Salmon sperm and Torah tips? Beautiful at 60 !
When looking in the mirror isn't as much fun as it used to be... it's time to get help
There should be an expiry date on birthday cards embossed with numbers. Double digits on badges are loved by kids but, after 21, the last thing any adult wants is a fluorescent figure reminding them they’re old. At least I didn’t.
Of course, it was lovely to receive so many flowers and birthday wishes from friends three months ago. I just wish they had opted for a cute dog card than one with a 6 and a 0. So resistant was I to referencing my soon-to-be age, I named my celebration trip ‘Six Decades’ on WhatsApp and packed the schedule with bars and late nights. Even if I was zonked by midnight, the intention to stay up had been logged. I’d sooner be woke at 60 than in need of waking up. Anyway, I don’t feel my age, though I’ve no idea how a 60-year-old should feel. But, according to Generation Alpha’s new rules, if you feel it, you can be it – so I’m sticking with 45.
Keeping one’s age secret is impossible for celebs and for Jewish stars more so because yachnas like to broadcast that Paula Abdul tuned 61 and Lisa Kudrow’s 60th was last July. It’s nice knowing a ‘Friend’ is a peer, but also disconcerting in the same way that Jane Seymour (born Joyce Penelope Frankenberg) is 73 and Jennifer Grey, Dirty Dancing’s ‘Baby in the corner’ is now 64.
Age is such a small word for something so big. It really should have more letters, like ‘sesquipedalianism’, but that’s taken and means a ‘tendency to use long words’. So ‘age’ is what we’re stuck with and it means more with every passing year, and the fact that I’m now 10 years older than my father was when he died might explain my reluctance to own the number.
However, Judaism values ageing in the Torah and Pirkei Avot 5:21 mentions 50 as the suggested age for giving counsel. It also states in Leviticus 19:32 that respect is due to those of my age and older with “rise before the aged and show deference to those who are old” and Midrash Tanchuma says “one should greet an elderly person as one greets the Shekhinah, the ‘Divine Presence’.
To be greeted like a “divine presence” certainly takes the edge off turning 60, so I will pass this on to the girls I’ve known since I was 11, who pretty much look like they did at school, at least to me. Hopefully they’d say the same of me or stay quiet, which is the reason we’re still friends. Being the fairest in the land was not me then or ever, but looking in the mirror at 60 isn’t as much fun as it used to be.
Things have moved about, lines have lengthened and my chin is reaching for my toes. I definitely look less like the ‘hot’ me, so I admire Jewish actress Helen Hunt for sharing a make-up-free selfie on her 60th. To me, she looked only a bit younger than her age, but fans accused her of having plastic surgery. If she did then the results are more commendable than Madonna’s flattened face at 60, but now even Barbra Streisand at 81 is sporting Hollywood puffy.
Not many older gals have the confidence of Dame Helen Mirren to still wear a bikini, but at 78 she needed prosthetics to look like Golda Meir at 75 in the movie, Golda. A tough life aged Golda, but that was how a lot of septuagenarians looked before the advent of Botox and salmon sperm filler, which is endorsed by Jennifer Aniston.
And that’s what I had – the cat’s out the bag, not because it smelt fish as.I can vouch that it has no scent at all, as I had the treatment after seeing a study of 2,000 women who revealed they felt invisible by the time they were 51. I realised something had to be done if I didn’t want to disappear at 60.
The Queen of Beauty ( http://queenofbeautyuk.com) on Baker Street is aptly named for a ‘divine presence’ and aesthetician Polina Chayevich is very respectful of female faces. Many of her successes are in the album she shares with me, of before and after, that show improvements that even include nose jobs. Done only with Botox and filler, hooks are smoothed and bumps removed without the use of a knife. Convinced Polina is the Michelangelo of makeovers, I went with her suggestions, which she assured would be effective but not obvious. For the troubling vertical line above the top lip it was Botox into the tiny muscles. “Be prepared for a little swell and water leaking when you drink,” she said.Neither occurred thank goodness.
Aestheticians typically prolong appointments, but Polina is fast, fastidious and gentle. As scary as the multi threads of polylactic acid look, I felt nothing, and even if I did it was all for the sake of forsaken gravity. Once in the skin, the body is prompted to produce more collagen, resulting first in improved texture and tone and, over time, new collagen creates a firmer, youthful face. With the farewell to saggy skin underway, it was time for the salmon sperm, aka polymerised polynucleotides, which is not for bagels, but has similar DNA to ours.
One of the few products to be used under eyes, it stimulates collagen and elastin and attracts water molecules that plump up the skin. Warning me that I would see no immediate change, I’m happy to report the dark troughs are fading and there’s growing tightness under my chin. Oh, and Polina is coming to live with me.
Back at home, the face work continued with zeal, belying my age. The handheld Israeli designed NEWA (£249 )http://newabeauty.co.uk that is always by my bed had not been used, but I stepped it up after the treatments to further tighten and lift ‘under the neck’. Trust me, this seriously good device has a 3DEEP radio frequency that generates heat to rebuild collagen and I saw my face change shape in a week when I first got it.
I’ve also taken to wearing patches – not nicotine, but ones to rejuvenate by the Mellow Patch Company (themellowpatchcompany.com) which delivers a supply of anti-ageing properties, such as antioxidant pomegranate extract, natural energiser ginseng for vitality, green tea, which reduces inflammation, and nourishing blackberry extract. I’ve combined it with their facial serum too, but I’m finding the patches are helping with tiredness, which is constant at 60.
Inheriting my mother’s make-u bag when she died made me realise how young she looked at 78. Only Nivea touched her skin and she rarely changed brands because she knew what suited her. I thought I did too but, never one for favourites, Studio 10 http://studio10beauty.com) perked my interest as founder Grace Fodor has a pro-age philosophy, with the hashtag ‘beauty that comes with age’.
Still a few years shy of 60, Grace is bolshy about ageing, and is an instant boost for a sheepish 60-year-old by refusing to accept that women should dress ‘age appropriate’. She says: “It could not make for a more dull passage of time so, as I make my way through midlife into old age, I will continue to wear whatever I choose.”
Grace also chose to create beauty products for mature skin, knowing that with age comes thinner skin, dark circles and loss of fatty tissue in eyelids that makes them more prevalent.“A good concealer to brighten the eye area and smooth the skin is a must,” she says. Colleague Louisa swears by eyelid strips to lift her one droopy lid and even showed me, so I showed her Studio 10’s flawless foundation, hydra lift corrector and plumping blush, which puts youthful peach back into my cheeks.
For extra plump in north London, I’ve never been able to resist a Cetuem Gold Facial. Andria is the only beautician who ever gets a reaction from my husband; by that I mean he notices how much brighter I look after a full hour of being drenched in products made by this family of biochemists. (020 8368 0008 / cetuem.com) I doubt that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had too many facials before entering the US Supreme Court at the age of 60.
Rarely out of black, we can only surmise what her seasonal colouring was but, at 60, I now know I’m ‘sultry winter’, which I share with Gal Gadot and others with darker skin.
Your seasonal colouring is dependent upon your genetics and House of Colour image consultant Fiona Ingham determined mine by trialling a spectrum of colours against my skin. Until that moment I’d never thought about which colours suit me best; I just got dressed.
As luck would have it, black, grey and white are right for me – and what I always wear, although Fiona’s analysis introduced purple, green and ice aqua, which I will certainly wear if I can find it.
House of Colour (houseofcolour.co.uk) does make-up, too, and matches it to your season, but the must-buy is its silky primer, which even makes a difference without make-up. When Fiona produced a swathe of electric blue as one of my colours, I was instantly reminded of a silk dress I had once bought in the identical shade. The night I wore it, I got so many compliments, but I was also 23. If the electric blue dress I’ve since ordered has the same effect, I will embrace 60. Rock on, 1964!
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