'After a certain age, you get the face you deserve'.
These are the skincare products and habits I wished I'd started sooner.
Some advice you simply can’t un-hear. It’s as though it is so embedded, like a retro-fitted factory setting, that might as well have been installed at birth, so the very idea of not knowing it is entirely unfathomable.
I was reminded of one of these special nuggets of wisdom when I was chatting with Eve Pollard, the journalist, author and editor, about beauty and ageing. We were on a very exciting photoshoot (more on that to come in due course…) and Eve was sharing some incredible beauty advice as we were getting gussied up in hair and makeup. Eve mentioned something her friend Joan Collins had told her and in that instant, I remembered that one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard, and something that informed my career in beauty, came from Joan.
I’ve already given it away in the headline but it’s simply that, ‘after a certain age, you get the face you deserve’.
Truth be told, when I first heard it thirty or more years ago now, I misunderstood it. My initial interpretation was that it was somehow karmic and that being a reprehensible human being would result in obvious facial decay. Engaging in a little petty theft? That’ll show up in loosening jowls. Putting your feet on the seats on public transport? Say ‘goodbye’ to your skin elasticity. Taking joy in others’ misfortune? Expect to look like an old crone for that one.
Once I realised what Joan was actually saying, it changed everything and it’s the reason why I’ve crawled out of a warm, comfortable and cosy bed to properly cleanse my skin (yes, even when inebriated), why I’ve diligently carried around SPF and reapplied on hot days and holidays and why I moisturise from top to toe as soon as I get out of the shower even on days when it’s so chilly that I want to throw on dozens of layers instead of fannying about in the altogether slathering cold body lotion all over myself.
It’s the advice that rings in my ears when I’d rather not or can’t be bothered to take off my makeup and use active ingredients, for example, because I know that what Joan was saying is so utterly and completely true that to ignore it would be foolish.
Looking after your skin is an investment and much like a financial one, the earlier you start ‘paying in’ the greater the potential return. It’s why I enjoy quizzing people about their skincare and if there’s anything they wish they’d started doing earlier. Much like we probably all wish we’d bought shares in Apple, there are certain regimes, ingredients and products that those of us over 40 wish we’d understood and used sooner.
These are the skincare products and habits that, aged 46, I know serve me well, but I wish I’d started decades earlier…