How to look gorgeous over 40

The Journey
This time of life can be your best if you make the necessary adjustments. The problem is most women are not addressing the changes that need to be made. They read fashion, health, and lifestyle books and magazines, but only a fraction of the advice pertains to them. Television shows are afraid to take a stand, so they waffle when they should be openly critical. Afraid to turn off advertisers, they say almost everything is okay if it makes you feel good. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Yes, you can do whatever you want, but my question to you is why would you want to do anything that makes you look foolish, inappropriate or older? Why would you want to look like you are trying to hard? Designers don’t design to make you look good, they design to sell merchandise. If we look foolish, how can we feel good? If we look frumpy how can we feel good? The answer lies between the young trendy foolish looks and the boring frumpy “I give up” looks. It lies between the pamphlet write up on cosmetic procedures and the reality of having them. It lies in realistic and healthy eating habits rather than diet books. It lies in getting you motivated to move your body in any way you can. It lies in surrounding yourself with positive influence, in always moving forward. The answer lies in education. I am going to provide you with that education. I am going to give you what you want, need and deserve.

I have adjusted my style and beauty routine over the years as my body changed. I am still fashionable and still think I am thirty, even though I can no longer dress like I am. I watch women everywhere and am constantly amazed at their attempts to dress like they are twenty, only to look silly, and sometimes even worse than if they did nothing at all. I see them going to extremes with cosmetic dermatology treatments and plastic surgery, applying over the top makeup, wearing hairstyles that are either too young or too matronly and dressing to reveal what needs to be covered. I see them giving up and giving in to lifestyle choices that are no longer healthy. I see them settling for less when they should be pursuing more. I see them thinking they are too old, when they are actually just right.

I have come to the conclusion that grown-up living is a compromise between what’s appropriate and what’s right for you. At forty, Lisa Kudrow is that same free-spirited love child we came to love on Friends. Look at Sharon Osbourne. She is an advocate of cosmetic treatments and plastic surgery, wears cool trends and adds bright red streaks to her hair and she looks incredible. She has balanced the rock and roll look that fits her lifestyle with what works for her body. Look at Diane Keaton who is a naturalist, loves kooky clothing and always creates her own style. She covers her liabilities with gloves and high necklines and yet allows her creativity to shine with cutting edge eyewear and vintage accessories. Look at Christie Brinkley at fifty. She still looks like the goddess next door with her fresh, wholesome style in both fashion and makeup. She has adjusted her look without losing it. Katherine Hepburn never lost her gender-bender style or her strong-willed outlook. Her classic turtlenecks and trouser pants worked for her well into her nineties. Her progressive thinking changed the way many females felt about themselves as women. Eleanor Roosevelt and Golda Meir used their ambition and intelligence to make a difference in public life. They taught prior generations that our brains were as important as our looks.

We are fortunate to live in an era of limitless options–to look, feel and be fabulous way beyond forty.

We don’t need to think like our grandmothers. There is not a chronological age that now determines we are past our prime. Our prime is a state of mind.

I am recommending that you open yourself to the possibilities of changes in your style, beauty, health and attitude. Below are some of the myths that kept previous generations from being ageless.

• You’ve earned the right to do whatever you want.
• You can’t wear long hair past forty.
• Fashion and beauty are not as important as you get older.
• The younger the outfit, the younger you will look.
• If you’ve got it, flaunt it.
• You can never be too rich or too thin.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

We are bombarded with ideas on how to look and feel younger. We can no longer depend on our friends for guidance, for they too are searching. The mistakes we make are costly, both to our pocketbooks and our self-esteem. Otherwise why would women our age wear ultra-low pants with cropped tops? Skin-tight stretch pants over big bums? Baggy turquoise polyester sweatsuits? Poodle hair or 60s eyeliner? Talk endlessly about body functions and health issues? Or hook themselves up to gimmicky machines to spot reduce?

Throughout my career in television and writing I have helped hundreds of thousands of women with their beauty and fashion needs. I have worked with celebrities, politicians, socialites and homemakers. Regardless of their size or age, I have guided them to look and feel better. Now I am taking that thirty years of experience and directing it to a group in desperate need of direction. Desperate because they want to find the balance between the extremes of the trends and the boredom of the staid and frumpy; the secrets to being forever ageless in both mind and manner; the lifestyle to keep forever healthy in attitude and body.

Excerpted from “The Grown-up Girl’s Guide to Style” by Christine Schwab. Copyright © 2006 by Christine Schwab. Excerpted by permission of HarperCollins. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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