a substance derived from vitamin A." But most experts doubted that creams bought over the counter dared to include what are prescription doses of these substances.

Then a Cambridge University cell biologist. Dr Nancy Lane confessed that she had been using Revlon’s Eterna 27 since her late twenties, and volunteered "I’m not persuaded that there’s anything special about it but if there really is something to it, I might as well use it."

In that confession she outlined the marvellous doubts and hopes of us all.

And something certainly has had a revolutionary effect on women’s skin. A glance at the same newspapers and their front-page pictures of Queen Elizabeth II on a visit to Italy with a smoothly glowing skin at the age of 74, provided visual evidence that women now do not look as wrinkled and weather-beaten as previous generations. Queen Elizabeth I never looked like that!

Don't forget to take a look at the rest of the features sections of laterlife.com:

laterlife interest containing a variety of articles of interest for visitors to laterlife.com written by a number of experienced and new journalists.

It includes both one off articles and also regular columns of a more specialist nature such as healthwise  and talkback

Also don't forget to take a look at our regular IT question and answer section called YoucandoIT by IT trainer and author Jackie Sherman.

To view the latest articles and indexes to previous articles click on laterlife interest here or above.  To search for articles about a certain topic, use the site search feature below.

Site map and site search