By Lisa Williams
Unless you are a 15-year-old trying to wriggle past the security’s eagle eye to bluff your way to the other side of the velvet rope at the latest nightspot, every woman wouldn’t mind looking a couple of years younger than her actual age. You can’t stop time in his track, but you certainly can turn back the clock to achieve more youthful-looking hair, hands, and skin. With a few tweaks to your daily beauty routine or by embracing the latest science and technologies in medical Asthetiology, it’s now possible to cheat your way to shave years off your face. While some of these fab tips cost almost next to nothing, others are a tidy investment that’ll go a long way.
V-shaped face
One of the most universal and sought after benchmark of Beauty is the perfect V-shaped face. Also known as the V-Line face shape, it refers to a slim and oval face that narrows down to a sharp end at the chin. The V-shaped face is ideal simply because it tends to make the face look more feminine… and younger.
Small Cheat: Clever hair and make-up are the easiest route to take to create the illusion of facial slimming. Layering is key as it creates a wide crown with tapering ends towards the nape of your neck. Jump on the “bangs-wagon” as a full or side-swept fringe will help de-emphasize one’s natural circular symmetry. If you find celebrities such as Mrs. Kayne West shockingly unrecognizable without her warpaint, that when you realised how transformative certain makeup techniques can be! To make your face appear slimmer, highlight the features in the center and contour around the perimeter, working with professional quality cream or powder contour colours and matte bronzers.
Big Cheat: A broad squarish face can be due to over-sized jaw muscles known as the masseters sitting on both sides of your face. Facial slimming with Botox is an easy way to get round this, whereby microinjections are administered to relax and shrink down the muscle bulk, resulting in a slimmer face and up one’s quotient of attractiveness. The chin is an anchor point for the eye and chin enhancement with surgery or natural filler can further improve your profile as it lends your face a sharper, more defined appearance that is subtle yet appealing at the same time.
Read more: 3 Dream Treatments to Replace a Facelift
A rounded forehead
A full and elegantly contoured forehead resonates vitality and beauty in one single breathe. In both the East and the West, there are no shortage of celebrities with beautiful, prominent forehead— Aishwarya Rai, Ziyi Zhang, Zoe Saldana and Kate Beckinsale; just to name a few. Forehead depression and hollowness is one of those prominent feature associated with an aging face while the gentle fullness of a high forehead represents youth and perhaps intelligence, making it a more desirable trait.
Small Cheat: The saying “fake it until you make it” definitely rings true in the cosmetics world.Through the use of appropriate beauty products, we can enhance and improve upon our features that we were born with, and play up the ones that we wish had a bit more prominence. By applying a matte bronzer along the hairline of your forehead in a shade darker than your foundation, you can contour to create the impression of a fuller forehead. Just remember to blend properly so that everything looks natural!
Big Cheat: Forehead wrinkles likened to tram tracks create grooves and furrows that not only add years to one’s actual age but mar the beauty of the forehead too. It cones as no surprise that lines erasing BOTOX® Microinjections is the single most asked for procedure in any aesthetics practice worldwide. Targeted to lift and hydrate tired and lacklustre skin at the same time, the cutting edge Revitalift treatment is a safe and efficient procedure employed to create a full and elegantly contoured forehead. Thanks to an exclusive patented bio-synthesis process, the pure hyaluronic acid used is highly identical to our own skin’s polymer, and hence maintains high bio-compatibility and is readily incorporated for exceeedingly natural looking results. Improvements are apparent even after the first treatment with close to zero downtime, and optimal outcome is achieved after 3 to 6 sessions done at monthly interval.
An elegant neck
As society progresses and women need not conform to style of dressing dictated by their age, the neck and décolletage become one of the focal points to come under close scrutiny. A desirable neck is slender, smooth and free of surface blemishes. This oft-neglected area readily announces one’s actual age, worsened by the fact that it’s well exposed to the harmful effects of UV radiation from the sun, making it an easy target for photo-aging characterized by skin wrinkling and sun spots.
Small Cheat: Make sure any serums and creams you put on your face get the chance to travel south towards the collar bones to cover the neck and upper chest to stave off sun damage and premature aging. Take a style lesson from the French ladies and introduce the versatile scarf to your everyday wardrobe. Well if you can’t flaunt it, camouflage and hide!
Big Cheat: Short of going under the knife for a surgical neck lift, opt for gentler but nonetheless effective modalities such as the FDA approved skin tightening Thermage procedure . By utilizing patented monopolar radiofrequency waves, Thermage tightens and lifts by stimulating collagen remodelling and regeneration. Not only does this iron out loose skin and improve the appearance of neck lines, this non-invasive, state of the art technology helps to re-contour saggy jawline to revive one’s profile to a more youthful definition that was once lost with the passage of time.
Read more: Ways to Save Your Neck
A full head of hair
We fret about our open pores, stretch marks, cellulite and a whole slew of other beauty woes, but nothing come close to the horror of a thinning scalp and premature hair loss. At any given age, a full head of well maintained tresses represents good health and vitality.
Small Cheat: Some ladies I know have longer relationship with their hairstylist than any man in their life, and that’s how important a good haircut is. Whether it’s worn long or short, layering will help to create the impression of a fuller head of hair. Playing with the right combination of highlights and lowlights will play up the illusion further in the right direction.
Big Cheat: Rejuvenate your crowning glory and cultivate a lusher, fuller head of hair with the Hair Maximizer Program specially designed by the hair specialists from The Sloane Clinic Hair Care & Restoration Centre. Weakened hair roots are strengthened and thinning scalps revived with the FDA approved Revage 670 laser, proven to stimulate the growing phase of hair follicles. This is paired with Revitascalp, a holistic in-house speciality to support healthy hair growth with the infusion of vitamin B3 (niacin), vitamin E and a hefty shot of Minoxidil directly to the scalp via a special delivery systemto restore your coiffure to its former glory.
* Selected as Article of the Month Jun 2015*