Forget Botox! Pull FUNNY FACES to beat wrinkles

EVERY morning, while her bath is running, Anne dunhill spends ten minutes grinning and grimacing in the bathroom mirror.

She pulls on a pair of white cotton gloves and massages her face, pinches her ears, tugging and wiggling them, and contorts her features into a bizarre sequence of expressions.

‘My ex-husband used to find my morning ritual quite disconcerting,’ she says. ‘Some of the faces I make really do look ridiculous — I have been mocked consistently about them by the men in my life.’

But now, at 68, Anne is remarkably unlined and free from jowls, and she says she is frequently mistaken for a woman in her 50s.

Around 20 years ago, it wasn’t unusual to see women pulling all manner of strange faces as they walked down the street or looked in the mirror. For, in the early Nineties, facial exercising was all the rage.

Pioneered by the likes of facial-fitness guru Eva Fraser, the promise was that by contorting your facial muscles in a certain way a few times a week, you could naturally stave off the ageing process.

The regimen fell out of favour as Botox and cosmetic fillers became not only easily available, but socially acceptable, too.

But it seems facial exercising is slowly regaining its popularity, thanks to the growing trend for natural solutions to wrinkles and sagging skin.

Eva herself, whose techniques are believed to have been followed by Madonna, remains disarmingly youthful-looking even now, aged 86, and still teaches from her studio in London’s Kensington. Many of her early pupils, like Anne, have secretly stuck at their exercise regime for decades and are thrilled with the effects.

‘I remember being at a dinner party not long after I started the course,’ Anne says. ‘It was getting late, and I’d normally have started feeling tired. But the tiny nerves and muscles in my face which I’d been gently coaching into action in the preceding weeks suddenly “got it”, and it felt as if my face was levitating.

‘In the days that followed I noticed that people were referring to me as “young lady” and “Miss” again.’

She has stuck to her exercises religiously, without a break through four children, a university degree and a career as a novelist.

‘I’ve never stopped,’ she says, ‘I wouldn’t dare!

‘It makes me smile when people I meet refuse to believe I haven’t had surgery or Botox.’

Eva Fraser learned about facial fitness in the Eighties from a former ballerina based in Germany who worked with a doctor to devise the system.

Eva was so impressed with the results that, at the age of 60, she started her own studio in the UK. The theory is that muscles of the face can be retrained, just like any other muscles, to become firm and strong through structured exercises — tiny movements of the eyebrows, lip corners and jaw.

After just a few weeks of regularly exercising, Eva promises your nose-to-mouth lines will lessen, upper cheeks will be lifted and plumped, jawline firmed and eyelids lifted.

‘ People think it’s their skin sagging as we get older,’ says Eva, ‘ but facial skin is attached to facial muscles and you have to work those muscles if you want to look good.’

Her exercises aim to improve the scaffolding of the face, so the skin ‘ drapes’ better. Clients are initially taught a series of eight exercises during a 90-minute one-on-one session that costs £170. They then go away and practise at home — 15 minutes per day, four days a week — and return after a few weeks for a second lesson that teaches them more complex exercises. They repeat the process until the fourth lesson of ‘advanced’ exercises, some of which require you to wear white cotton gloves to give a better grip when you put a finger in your mouth to anchor specific muscles.

It certainly makes sense that if you can tighten up a wobbly tummy, bottom and thighs through targeted muscle-toning exercises, you should be able to strengthen facial muscles as they deteriorate with age.

Many experts are encouraging.

Eva says she gets referrals from cosmetic surgeons if they feel their clients might benefit before, or even avoid altogether, the need for surgery. Cosmetic dermatologist Dr David Fenton is a fan. He says: ‘From what I’ve seen of Eva’s work, there is no doubt it appears to have some effect. I’ve had patients who have been to her, and it is obvious there is a visible change.’

Eva has published a book and DVD and has 11 trained teachers around the world. One such protege is 58-year- old Carolyne Robinson who teaches Eva’s methods in the Midlands.

‘I was 49 when I heard about Eva and was becoming painfully aware that the next decade was when things were likely to start heading south,’ she says. ‘I’m very keen on natural health and wellbeing and I certainly wasn’t going to contemplate Botox or surgery. But it seemed logical to me that if you’re looking after your body, you should do what you can to look after your face.’

‘A “workout” for my facial muscles in a bid to slow the ageing process seemed like a very natural piece in the anti-ageing jigsaw puzzle. In fact, it’s probably the most important piece, because your face is the part that everyone looks at.’

Carolyne says she is very disciplined about practising her exercises, ten minutes a day, five days a week. ‘This is an exercise regime, not a magic potion,’ she adds.

‘They may look very strange, but they never hurt. My daughters [both in their mid-20s] are fascinated and very keen to learn, too.’ SHE says the change in her complexion was subtle at first, with the most striking impact being a ‘glow’, possibly resulting from the circulation boost.

‘People would say: ‘ Gosh, you look well — have you been on holiday? That really lifts your selfconfidence, which, in turn, shines out of your face.

‘I frequently receive compliments as to how well I look or how good my skin tone is, and I’d like to think I look nearer 50 than 60.’

For Anne, the ultimate validation occurred a few years ago when she was caught up in a road traffic accident and got thrown across a bus. As she lay semi-conscious and injured on the floor, she overheard the bus driver talking to paramedics on the phone.

‘He was running through the list of casualties,’ she says, ‘and when he came to me I distinctly heard him describing me as being “about 40”.

‘I was 59 at the time and couldn’t have been more delighted.’

Visit: www.evafraser.com