change your inheritance
The lines and folds of your mother’s appearance reveal your own future—but is there a way to escape your gene Tic code? By Hannah Betts
SOMEWHERE IN ATANGLE OF FAIRYTALE AND DNA, there lies an immutable truth: Some day, we will peer into a looking glass and our mothers will gaze back. For me, this was a painful aspect of my thirties, when my mother resolved upon a 10-year separation from me. Yet, I was daily haunted by the architecture of her nose and cheekbones; her face in my face a lacerating, absent presence. In time, it comes to us all. Mothers: Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without becoming ’em, in complexions no less than behaviour.
Dr Michael Prager—begetter of natural-looking face-fixing, possessor of a reassuringly real, yet nipperish complexion—is acquainted with the phenomenon. Patients will bring images of their mothers, or even said matriarchs themselves, to illustrate what they want to avoid. “It’s exorcism,” he quips, “taking the mother out of the daughter.”
Sun, smoking, stress, diet, and alcohol put their destructive mark on our inherited features. Nevertheless, the foundation of our ageing is nature rather than nurture. This is evidenced not merely in say the
dryness that might tend towards wrinkles, or pallor that provokes pigmentation, but in inherited face shape. Prager has an unrivalled eye for the face’s structure. His ‘Prager lift’ is minutely tailored, leaving movement and the odd line (after all, even six-year olds have wrinkles).
Volume can be added to cavernous hollows or ‘mean’ mouths with hyaluronic acid-based dermal fillers, which also boast benefits for smile lines and jowls. These areas can be lifted with Botox, which may also be deployed to make chins more prominent or less severe. Neck and décolletage respond well to micro-mesotherapy, Prager’s cocktail of dermabrasion, skin needling, peeling, and mesotherapy.
The increasing specificity of products is a boon to women seeking to avoid the maternal countenance pre-maturely. Among some exciting skincare are Estée Lauder Advanced Time Zone Age Reversing Line/Wrinkle Hydrating Gel Oil-Free, which is rich without being sticky. Peter Thomas Roth Retinol Fusion PM , with 1.5 percent retinol, gently exfoliates, clarifies the skin, and encourages collagen production. To enhance elasticity, there’s Clinique Repairwear Uplifting SPF15 Firming Cream, which penetrates all three skin layers to promote bounce. There’s also StriVectin-TL Tightening and Sculpting Neck Cream, that can be applied all the way up to the chin to help reduce sagging jowls. Lastly, try Dior Capture Totale Eye Zone Boosting Super Serum, which detoxifies the eye area, thereby removing puffiness, circles, and wrinkles.
In the realm of makeup, Bobbi Brown is the champion of empowering beauty. “The biggest mistake a woman can make is to try to look like someone else than herself,” she says. “This means everything from learning to love your lines to appreciating your unique feature—yours and your mother’s.” That said, Brown is the author of youth-bestowing sleights of hand.To lift drooping lids, she recommends defined eye makeup. “Use a dark liner like mahogany or black along the upper lash line, thick enough to be visible when the eyes are open, extending the brush slightly at the outer corner of the eye. Don’t apply liner just along the bottom lashes, as this draws eyes downward. Gel formulas are most precise. Light eye shadow colours lift, lighten the under-eyearea, and draw attention up with a pink or a peach corrector paired with a skin tone appropriate concealer.”
To counteract sallowness, there are bronzers, blushers, and Brown’s new Retouching Powders. “White brightens alabaster to light tones; pink counteracts sallowness in alabaster to medium hues; yellow reduces redness in extra-light to medium complexions; peach warms up light skin and evens out tanned and medium to dark shades; rose lends deep tones a flush of colour; and brown warms up dark and rich skins.” She advises layering skincare formulas to lend a cushiony look, using your fingers to blend. A pale, high-shine lipgloss will add lustre atop lipstick and pencil.
Finally, ageing like one’s mother is preferable to the baldness and expanding ears that would be ageing like one’s father.