FIVE ANTI-AGEING SECRETS

I should start with a warning: whilst blogging is by definition a solipsistic activity, this is a more than usually narcissistic post. Possibly, this is immediately obvious from the inclusion of a selfie: I'm not too proud to jump on the bandwagon, even though the iPhone camera gives me a wonky nose and makes me look as if I'm reflected in the back of a spoon.

The selfie came about because I had been trying out Clarin's Five Minute Face, which I think launches properly on counter in the UK at the end of June, but the four products I've used here are already  available. I don't really hold with the five minute face as a rule - I much prefer the forty-five minute face, using twenty four products and about seven brushes. I'm not sure it makes me look any better, but being a disciple of Joan Collins in all things, I do like to trowel it on. However, Harper's Bazaar's esteemed Beauty Director At Large Newby Hands says that over forty, less make up rather than more makes for a more ageless look, so here I am with as naked a skin as you will ever see me.

The Clarins Five Minute Face involves a BB Cream, a cream blush (shade 01), a black mascara and a lip gloss (Instant Light, Natural Lip Perfector in shade 01- is this a lip gloss? The blurb says 'lip gel' - it's somewhere between a mildly coloured lip balm and a lip gloss - nice to wear, at any rate). It took much less than five minutes. I managed it for a whole day before going back to the kind of natural look that requires hours. However, if you're the kind of person who likes to simply gild the lily before rushing out of the house, the products are most excellent, and the point of the range is to add a light dusting of cosmetic perfection on the Clarin's skin-care promise: 'you, only better'.

I digress. The other reason for posting the selfie was to show the results of December's Fraxel Dual, four months on. Fraxel's main purpose is to remove sun damage, which tends to give one the uneven, tired complexion associated with middle age, but it also stimulates the production of collagen and elastin, responsible for the texture and plumpness of one's skin, and which diminishes after a certain age, leading inevitably as shadows pass across sundials, to the old sagging and wrinkling.

Whilst Fraxel's effect on sun-damage is fairly immediate, the effect on collagen production beneath the skin takes about three months to show, so here I am after four.

 I know interventions from a cosmetic doctor are not for everyone, but frankly it's done me the power of good: it's not about chasing the chimera of eternal youth, it's my version of 'you, only better'.

I asked Dr Luca Russo (who Fraxeled me) for his five anti-ageing secrets - the things that really will make a difference at every age. Here's what he told me, and none of them require lasers or needles.

1. Cleansing: remove any excess sebum/make-up.
Serums and so on work much better on super-clean skin, and it contributes enormously to a fresher, brighter look. Bazaar's Newby Hands backs this up - she is a huge fan of Clarisonic. I use a cleansing oil, but then I'm a bit sloppy.

2. Use a Vitamin C serum morning and evening.
Vitamin C is the most powerful of all the anti-oxidants: I have had a very good experience of Prevage, which is Vitamin C based, and have read promising things about Skinceuticals CE Ferulic Serum

3. Use a daily SPF 30 as soon as you wake up.
I assume this means as soon as you've cleansed your face and slapped on the Vitamin C serum, but the principle of getting a sunblock on as soon as you can is important. As Dr Russo is wont to say, 80% of skin ageing is preventable because it's caused by exposure to the sun. Sun is the enemy of the face: Joan Collins always swears by a large hat (I've seen her close up, she's eighty and marvellous), and my grandmother, who was born before the first world war and thought suntans very infra-dig, always told me to stay out of the sun. However, those pesky UVA's are everywhere, trying to make you get wrinkles, so put on the factor 30. I use Clinique's Even Better Dark Spot Defence SPF45.

4. Exfoliate every night.
[damn, I knew there was something I was neglecting. I'll start exfoliating and come back to you]

5. Use a retinol-based cream twice-weekly.
Retinol is a proven anti-ager - the best creams are prescription only, but I have heard good things of La Roche-Posay's Redermic and of Skinceuticals Retinol 1.0.

Dr Luca Russo, The Rejuvenation Clinic

PostScript
A commenter a few months ago asked if Fraxel was suitable for rosacea - I asked Dr  Russo for his advice: he told me IPL was still the gold standard for rosacea, rather than Fraxel. I was also asked for recommendations on serums - of the department store brands products Estee Lauder's Advanced Night Repair has a well-deserved reputation or follow Dr Russo's recommendations and look for a product that's high in Vitamin C. At the moment I'm using Dr Sebagh's Rose de Vie serum, a soothing, super-moisturising, non-greasy anti-oxidant oil, designed for grown-up skin. 

STILL AT THE EQUINOX TRAINING CAMP

Yes, yes, the usual apologies apply - after a decent start to the year, I've reverted to my old ways, and have failed to post anything of note. Work has eaten my soul, and the tiny amount of discretionary time I have, I've devoted to the pursuit of narcissism, dressed up as health, and thrown myself hell for leather into the ETC programme at a gratifyingly upscale gym, Equinox.

Although I think my enthusiasm may have resulted in something rather unfortunate happening with my left knee (hoping this is simply rampant hypochondria), the programme overall has been completely transforming - in fourteen hours of exercise, I've dropped an entire dress size, and have proper arm muscles. Rome not built in a day and all that, but it's interesting to see what can be achieved just with three hours of exercise a week. Anyway, I'm still writing it all up for Harper's Bazaar - you can read part three here and then part four, in which I'm rather dreading the end of the programme

Restaurants. The Man of Property. Dr Luca Russo.

21st January

Managing to limp through January without The Wolseley, closed for a refurb of the kitchens. Now it's closed, I can't think of anywhere else to eat that I like,  a bit like when you know you have vegetarians coming to dinner and you can't for the life of you think of anything to cook that doesn't involve meat. I like the simple predictability of The Wolseley, its excellent coffee and the way there is always someone interesting to look at (I'm not talking about celebrities). I find I'm rather conservative in my choice of restaurants- I hate anywhere too cheffy, or where the food wears a tin hat and has a poem read to it by a waiter before you're permitted to eat it. Perhaps I'm like old James Forsyte in Galsworthy's The Man of Property -

In the upper room at french's, where a Forsyte could still get heavy English food, James and his son were sitting down to lunch.  Of all eating places, James liked best to come here.  There was something unpretentious, well-flavoured and filling about it and, though he had been to a certain extent corrupted by the necessity of being fashionable, and the trend of habits keeping pace with an income that would increase, he still hankered in quiet city moments after the tasty fleshpots of his earlier days.

I'm reading The Man of Property now - it's the first book I remember seeing at my parent's house, and I can't think why it's taken me this long to pick it up, it's utterly marvellous. Galsworthy is such a deft plotter and so precise with character. Within the first couple of hundred words, someone remarks - a propos of nothing - that she believes Irene has asked Soames for separate rooms, and immediately you know this is a marriage in trouble. Soames, the Man of Property, holds possessions dear - like all Forsytes, ownership is the central tenet of his life - he thinks Irene is his property, but realises the futility of trying to possess her. What is masterly is Galsworthy's resistance to offering the reader anything other than a Forsyte point of view, and it's this and its satire that makes it so compelling and thoughtful.  Is Galsworthy - a Nobel prize winner - now a much underrated and neglected writer? It seems to me that if you're neither a Victorian realist nor a Modernist, you get trapped in the cracks of The Canon - Ford Maddox Ford is another such, and he is brilliant - Parade's End quite the best book I've ever read.

22nd January

I visit Graham the hair God for re-blonding. He took me back to my natural auburn at my urging last year but Mr Trefusis loathed it, only ever having known me as a blonde, and didn't hesitate to tell me so. At first, everytime he said he hated it, I would have it dyed a more vivid red to provoke him, but that stopped being fun, so I'm bowing to pressure and Graham will have to start again. He has done, as ever, a tremendous job - I'm now a kind of Venetian blonde - there's enough red in there to remind me of what I once was, but it's blonde enough to appease Mr Trefusis.

23rd January

Horribly late as ever. I have a busy day, but am lunching - at a fashionable restaurant rather than a tasty fleshpot unfortunately - with the inestimable Dr Luca Russo, so he can inspect his work on my face (a little Botox which I think is way too subtle for my liking) and the effects of the fraxel (fresher, I think). I hope he pronounces me 'marvellous'.

CLINIQUE CHUBBY STICKS INTENSE

As a self-confessed lipstick junkie, I've found Clinique's easy-to-use chunky lip crayons very easy-to-love.

New for autumn 2012 is a fab new variant: with all the addictive simplicity and lip-cherishing moisturising qualities of the original, Chubby Sticks Intense have a much denser pigment, so if you like an emphatically coloured lip as I do, you'll love these.

My currant favourites are Chunkiest Chili - a wearable brick-red, and Broadest Berry, a less-demanding and prettier take on the wine-stained lips that were so prevalent on the A/W '12 catwalks.

Clinique Chubby Stick Intense Moisturising Lip Colour Balm: £16.00 nationwide stockists.

MRS TREFUSIS AND THE STROKE OF NOON

"I really, really need Botox", I wail to Mr Trefusis, hauling my brow up into my hairline where it belongs. "Then have some Botox", he replies, logically, if a little less flatteringly than I'd like.

On this note, I have some advice for all men: when women start to pull their face about and talk about cosmetic intervention, it's merely the grown-up version of 'does my bum look big in this' and your response should never be truthful. A little polite protestation about the years not having taken any kind of toll is appropriate, before steering the conversation to safer waters. If you don't feel it's laying it on too thick - and only you know the fragility of your beloved's ego in these matters - then a suggestion that she could give her similarly aged friend a few years can also go down well. If you're the poetic sort, I can recommend some cheesy hand-holding accompanied by quoting John Donne - "No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace/As I have seen in one autumnal face...". But gentlemen, you must do this with conviction and without crossing your fingers behind your back.

Of course, the older one is, the less likely one is to ask anyone if one's bum looks big - as the fabulous Catherine Deneuve is supposed to have said, after a certain age one must choose between one's face and one's behind, a few kilos can work wonders to plump out the lines and wrinkles. Callipygian women who look like hags from the front impress no one. The last word on the face Vs arse debate must go to Nigella Lawson: she's 52 and is ravishingly beautiful. I've seen her several times at The Wolseley and notwithstanding its gentle lighting, she could give most 35 year olds a run for their money. And for all women faced with this choice, I give you Sara Blakely, the inventor of SPANX, who was deservedly named in TIME 100 this year as one of its 100 most influential people in the world.

But as ever, I digress. I haven't exactly chosen the most tactful moment for railing against the aesthetic ravages of the passing years: Mr Trefusis's birthday is in a couple of months and if anyone should have the floor for a moan about getting older, it's him, particularly as it's astonishing how much older than me he is since I gave up having birthdays myself. But he doesn't seem to mind the years. In fact, he's always telling people he's older than he is: this is a strategy that hasn't really occurred to me - perhaps the idea is that people are always seriously impressed by how young you look if you're always claiming you're into the next decade. It doesn't really work for me. I prefer to be vague or dodge the question. After all, as Oscar Wilde once said 'A woman who will tell you her real age will tell you anything'. And I've always liked his idea that 'London is full of women who've been 35 for years'. Quite right too.

But lately, I've been having something of a mid-life crisis about the affect of age and gravity on the looks. I know that it's merely a metaphor, and I'm simply displacing a vast amount of angst about age vs accomplishment (youth being wasted on the young blah blah blah) onto my obsession with my appearance. I know I should get over it. But I don't want to look my age. At least, not until I've reconciled some stuff and at the moment the years are sliding past as easily as nails down a blackboard.

I do wonder whether I'm going to end up like Corinna from Swift's poem 'A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed' - it's all available to the modern woman - £200 anti-wrinkle creams, hair highlighting, chicken fillets for your bra, teeth whitening, eyelash extensions, false nails, fillers, not to mention the Botox...though I hasten to add I haven't indulged in all of these. I still look more or less the same after I've got ready for bed as I do beforehand. 40 watt soft tone bulbs help.

I make some idle protest to Mr Trefusis about Botox being a terrible waste of money and that I should get to grips with what's really behind my inability to proudly announce my true age. I believe I even offered some rubbish about my wrinkles being lines of experience, wisdom and character. Of course, he believes me a lot less than I believe myself when I'm offering up this kind of nonsense.

I've dabbled in botox before - I had a couple of sessions a few years ago with the beautiful Preema Vig, whose skill with botox and fillers is the secret behind many a well-known face and at the beginning of this year I went to Dr Rita Rakus, who was also very good and whose clinic is strategically placed near the back of Harrods so one can look as if one's in the market for a spot of upscale shopping and then exit through the Laduree tea room for 'rejuvenation' hem hem..... I confess I liked my three run-ins with botox very much indeed - it fixed my annoying Roger Moore-style eyebrow raising habit and made me look like a fresher, happier, less wearied version of me: it's gratifying how much better people respond to you when you look peaceful and friendly rather than suspicious and cross.

Botox may have replaced beautiful shoes as the thing I long for most, but since the Great Trefusis Economic Crisis kicked in, I can afford neither. And perhaps that's good for me. Perhaps I have to learn to live with the face that time and experience has given me and be grateful for it, rather than gazing mournfully at myself in the mirror like a superannuated Narcissus and seeing nothing but the sand running ever more rapidly through the hour-glass. Just because a little light cosmetic intervention can give the appearance of having turned back the clock, doesn't mean the years aren't there. Hmmm.

And on that note of solipsistic existential angst, I'll go and see what I can do to spruce myself up with makeup.

Anyway, if you can afford botox and so on and would like a recommendation, Preema Vig can be contacted on 07939560247 and Dr Rita Rakus is on 07000400321. 

BEAUTY DISCOVERIES: ELEMENTAL HERBOLOGY

Despite sounding like a class one might take with Professor Sprout at Hogwarts Wizarding Academy, Elemental Herbology is a rather gorgeous range of beauty products designed to battle the skin damage caused by environmental factors, lifestyle and ageing.




As one might expect from the name, Elemental Herbology products are high in bio-active essential oils - I'm not usually a mad fan of anything natural - I like Zanussi skincare, packed full of the appliance of science, with as much high tech mumbo jumbo and in-vitro testing  as you can shake a stick at. Talk to me about Nobel Prize winning research into glycobiology and then segue seamlessly into Glycanactif [TM] and I'll whip my debit card out toot sweet (- speaking of which, the YSL Forever Youth Liberator products were my favourite of last year). Anyway, Elemental Herbology may use plenty of plant products, but they're not short on sophisticated technologies either - Cell Active Rejuvenation (£55)contains a selection of effective peptides to plump and smooth fine lines as well as active ingredients to stimulate collagen production and improve skintone. These, combined with the anti-oxident properties of Vitamin C and Royal Jelly, plus indulgent botanical oils to smooth, have brightened my complexion better than anything else I've tried in the last few months. The texture of my skin has also improved - probably helped by the weekly peel (see below). I have very dry skin and found it absorbed easily but it may be too rich if your skin is oily or combination - however, it's available in John Lewis and Space NK so it's worth trying on your skin before you buy.


Cell Active Rejuvenation is pitched as 'The ultimate in age-support for mature skin' which makes me feel appallingly superannuated - there's something terribly dusty about the term 'mature' - makes me think of musty tweeds, Sandeman's port and vigorous cheddar cheese - but I'm prepared to forgive it because the effects have been so good. 


It works particularly well with a weekly mask of Facial Glow Radiance Peel (£39) - full of natural AHA's like papaya, apple and various citruses, natural anti-oxidants (Vitamins A, C & E, green tea and pomegranate), and soothing ingredients like Manuka honey, and argan, macadamai and olive oils. 
The AHA's, together with some kind of very slightly abrasive ingredient, help exfoliate dead skin cells and afterwards skin looks incredibly fresh and smooth. It smells heavenly too and has sorted out an annoying (and not very mature) crop of zits that appeared on my chin without warning a week or so ago.

So, the skin-care is jolly good, but my hero product is Detox: Botanical Bathing Infusion. I spent both friday and saturday nights at completely marvellous parties and by Sunday was feeling - how shall I put it - a little weary and jaded. Half an hour with my big toe stuck up the hot tap of a very deep bath of Detox and I felt quite reborn. It smells completely delicious and just reading the putative effects of the essential oils (quoted below) made me believe some kind of transforming miracle might occur...


Grapefruit has a powerful astringent, diuretic and thermogenic action which helps stimulate circulation, fight fatigue, detoxify the blood, shift fluid retention and eliminate cellulite.


Juniper Berry helps tone the skin and stimulate circulation, aqua-drainage and cell renewal.


Rosemary helps stimulate circulation and invigorate body and mind. Great oil for helping alleviate depression and improve concentration and focus.


Geranium has a wonderful ability to harmonise the body while stimulating circulation and encouraging aqua-drainage.


Sweet Almond, Jojoba and Peach Kernel combine to soften and nourish the skin.

I'm not sure what it did for any cellulite or to detoxify my blood, but it didn't half sort my hangover - and that's worth £20 any day of the week. 

Elemental Herbology products are available from the following outlets

http://elementalherbology.com/

from Space NK

and from John Lewis 

JO MALONE: THE ENGLISH GARDEN

Gardens are something of a British obsession, and are naturally a major source of inspiration for fragrance brand Jo Malone. To celebrate Chelsea in Bloom, Jo Malone has decorated its Sloane Street store with a sumptuous jubilee-inspired floral display (fresh, gorgeous and on show until 26th May), but in a rather less temporary initiative, Jo Malone has also announced the first of an ongoing series of projects to support charities that use gardens to bring beauty to urban spaces.

The inaugural programme is with Thrive, a UK charity which aims to harness the therapeutic powers of gardening to help change the lives of disabled people, creating something above and beyond a simple garden. Jo Malone will fund Thrive's regeneration of London's largest gardening project - the Old English Garden in Battersea Park. Chelsea Flower Show medal winner, Sarah Price, who honed her skills as a gardener at Hampton Court Palace, has created the garden design and the garden will be developed by a team of trainee gardeners living with physical disabilities or mental health issues.

The Old English Garden, when complete, promises to be a beautiful, romantic, scented space for all the community to enjoy: work is well-underway and by mid-to late summer, should be in its full pomp. As Sarah Price says, “Gardening is good for the soul. It slows you down and forces you to listen to nature.Thrive understands this and their work in promoting the restorative power of gardening is inspirational."



Old English Garden. Cared for by Thrive. Supported by Jo Malone Limited. See updates on the Jo Malone Facebook page.

Thrive Registered Charity No. 277570

FABULOUS FAKE TAN

Mr Trefusis warned me at the weekend that the hitherto execrable English weather was set for dramatic improvement and that I should think about swapping the black opaques for a generous coat of fake tan. I'm afraid I didn't believe him - it started raining in mid-March and the absence of anything other than grey cloud ever since has crushed all optimism from me: In Britain the idea of a hot summer is much like Dr Johnson on second marriages - merely the triumph of hope over experience.

Anyway, of course, Mr Trefusis has been proven right: at least for the next few days London will be enjoying temperatures of around 25 degrees - hardly tropical, but warm enough to get one's legs out. Alas, mine are habitually a rather startling shade of skimmed milk white: The only way I get a tan is out of a bottle. The other week, pre-Marrakech, I got a St Tropez spray tan at Debenhams Oxford Street on the recommendation of Katy Young, Harper's Bazaar's beauty editor and very good it was too at £20.

However, I freely admit that my usual approach to summer tanning is to do it myself and just do the bits on show (my fake tan rarely progresses further than mid thigh - fine for during the week, but not gorgeous if you're going swimming). Being so pale, I also find it hard to find a fake tan that doesn't make me go a horrid jaundiced yellow. He-Shi's Express Tan is almost completely foolproof when applied with a tanning mitt - and takes one's legs from Acdo-glow-white to a streak-free golden brown in a matter of hours. A coat of that, maintained daily with one of the less grim smelling everyday tan products (I like L'Oreal Nutrisummer), brings me to an acceptably sun-kissed shade.

Which self-tanners do you swear by?

BEAUTY DISCOVERIES: ROGER & GALLET HUILE SUBLIME

I discovered Roger & Gallet Huile Sublime Bois D'Orange quite by accident and it's divine - it's a very light spray oil that apparently can be used for hair, face and body (I've only been brave enough to use it on the latter). Very easily absorbed, it smells tantalisingly of a sultry afternoon in Provence and is deliciously moisturising, giving skin a silky, wealthy sheen.

Roger & Gallet was a super chic brand when I was a child (I still remember envying my Grandmother's carnation soap), and I think it still retains a lot of cachet in its native France, but their products are not especially easy to get in the UK, other than in independent chemists. I have a feeling that John Lewis may also stock some of the range. Anyway, if you want Huile Sublime, feelunique have it on their website for £23 and although it's not cheap, I like it even more than the iconic Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse that seems to be the gold standard in luxe body oils.

GOOD FOUNDATIONS

I'm a self-confessed foundation addict - it's partly because I like quite a groomed beauty look, but it's also because I'm long past the age where I dabbed a spot of concealer under my eyes and left my skin bare. Somewhere in my late thirties I found my skin became less even - and if I believe what I hear at the press launches for new anti-ageing products, I'm not alone, which is why there's suddenly a vast array of products which promise to fade brown spots and tackle redness and so on.

This Dior Forever foundation is my current favourite: it provides enough coverage to give an even complexion and reflects light away from fine lines - it also has skincare benefits built into the formula which keep the skin moisturised so that you don't get that ghastly five thirty thing when you look at yourself in the office loo as you're about to go home and realise you look four hundred. Anyway, I like it - it creates an elegant finish without screaming 'I'm wearing a tonne of foundation'

Lauder's Double Wear Light is, apparently, one of the country's top selling foundations - until I discovered Dior Forever it was my favourite, and I'd still wear it if I were going for a hectic night out because it lasts and lasts and lasts. It also photographs well (I'm sure you're not nearly as vain as I am and don't ruthlessly manage all your photographs so that only the ones that present one's best side ever appear: Mr Trefusis only posted one picture of me without make up on Facebook - he soon saw his error)

However, I do think proper foundation only really works in mild to cold weather - the minute the sun comes out everything changes and one goes immediately from perfectly groomed to over-made-up - think Kate Middleton. OF course, this year, in the UK, we can get away with wearing the makeup equivalent of black opaques well into June unless something changes radically, but tomorrow I'm off to Marrakech for the weekend, where foundation will not only look wrong, it will melt off my face. Not only that, but Newby Hands, beauty guru and Bazaar's Beauty Editor At Large has been telling me for ages that going bare skinned looks much more modern, even with made up eyes or lips. I'm not at all ready for no make-up - in the same way as I couldn't bare my legs - so I'm experimenting with BB creams, which seem to be all the rage. They're popular because they're a multi-tasker, offering the combined benefits of a moisturiser, a sun-screen and a foundation, to care and perfect the skin in one easy step. The Lauder one is based on their ever-popular DayWear moisturiser and has a beautiful satiny finish and an SPF of 35. I liked it, but despite what Newby said about the no-makeup look, I didn't feel modern, I simply felt a little too nude.

I slightly prefer the Clinique BB cream  - it's less moisturising than the Lauder one and it's only SPF 30 (not sure my skin will know the difference) but it's a little thicker and has more staying power. Unlike Lauder's, you definitely couldn't use it as a primer under your usual foundation, but it has more staying power. It's better than a tinted moisturiser and it's the one I've packed for my Morocco trip tomorrow in the regulation clear polythene bag. Actually, my clear polythene bag is rather large - I can't travel without a beauty product for every eventuality - are they going to clobber me at the airport? I guess I'll find out.

On balance, I think BB creams are perfect for thirty somethings who want a little extra perfecting and are pushed for time enough to want a multi-tasker. For me, they're good for a weekend in the park with Trefusis Minor and The TT, but for work and for when I'm not loafing round West London in jeans trying to avoid looking like a Boden advert.  But Estee Lauder's new (ish) Invisible is absolutely the halfway house I think I've been looking for: it's almost completely weightless so you don't feel it on the skin and the special magic formula adapts the colour when it's on your skin in a fabulously chameleon-like way, making the match absolutely seamless. It's the only foundation I've ever worn that's elicited spontaneous compliments about how good my skin looks* - even Newby didn't think I was wearing foundation.

*someone at work asked if I'd had 'something done' the first time I wore Invisible - I'm not absolutely sure it's a compliment but I took it to mean that it did its job and glossed over all the wrinkles and crevasses that are otherwise visible on the Trefusis fizzog

THE TREFUSIS UP-DO

Esquire party Nov 2008, hair by Graham Tilley at Tilley & Montgomery

The Trefusis hair is, I guess, the apogee of up-do's - it took the lovely and very skilled Graham more than two hours to do (he's a virgoan perfectionist, what can I say) and it was so securely pinned I couldn't face taking it down after the party, so I slept with it like that, and went to work with extremely grand hair.

Anyway, much as I wish I had Trefusis hair everyday, possibly all as a clip-on-able hair-piece, like Joan Collins, I don't. If my hair is up, it's most likely because I've skewered it with a pencil, which is effective if inelegant. With a pencil, I seem to be able to achieve a MadMen kind of pleat, in a way I never can if left to my own devices with a can of Elnett and half a dozen kirby grips. But, you know, like shaking cocktails in an old Dolmio jar, the pencil-skewered up-do always felt a bit like I was letting the side down. Quite by chance, however, when in Boots buying a hairbrush, I stumbled upon a kind of thatching hook device (two colours, gold for blondes, dark brown for brunettes, redheads you're on your own) by a company called Goody. It costs about a fiver and does everything a pencil can do with infinitely greater elegance- it's also invisible once you've stuck it in your hair. If you have hair that's long enough to twist into a French pleat, all you need is this single pin - truly it is a product of pure genius.

Goody Simple Styles Modern Up-do pin

Goody Simple Styles Spin Pin

Up-do confidence spurred by the effortlessness of the hook thingy, I made another foray into Boots and discovered the hair screws above - all you do is twist your hair into a chignon (very on-trend this S/S '12), and screw the screws into it - two pins are all you need for a completely secure chignon. I've also used these do do a French pleat and one of those bouffy backcombed top knots that everyone seems to be wearing - they work best when you're creating quite a tight bun, but again, pure genius and not a pencil nor a trillion bendy hair pins in sight.


It's not Graham's Trefusis hair, but for an everyday up-do, it's pretty blooming brilliant.


Goody Simple Styles available in Boots stores or online at Amazon
Graham the hair God, available at Tilley and Carmichael, 5 Silver Place, London W1 Tel, 0207 287 7677

MORE RED LIPSTICK

I know I'm obsessed by red lipstick, but I think this new Tom Ford one is a game-changer. The colour is a rich ruby red, neither too pink nor too orange.  It's very densely pigmented so it stays and stays yet it doesn't dry your lips but remains glossy (unlike the otherwise wonderful Bobby Brown red). It looks expensive, to boot, which is just as well since it's Tom Ford and thus costs eleventy three billion pounds.

It's not an everyday red like the Dior Addict 'New Look' one I mentioned a few posts ago, it is quite an emphatic shade. But by God, I love it.

I think it could be the red lipstick against which all other red lipsticks should be judged.

Tom Ford, Scarlet Rouge, £36

IN PRAISE OF RED LIPSTICK

When I wrote about The Plankton back in September, it sparked much debate with friends about whether or not women over forty became suddenly invisible. 

But every conversation about sex appeal - were we still desirable, beautiful, attractive, we asked ourselves anxiously - inevitably turned into a broader discussion about the forty-something state:  Suddenly, I became appallingly paranoid that I would wake up one morning and discover myself wearing purple with a red hat that doesn't go? 

'We simply have to work harder to make ourselves visible, particularly at work' said my friend Basista, and I think she's right - one does lose the effortlessness of youth in one's mid-forties. Sometimes it's the small things like having to think twice about wearing an A-line skirt with a chunky heel - what looks hip on a thirty year old can easily look frumpy on a fortysomething, particularly if you remember the look first time round - I mean, God knows what havoc the coming Thatcher-inspired trend will wreak. All I'm going to say is, if you're old enough to remember her as Prime Minister, steer well clear of the clothes unless you're achingly hip and very obviously working in fashion. 

Anyway, sometimes it's also the bigger stuff, like realising that life isn't the rehearsal it once was, and you've got to get on with the Next Big Thing before it's Too Late. 

However, since this is supposed to be a post about make-up, I shall stop myself segueing off into some psycho-drama about a dawning realisation of one's mortality/career shelf-life etc etc, because I've remembered that what my friend Basista went onto say - not entirely flippantly - about how the antidote to mid-life invisibility was to wear bright lipstick. She's right, of course but it's not just about making a bold statement, it's also about the subliminal sophistication conferred by a really good red lip. 

Although I'm madly keen on my shiny Dior Addict one, if it's done perfectly, a red lip should be matte and it should also be expensive - not Tom Ford spendy, necessarily, but definitely something bought with due ceremony and sense of occasion from one of the more intimidating beauty counters in a department store. Chanel, of course, is the gold standard when it comes to sophisticated glamour and there are several marvellous reds in the Rouge Allure range, but I do wish they had Rouge Premier - a copy of the first ever red lipstick Chanel produced -  as part of the permanent offer: it came out as a limited edition about ten years ago along with a killingly beautiful gold eyeshadow, and I only wear it once a year because I can't bear to think of using it all up.  

Finding one's perfect red takes time and a lot of experimenting - it's all about nuance - I had fourteen at the last count (six of which are badly photographed below) in every shade of red from vermillion to crimson.

Now that I add up the approximate cost, fourteen red lipsticks is a rather lavish investment. But of course, I wasn't just buying a lipstick, I was investing in the whole idea of myself as elegant and well-put together.

I don't think the search for the perfect red is finished by any stretch of the imagination - I've yet to try the Bobbi Brown red that everyone says is a classic- and as I write this, I've just rummaged in my desk drawer and come across a very serious red I'd forgotten I even had (make that fifteen red lipsticks) - Dior Addict in Red Carpet. Possibly it ticks the 'get you noticed' box a little more emphatically than my everyday red (which I'm wearing in the Dior taxi), but that's all to the good.

Is Basista right? Is bright lipstick the perfect antidote to mid-life invisibility? It certainly seems to give one a much needed confidence boost. However, I'll offer one small warning: the distance between groomed glamour and looking like Bette Davis in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane' is little more than a sharp jog of the elbow.

SEVEN ANTI-AGEING SECRETS

I'm still half-heartedly batting off middle-age. By which I mean, my efforts to remind myself that I'm not absolutely over the hill are certainly more vigorous than they were last year. 2010 was mostly characterised by my devotion to eating cake and feeling morose, and of course, by the time the New Year dawned, the cake had made my pants feel like I was wearing them back to front, and the moping around smacked too much of the horror of my fifteen year old self, when all I did was stay in my bedroom wearing an oversize black mohair jersey, writing bleak, sub-Sylvia Plath inspired poetry to a soundtrack of Kate Bush and The Dead Kennedy's.

There has been some progression, thankfully: the mohair has given way to a black cashmere polo neck (admittedly, I'd much rather the label inside said 'Brora' than 'Tesco Finest', but still), and the awful poetry has been replaced by this blog (less prolific, more self-conscious). Fortunately for Mr Trefusis, I only have The Dead Kennedy's on vinyl, and we no longer have a record player. But even so, the period of appalling self-indulgence would have to come to an end at some point, and God, January is a good a cut off as any.

'Shake it off, Trefusis, and spruce yourself up,' I said to myself over Christmas, 'There's no point in waiting for your second wind, if you're still puffed out from the first, life in the old dog yet and all that.' I'm afraid I've never been one for covert, internal transformations - for one thing,  if I'm going to make an effort to buck things up, I don't want it to go unnoticed and for another, I can't possibly change myself on the inside if the outside looks shabby - it seems so hypocritical, really.

It's not a new or original thought, obviously - about two thousand years ago, Roman poet Juvenal wrote that 'seldom do people discern/eloquence under a threadbare cloak' so now, as then, the externals matter.

Of course, after a certain age, there's no such thing as a five minute fix - one can't shrug off twelve months of intimate acquaintance with the Campari Spritz at lovely Polpo Soho or Red Velvets at Hummingbird Bakery overnight - and it seems to me that, after forty, everything, from reading the instructions on a new gadget to looking halfway presentable, takes an unreasonably long time.

But there are a few rules, I find, to making one look less of a natural disaster -

(1) Decent skincare
The effects of winter weather and central heating, as much as age, make skin seem grey, dry and dull. Harper's Bazaar's Newby Hands said Nubo's Diamond Peel and Reveal 'is the best we've tried for giving refined, clear skin'. It's the best I've tried too - it's like Mr Sheen for the face, getting rid of the dusty look and putting the fresh shine back. It's not a steal at £65, but it is wonderful, and a little goes a long way.
I also really like Clinique's Repairwear Laser Focus wrinkle and UV damage corrector (£35) - I'm a huge fan of serums - I've tried everything from Lancome's Genefique to Creme de la Mer - but this works even better than products I've used at twice the price. It makes my skin incredibly clear and soft, and has all but eradicated the finer lines on my face. I use it with another Clinique product, Youth Surge Age Decelerating Moisturiser (there's a day and a night cream), which again has a performance which belies the price - it's about £28, which is only a few quid more than Olay, and infinitely more effective. I'm a complete convert.

(2) It's all about the hair
Watch any of those make-over programmes, and it's not the zillions spent on botox/fillers/peels/surgery that turns the bags into beauties, it's the hair.  Good colour and a decent cut work miracles beyond comprehension. My beloved Graham, who created the Mrs Trefusis hair (profile picture) and is King of Up-do's, has opened a salon a hop, skip and a jump from the office, so I need never let my roots admit what he tries so hard to conceal, that I'm very far from a natural blonde. Graham also taught me that a professional blow-dry is infinitely better value for money than a new frock if you've somewhere special to go.
Tilley and Carmichael, 5 Silver Place, Soho, London W1F 0JR. 0207 287 7677

(3) Until someone sensible brings vigorous corsetry back into vogue, exercise is unavoidable
I've tried, really I have. There have been a few half-hearted attempts at getting back into running, but really, it's been all about the Spanx and a push up bra since the Tiniest T was born. Apparently, exercise not only puts the zing back into your figure, it also makes you feel jolly. Three mind-boggling Zumba classes and some fiendish gym sessions, I'm still to be convinced, possibly because the programme was designed for me by an infant in trackpants, who talked slowly to me in a 'Does he take sugar?' kind of way, and said 'I expect the gym has changed a lot since you last came: it's all computerised now.'


(4) Bugger being young: be sophisticated.
(Actually, this is points 4, 5, 6 and 7 all rolled into one, partly because it's taken me a month to get round to writing this blog, and we'll be here all night if I go on much longer.)

Why bother to épater les jeunes when this season's ultra-groomed glamour looks utterly bonkers on the under 35's. If you try to do the current  'done' look, all blow-dried hair and proper lipstick, and you're in your mid-twenties, you risk looking like the Tiniest Trefusis after a raid on my wardrobe.

Ha! Quick, quick, Middle Youth, I call upon you to rise up: our fashion moment has finally come.

Anyway, the quickest short cut to sophistication is a bold lip, which seems to be very now, thankfully - Sali Hughes has it bang on in this lovely piece from the Guardian. Unconsciously, I've been working up to this moment for a while because at the last count I had fifteen red lipsticks, all different, but then with red lips, it's all about the nuance. It's not especially easy to pull off - a strong lip doesn't really work if the rest of you is a bit laissez-faire - but on the days one can be bothered, it's pure beauty prozac.

It's also probably time to develop a signature look, as recommended in one of my favourite books  - Backwards in High Heels - I'm still working on this, but I'm told it's not only sophisticated, it's most youthifying.

I was also told the other day, by someone who knows, that fast fashion is over and it's all about 'considered shopping' - for example - no one needs three expensive handbags - invest in the one you really love and look after it. Don't buy six cheap white shirts, find the definitive white shirt, and so on and so forth.

But really, the apogee of grown-up chic is the ability to eat oysters. In my head, I am exactly the kind of woman who could perch elegantly on a high stool and lunch on a half dozen Duchy Natives and a glass of champagne - not only is this sublimely elegant, it's also only 4 Weightwatcher Pro-points, the same as a couple of slices of toast but infinitely more impressive.  Reader, I have yet to manage more than two oysters, because secretly they rather revolt me, but I am practising hard, helped by the opening of fabulous new seafood restaurant, The Wright Brothers on Kingly Street in Soho - just walking in makes me feel impossibly stylish, like Alexis Colby, but in a good way.

TURN BACK THE CLOCK BEAUTY: MAKE-UP TRICKS FOR GROWN-UPS

The last time I wore this much slap, I was fourteen and given to loafing around Miss Selfridge, endlessly trying on burgundy sweater dresses and corduroy jump suits and testing their entire range of cosmetics on the back of my hand. My make-up look was every bit as eighties as the Iron Lady after whom my favourite lipstick was named: electric blue eyeliner and matching mascara, worn with a heavily frosted magenta lips, stripes of peach blusher and beige foundation with the obligatory tidemark at chin level. I was bang on trend, but looked utterly dreadful. Thinking about it still makes me shudder and the current and entirely un-ironic eighties revival has done nothing to rehabilitate the look for me.


Still, in one's Miss Selfridge years, one cares less about looking good than looking grown-up and trendy. The best part of thirty years later, the situation is completely reversed: the Barbara Cartland experience has taught me that high-fashion beauty looks must be approached with caution and, since I no longer anticipate difficulty if I attempt to buy fags or booze, looking older than my years has very much lost its appeal.


So where was I? Ah yes, I had promised , back in January, to talk about anti-aging make-up tricks. I also remember promising to post more often, but Real Life got in the way. I can't offer any short cuts - make-up that works hard tends to be hard work rather than the kind you can jab into your eye on the tube - but it will take at least five years off.

[Apologies to anyone reading this who's either under thirty five, or a man - it'll most likely bore the pants off you.]

Anyway. The basic problem as one gets older is not the lines and sagging as much as the ghastly, washed-out, careworn and tired look that develops. It's as if the cumulative effect of several decades of late nights appears all at once, and no amount of plastering on Guerlain's Midnight Secret or Clarin's Beauty Flash Balm or Lauder's Advanced Night Repair seems to make a difference. Young skin, it seems, has something almost oxymoronic: even skintone and colour. Harrumph, I say, staring despairingly at myself in the mirror, I look knackered and slightly dusty, like something on a shelf in the Oxfam shop. Dear readers, if you feel the same, I'm afraid there's no alternative than to find yourself a decent foundation: unless you have some kind of genetic miracle going on, there comes a point when flawless skin cannot be faked without it.


1.Foundation/Concealer
The trick is to find one with the right consistency: one that's not so thick it looks old-fashioned and collects in the troughs of all one's wrinkles, but which offers enough coverage to make skin look more even, conceals dark shadows under the eyes and glides over blemishes or incipient broken veins is key. Estee Lauder's Doublewear Light is the best I've found for the money (£24.50) - it doesn't settle in any lines, and nor does it need powder. I need something extra under the eyes (including on the outer corners, where there's some redness, and at the inner corners on either side of my nose: the blue shadows seem to have seeped up there too). Laura Mercier's Secret Camouflage is a product of great genius - you mix the colours to the right shade with a finger and pat it on. It's not drying, so it doesn't emphasise the, hem-hem, laughter lines. Use it after foundation, so you don't use more than you need. If you're still a devotée of Touche Eclat, get someone to take your picture with flash photography: reverse panda is not a good look.

Magazines will always tell you that foundation must be applied with brushes, or those odd triangular sponges. Nonsense: Fingers are perfectly fine. The secret is to put it on the back of one's hand, dot it over your face with finger tips and then blend lightly from the middle outwards.

A note on mineral powder: my guru in all things, India Knight, swears by it, but like Face Goop, I'm not convinced its for me.

2.Colour

I never thought I'd use bronzer, being pale and not always very interesting, and don't ask me why it makes you look younger, but it does. Swirl a very small amount round the outside of the face and take it under the cheekbones. You don't want to look like Kate O'Mara, obviously, but it warms everything up. Grin like an idiot at yourself in the mirror and put a pinky pink blusher like Bobbi Brown's Slopes (£16.50) on the apples of your cheeks, blending it all in. Voilá - most very extremely youthifying.


3. Definition
Ignore the Givenchy bleached brow - you'll see it touted by beauty editors this summer as a key trend, but thin, weedy, pale eyebrows are very ageing. Mine are white blond naturally, but where would we all be if we put nature in front of nurture? A strong brow gives the face definition and helps 'lift' the eye. I get mine dyed at Benefit and give them a little dusting over with a little mouse-brown eyeshadow, but even naturally dark brows benefit from a little additional colour - Laura Mercier's Brow Powder duo is wonderful and lasts forever. A tiny dab of very pale highlighter (subtly used) just under the arch of the brow also helps to fake a bit of brow-lift. Eyeliner, particularly the gel liner sort that stays put, should be worn inside the top rim of the eyelid, pushing it close into the upper lashes. This gives the illusion of lusher lashes, which sadly seem to have got a little weedier looking than they used to be.
The easiest anti-aging eye-shadow is pretty neutral - a brown smokey eye seems to be very now, but it can easily look muddy and tired. Amethyst grey - Giorgio Armani Shade 12 for example - makes a good alternative neutral, blended just above the eye socket, but under the brow bone (worn in the eye socket it makes your eyes look sunken - instant zombie effect). It goes without saying that products with a lot of sparkle or shimmer can emphasise any nascent crepiness. As for mascara, it's black all the way - all the Dior ones are fabulous, as is anything from Lancome, especially Hypnose and the new oscillating one. Wipe the excess off the brush with a tissue before applying - much as I love Pauline Prescott, hers is not the eyelash look to aspire to.


5. Other young stuff
Lip liner stops lip colour bleeding, and drawn carefully just on the edge of the lipline, can also make lips look fuller (full lips = instant youngness). Obviously, it's essential that if you're going to do this, the lip liner must match your natural lip colour exactly, and should then be smudged very gently with a finger so that you avoid the Whatever Happened to Baby Jane look.
Lip gloss is good - again it makes the lips look fuller - but I can't stand the way my hair gets stuck to it if the wind blows.

My other tip is to only ever be photographed in an extremely complimentary light, and ruthlessly delete any pictures don't show you looking fabulous. In years to come, you'll forget that wasn't how you looked every day.


Here is an absurdly flattering picture of me in my 'look younger makeup', though I've slightly over-done the blusher: I'm far too vain to give you a 'before' picture, but if you really want to see what I look like without the slap, click here...

BEAUTY THROUGH A LENS: URSULA ANDRESS NUDE

In the days before personal trainers, Madonna and Rachel Zoe-inspired no-sugar, no-wheat, no carbs, no-food diets, it seems actresses simply sucked their stomachs in for the camera.

I like it. Ursula Andress would've been in danger of asphyxiating herself if she'd continued to hold the pose, but she looks sensational, and frankly an awful lot sexier than half the lollipop-headed hard bodies that seem to be de rigeur in Hollywood today. Take a look at the picture and think about how it makes you feel about the one-size-fits-all, identikit take on female beauty that we’re all being sold these days.

The image is taken from a new exhibition of Terry O’Neill’s photography at Chris Beetles Gallery, Ryder Street, St. James. Between 17th February and 6th March, Chris Beetles will show a collection of unseen images from the iconic photographer. It’s also the very first time Terry O’Neill has made his vintage prints available for sale.

One of the many wonderful things about the work is the extraordinary access O’Neill was granted: From the semi-nude Ursula Andress above (pictured, aged 43, on the set of The Fifth Musketeer in 1979) to Michael Caine posing with his ‘Get Carter’ shotgun or Audrey Hepburn taking a dip in a pool between takes, O’Neill charmed his way into taking shots that would give today’s celebrity publicists heart failure.

Look at the images online here, but if you’re in London, don’t miss what promises to be one of the year’s great photography shows.

Chris Beetles Gallery, Ryder Street, St James, London SW1

Opening Hours: 10am - 5.30pm, Monday to Saturday

Image: copyright Terry O'Neill.

NB: An apology... the second part of the On Beauty makeup post will come... I'm just being slow and distracted.

ON BEAUTY AND LOOKING YOUNGER (PART ONE)

A two part post on make-up for grown-ups

'What have you done to your eyes?' Asks Mr Trefusis, staring gloomily at me as I'm on my way out to a party, 'I assume it's fashion.'

Whenever Mr Trefusis says 'fashion', it's always as if there are vast inverted commas around the word, making it sound as if it's something I've just invented to tease him.

Trefusis Minor adds his ten pence-worth: 'I like your lipstick, Mummy, but not your eyeshadow.'

And with that, my self-esteem hits the floor: why couldn't he say 'You look beautiful, Mummy, like a beautiful shiny star, twinking in the night', like he did once when he was four. Ok, so that was a peculiarly extravagant compliment, but one can usually rely on Trefusis Minor for a positive comment whatever the occasion. Not this time, apparently, though in fairness, it's sweet he's trying to be tactful. Trefusis Minor has quite firm views on makeup - I came home from work one day and got changed to go running and he ran after me to tell me that I should take my lipstick off before I went out because 'Red Lipstick is only for glamorous parties'. He's quite ahead of the game, even if I am a little concerned that he knows rather more about beauty than is usual in a boy of his age.


'It's deeply fashionable,' I say, naturally on the defensive, 'It's the last word in fashion, actually. They're Dior's new colours and I've copied the look from Harper's Bazaar. Blue is back.'


'Hmmm,' says Mr Trefusis, an eyebrow vanishing into his hairline, and goes back to playing with the cursèd Wii.

I tuck my sparkly clutch firmly under my arm, and flounce off grandly into the taxi waiting to take me to some work do or other. Yet I no longer feel quite so fashionable. I squint into the tiny mirror above the door of the cab and am slightly aghast: The bold drama of a pale cobalt eye with an equally colourful lip looked amazing when done by Aaron de Mey for Bazaar, but looks decidedly Barbara Cartland on me. I'm just wondering whether to tone it down a bit by scrubbing at my eye with an old bit of tissue - probably the same one I spat on earlier that day when removing nutella traces from the Tiniest Trefusis's face - when I arrive and forget all about it.

A few days later, it comes back to me. Mr Trefusis was right - perhaps these kinds of directional looks are like very up-to-the-minute clothes - only the very young or intensely trendy can carry them off. If you are neither, then probably one should bite the bullet and go for make-up that makes the best of what you've already got, rather than spoiling the lily with a hefty gilt impasto.

And frankly, the very best kind of makeup at all is not the edgiest runway look, it's the kind that takes years off you, like in the picture of Julianne Moore on the cover of February British Harper's Bazaar (above). She's had a little light airbrushing but I have it on good authority that in Real Life she looks utterly amazing for 49 and has eschewed the dark arts of the cosmetic dermatologist to boot.

Christian Dior once said, “I dream of saving women from nature”, and that seems to me to be the essence of beauty. I don't want to appear in front of anyone in the same dishevelled, unmade-up state that greets me in the mirror every morning, natural as that is: I want to make the best of myself, even if that's doesn't immediately scream that I'm au fait with the latest Moschino eye, or the Bottega Veneta brow. Most of all, I want to look young(er) and fabulous, not like an old has-been try-hard.

This post was going to neatly segue into a list of tips and techniques for turn back the clock make-up, but I've run out of time somewhat. However, in the very next post I promise to impart everything I've picked up whilst working with make-up artists and with some of the very best magazine beauty editors.