Beauty Over 60: Are Pantyhose Out of Style?

Nylons, stockings, hosiery – whatever we called them, pantyhose were essentials of a woman’s wardrobe. However, you might have noticed that with each passing year, the essential pantyhose that we wore with skirts and dresses (even shorts) has dwindled. Bare legs are popular now and pantyhose sales have dropped by more than half in the past decades. Tights, the thicker cousin of pantyhose, are still popular in the colder months, but summertime nylons are seen less and less. Our dependable friend to cover blemishes, bruises, and veins is being phased out.

What about those of us whose gams need a little coverage and support? Are pantyhose a total fashion taboo? Can we still wear them without dating ourselves?

How to wear pantyhose

The best way to wear pantyhose is to not draw attention to them. Here are a few guidelines to go by.

  1. Don’t wear pantyhose with open-toed shoes, or worse, flip-flops. Even sheer-toe pantyhose have the tell-tale seam at the tip of the toes.
  2. Don’t wear “suntan” or very shimmery shades. For example, it’s very obvious if you’re a fair-skinned person and your bronzed legs don’t match your arms.
  3. Glossy, shimmering pantyhose are also attention-grabbing in an undesirable way. Choose a matte color that is closest to your skin tone.
  4. Avoid wearing pantyhose with casual shorts.

Do you still wear pantyhose? What’s your favorite outfit to wear them with? Leave your comments below.

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And never forget – A Smile Changes Everything!

Brigitte

 

 

 

 

Does Your Exercise Routine Include Your Face?

EXERCISE has become the formula for a longer live. A healthier life. A happier life. An active life – and all of it is true. But is there ever any mention of exercising your face? After all it has 42 muscles. So why has this part of our body been left behind?

Fortunately not by all people;  speaking from experience – by doing facial exercises for many years I can assure it works. But if I skip a day or two I can see the difference.  My skin is not as tight and my eyelids hang over a little more. A reminder to get back to my routine – and what is that routine?

Many years ago I came across an article about Carol Maggio who had developed a set of exercises for the face. First I hesitated, but since I always give everything the benefit of the doubt – I ordered the video and started doing the exercises – and never looked back.

Product Details

The set of 14 exercises takes 11 minutes – I especially like the natural way of improving my skin – no gimmicks!

It is quite amazing that magazines, TV programs, personal health gurus all emphasize exercise for the body, but seldom do we hear that the face should be included – well, maybe you want to look into it – you  will be surprised to see that not only your waist can slim down through exercise, but your checks too can lift up again when exercising your facial muscles.

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P.S. The book and DVD are available on amazon.com – and if you need more encouragement read some of the reviews!

And never forget – A Smile Changes Everything!

Brigitte

CHAMPAGNE – Makes You Healthy and Happy

Now that the New Year is here let’s start it the right way, and do the right things to make us happy, prettier, and healthy!

All the Ways Champagne Is Good for You

As if you needed another excuse to drink it

We’re big fans of champagne (here’s proof, in case you needed it). But until now, we weren’t aware that the bubbly we’re drinking on the reg actually has a quite a few scientifically-proven health benefits. Take a look:

It’s low-calorie.

While a glass of red or white wine contains between 135 and 200 calories, a glass of brut (dry) champagne clocks in at only 95. And the low-sugar version, called “low dosage,” has a mere 65 calories per glass.

It prevents dementia and memory loss.

A study at the University of Reading determined that drinking one to three glasses of champagne each week can boost brain health. The study was done on rats, half of whom were served champagne every day for six weeks (nice life for a rat, right?). The rats were tasked with completing a maze, and while the sober rats had an average success rate of 50 percent, the bubbly drinkers had a 70 percent success rate.

It’s good for your skin.

“Champagne detoxifies the skin with antioxidants, and its lightening tartaric acid helps even out the skin tone,” says dermatologist Marina Peredo. “For those with oily skin, its antibacterial properties [help with] breakouts.”

It’s a heart-healthy beverage.

In fact, it’s just as good for your heart as red wine. Another University of Reading study concluded that “two glasses of champagne a day may be good for your heart and circulation and could reduce the risks of suffering from cardiovascular disease and stroke.” Maybe they should rename the place Champagne University?

It may actually help you drink less in the long run.

Champagne and other effervescent drinks have been shown to make people drink slower and feel full more quickly. There’s even a diet plan based around it. Score!

Cheers!

From: Town & Country
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And never forget – A Smile Changes Everything!
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HOPE IN A JAR

I want to share the following article with you which appeared in the The Times in the UK.

After reading it I checked on Amazon and yes it is available through Amazon and they ship from the UK.  The link is myperfecteyes.co.uk

An eye cream that really works?

A product that really does banish under-eye wrinkles . . . but only for a few hours

Alice Hart-Davis

September 8 2016, 12:01am, The Times

The skin around eyes is thinner than elsewhere in the face and wrinkles easily Michael Leckie for The Times

It is one of the holy grail products for beauty seekers. Along with an invisible lift to hoist drooping eyelids and a magic wand to eradicate extra chins, what we all long for is a miracle in a bottle to get rid of bags and wrinkles under the eyes.

Eyes are such a giveaway of ageing. The skin around them is thinner than elsewhere in the face. It wrinkles easily, sags into bags as we get older and is prone to puffiness.

We are always suckers for new products that promise the earth — or at least, a little bit of real-life photoshopping. Enter the latest “miracle”, My Perfect Eyes, a cream invented in Australia that claims to be able to banish wrinkles in seconds. One that comes with a live video demonstration that has been given the all-clear by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), no less.

Can this sort of thing possibly work? Most women are pretty cynical about “miracle products”, even if the ASA has said that the stuff does what it says on the tin — if only for a short time.

“I’ve seen this kind of product before,” says cosmetic dermatologist Dr Sam Bunting. “Essentially it creates a clingfilm effect, holding in the bulging eye bag. I think this kind of product does work on a temporary basis, which is great, because it’s a tricky area to treat without resorting to invasive procedures.”

I’ve tried other products like this. There’s Eyesential, a thin gel that you sweep under the eye area and which slowly tightens over 15 minutes as it dries. I’ve seen make-up artists get great results with this, but when I tried it, I never got it quite right. It tightened all right, but too much product meant loose skin would be scrunched into nasty folds.

Then there’s Roloxin Lift, a face “masque” that tightens as it dries into a white powder. When you wash off the powder, the skin stays a bit more taut, even when you put on moisturiser and make-up.

The old favourite for under-eye tightening is haemorrhoid cream (benzocaine, the active ingredient, causes the blood vessels to contract, which reduces puffiness), but this can make under-eye skin even drier and therefore prone to more wrinkling.

Most new types of hope-in-a-jar are either improbably cheap (like Aldi’s £7 anti-ageing serum with caviar extract) or eye-wateringly expensive (Dior’s new La Cure anti-ageing serum, £950).

This finds a middle ground. It costs £59.95 on the firm’s own website, is also available on Amazon and TV shopping channels and comes with a shopping list of instructions. It’s not claiming to improve the skin or plump it up in any way, it simply forms an invisible, web-like film under the eye that will compress any bagginess or puffiness and temporarily hide fine lines and wrinkles.

You can’t put anything wet — such as moisturiser, liquid foundation or concealer — on top of it or the web will dissolve. So crying and sweating are clearly off limits, or your fragile web will melt and you’ll be back to normal. It is meant to last for up to ten hours, so don’t apply it too early or there will be a Cinderella-style collapse later in the evening.

Eyes are such a giveaway of ageing

I pull the wand out of the bottle and wipe a pea-sized amount on the back of my hand. I make a firm sweep outwards under my right eye from the inner corner, wiping the tail ends of the residue into the crow’s feet that branch off over my cheeks. And wait.

Over the next 60 seconds, I can feel the stuff tightening as it dries, the strangest sensation as it feels as though the skin is shrinking into itself. It works! A minute later, it has dried into a thin shiny film and my under-eye area looks altogether smoother, the lines and crow’s feet much less evident. It keeps on tightening for the next five minutes, then tingles alarmingly for another five before settling down.

I quickly swipe some under the other eye — a bit too much, as it turns out, as it goes into a slight snakeskin effect. I think I need more practice. I suspect it will work a treat on my husband’s eye bags, although he absolutely refuses to touch the stuff, let alone show the results in the national press.

So. Holy grail? Sort of. Will I use it again? Absolutely. It’s a quick fix that works, and even if it’s only for a few hours, even if it’s just a short-lived self-esteem booster, isn’t that exactly what we all want? myperfecteyes.co.uk

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So when you find out it really is the Holy grail – or not – please, please share your experience on this blog. Or tell us how you feel about using these type of products.

And never forget – A Smile Changes Everything!

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AGE – WHY ARE NUMBERS SO IMPORTANT?

How often have we been told, read or heard, that age is only a number. Some of us – now in the higher numbers – totally agree that the number is not what is important. But then there are others who can’t get over it, not their own number or others.

This is what happened to me lately which left me speechless. On a sunny Saturday morning Annie, John and I were sitting in one of London’s Parks drinking coffee and waiting for James and Andrea to join us for a visit of the Soane Museum near by. I had not seen them for nearly two  years. It wasn’t long before they arrived. Everybody hugged and kissed, and when it came to me hugging Andrea, she  stepped back, looked at me, and without a Hi or Hello first, said,

“You never told me how old you really are?” It was so taken back that it took a moment before I answered but then I said firmly, “And I never will!”!”

She didn’t pursue the matter further but it left me wondering how important age  –  as a number –  is to her.

My advice is don’t say how old you are – why do you want somebody to know that you are 70 when you look only 60?  No, women don’t look their age today – check it out – look around and see all the good-looking seniors! Here are two of them

And never forget – A Smile Changes Every Thing.

Brigitte

 

WHY WRITERS WRITE

I am usually not good at tooting my own horn, but today I would like to make an exception and share with you this interview about why and how I write.

                  Getting Over Growing Older

An interview with author Brigitte Nioche

                                   BooksGoSocial

May 31, 2016 | Interviews

Today we are chatting to Brigitte Nioche author of Getting Over Growing Older: How to Change Your Life by Staying Positive

Tell us something unexpected about yourself!

Love doing things out of the box, and enjoy proving the rules and regulations wrong, and when things become more difficult I become more determined to succeed- it’s the rebel inside me

What kind of books do you write?

Self-Help and Memoir/Self Help
What inspired you to write?

Observing people and their life makes me want to help them find a better way

What makes your writing stand out from the crowd?

I write with humor about serious things, never forgetting common sense and a down-to-earth approach – here is comment from a reader.

I liked your book very much. I particularly like your consistent message of staying positive and I also enjoyed learning more about your very interesting life. I think that your advice to older people is excellent. You have succeeded in presenting  good advice in a way that is fun to read and think about. It was a treat to read it.

What is the hardest part of writing – for you?

Working alone – and not being able to share before the work is done and the book is written

Where do you like to write – what is your routine?

In my office – and once I start writing I have trouble stopping and just keep going –

What do you do when you are not writing – do you have a day job?

I volunteer 2 days a week – I go to the movies very often – spend time with my family – and travel

Do you work with an outline or just write?

No, I just write – ideas come while working

What advice would you have for other writers?

Write what you feel passionate and strongly about – don’t write for an audience – writing being hard work should be rewarding and satisfying when you done – you must be happy with the result
How important is marketing and social media for you?

I know it is important – but I am not a fan of it and often struggle with it but I need to use it to get the book and myself (blog) out there

What’s your next step?

Selling my book in any way possible – -contacting reviewers -mailing books out to newspapers -writing a blog on social media -and any other avenue that I will find

Getting Over Growing Older is available here

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Over-Growing-Older-Positive/dp/069262385X/

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I thank you for taking the time to read this

And never forget – A Smile Changes Everything

Brigitte

Marilyn Monroe’s’ Birthday

It’s her birthday and if she was still alive she would be 90 years old today.

Marilyn

One of my grandmother’s thoughts about age was if you don’t want to get old you have to die young.

Marilyn did — and she will forever be young and beautiful.

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And always remember  – A Smile Changes Everything

Brigitte

YOUR BEAUTIFUL MIND – DRESS IT UP

“You know Terry  is  a beautiful person on the inside” Sally said after her friend Terry had left. I wondered why she was telling me? Maybe Sally was embarrassed how her friend looked? Because the time we spend together did not give me a chance to find out about Terry’s beautiful mind, and her appearance didn’t give a hint.

In our fast-moving, short attention span world we can not hope that others will really see us for who we are. There is not enough time, but if we use the old, we can even say ancient, and proven tool called first impression we can point to the person inside.

With a little attention and effort Terry would not have needed her friend to tell me what a nice person she really is. No, I don’t mean that looks are everything. Or that good looks always go hand in hand with how beautiful a person is on the inside. But when you have a beautiful mind let it shine through by making the outside match your inside  — make an effort – make a good first impression.

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And never forget – a smile changes everything

Brigitte

 

 

REMEMBER THOSE POLKA-DOTS? THEY ARE BACK!

Polka-dots are happy little spots that make any garment and its wearer look cheerful and carefree. They come in many  different sizes and colors; yet regardless, they always seem to dance with every move you make – remember the dress you had which was covered with big dots and made your waist look so small?

Dress from 1960
Dress from 1960

Polka-dots have a long history – in 1926 Miss America was photographed in a poker-dot swimsuit. After the second World War many of  Christian Dior’s New Look designs were bedecked with dots. In 1951 Marilyn Monroe was seen in a polka-dot bikini and in 1960 Brian Hyland’s hit song Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini made us dance seeing dots.

They have never left the fashion scene totally. But this year’s spring fashion has embraced dots in a big way. What? Your waist is not as small as it used to be? Don’t worry! These happy little spots will dance with you as readily now as they did ….. when? No, don’t say how long ago, remember your age is nobody’s business but yours. Let’s just say, as they did when you were dancing to Brian Hyland’s tune.

And always remember – a smile changes everything

scan0003-3Brigitte