Happy Skin is Pretty

You’ve probably heard about how the North and South Poles are melting. You may also have watched numerous documentaries on how the ozone layer is depleting and of course, you’d have spotted Greta Thunberg and her fight for climate change.

But did you know that your skin is also suffering from pollution and other lifestyle factors? And while our planet will endure climate change for the foreseeable future, your skin can be saved today.

So while you keep fighting the good fight for our planet, here are a few of our favourites for the month of August… to help protect your skin.

Many of us wish to retain our youthful looks and focus on exercising, staying fit, eating healthily, and ensuring that our hair and skin are revitalised and glowing. We dread wrinkles and crow’s feet around our eyes, and spend heaps of money on facials and scrubs. Yet, we often forget that the most beautiful part of our face is that smile! And although we brush and floss daily, we rarely take care of our lips except perhaps for an occasional sugar scrub and regular lip balm.

Smiling, talking, eating and kissing take quite a toll on our lips! And most women have the additional burden of lipstick to deal with.

Over the years, our tired or unhealthy and neglected lips tend to sag, wrinkle, thin out, lose their fullness and elasticity as we age. Luckily, this condition can be avoided by toning our lips with facial exercises.

With facial yoga experts coming up with routines to keep our face muscles fit and supple, the importance placed on the lips is mounting. Apparently, some actresses do regular facial exercises to keep their lips looking youthful and firm! This way, the Botox and plumping treatment can be put on hold, and lips can continue to stay naturally healthy.

Lip and mouth exercises are frequently practised by many speakers, singers and actors. Besides keeping your lip muscles fit, they also help boost your smile and amp up your sexiness!

The best part is that these exercises cost nothing and take up only a few minutes of your time every day. All you need is a mirror!

In those early days of marital bliss, women didn’t drink alcohol. Hostesses didn’t solicitously ask: ‘So what wine would you like, my dear – red or white?’ Sherry was the acceptable drink for a lady and so she may be offered a glass. Two glasses would damn the poor woman for life.

Sherry generally goes straight to my head, rendering me quite unsteady. “Dizzier than usual?” DB would ask, giving me a pointed look. Ergo, my drinking was rare. On one occasion, a daredevil hostess added a little rum to a fruit cocktail and sent the women home reeling.

‘Why were you in such a funny mood last night, anney?’ puzzled husbands asked their wives, who maintained a discreet silence.

And where are we now, one may well ask – judging from the cry of outrage heard from the wine imbibing women of our island?

They feel as deprived as regular dipsomaniacs, which of course they’re not. Yet, a glass a day has become as pleasurable as one’s morning coffee and the laws prohibiting wine sales during the curfew threw today’s happy hour ladies into extensive states of shock.

Women have become experts in selecting wine as they enthusiastically buy Australian, Chilean and Italian wines that are much less expensive than the vintage French variety. The ‘age of wine’ was born and women like me became enthusiastic acolytes.

I hadn’t considered myself someone who needed a glass of wine as part of my daily life… so large stocks of liquor weren’t deemed necessary – for me at least. My Dearly Beloved (DB) has his own alcoholic beverages safely locked in the bar, more as protection from thirsty domestics than my prying fingers.

But then came the curfew and suddenly, I realised how little I had in stock of anything. After food essentials were attended to, I turned my attention to nonessentials such as an occasional glass of wine and found to my horror that, like Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, the wine shelf was bare.

Everyone was being helpful about food; but the minute one mentioned wine, voices of friends turned distinctly cool. I called my friend Suni, a well-known oenophile with a well stocked wine rack.

“Can I buy two or three bottles of white wine from you?”

“Are you nuts? I’m scraping the bottom as it is.”

“But you told me that you’d got a case from that wine cellar place last week.”

“So?”

“So you are well stocked, no?”

“Not since sales of liquor were stopped.” “Surely you can literally sail on the 12 bottles you recently got?”

“Ha, ha!”

Obviously, the next person to try was PT – who is both a connoisseur and collector.

“Hello Paul, it’s so good to hear your voice after so long.”

“Nice to hear yours too but I have no wine.”

“What suspicion! Can’t I simply be checking up on your health?”

“Of course I’m suspicious. I’ve received 17 calls from ladies who claim they are checking up on my health even though I haven’t seen any of them in over a year.”

Next, I try CW – a well-known collector and someone I have met recently.

“Hi Cubsy, how are you?” He is no fool either.

“I’m fine but no wine.” But he is nice about it and says: “I’d give you a bottle if I had it.” “No, no, sell it to me.”

“I’m sorry, my dear. I never realised that Colombo ladies were such guzzlers.”

So through sheer necessity, I turned to my DB.

“Are you sure there is no bottle of wine tucked away behind your liquor?”

“I’m sure.”

“Can’t I have a look?” I wheedle but he clutches his keys to him protectively.

“No! You don’t like hard liquor.”

I’m quite distracted as are many of my friends.

“What are we to do?” I ask, trying to be helplessly persuasive.

Instead of compassion, he turns to me with a wolfish grin and suggests: “Why don’t you join AA?”