How French women stay fabulous after 50

They rarely admit having help to look young and, with typical Gallic guile, they keep their beauty tips a secret. But now we reveal... (And the good news? You don’t have to cross the Channel to do it, too!)

For decades we’ve looked across the Channel to the French for beauty tips — the timeless elegance of models such as Ines de la Fressange, who at 62 looks decades younger than her years. Who doesn’t covet the effortless style of former Vogue editor Carine roitfeld, 65, actresses Isabelle Huppert, 66, and Laetitia Casta, 41? French women have long taught us how to work that white shirt, pair of jeans and red lips just so — but beyond the fashion and pharmacy finds, what exactly is it that French women are doing to age so well?

They tend to be tight-lipped about their cosmetic work. rare is the Parisienne who will admit to a bit of Botox, and the phone numbers of Paris’s top surgeons, dermatologists and cosmetic doctors are a well-guarded secret, not shared even between the closest of friends. France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron, 66, perfectly illustrates the French beauty mystique, emerging from her summer in the Cote d’Azur looking remarkably refreshed and causing many to wonder if she’d had a little tweak.

Because in France cosmetic work isn’t

just done discreetly, it looks discreet, too: natural and beautiful, the epitome of ageing gracefully.

thankfully, however, many of Paris’s star practitioners are now operating in the uK as well, offering up French women’s best-loved beauty treatments, without the need to jump on the Eurostar.

so who are these highly skilled experts? And what treatments should we be trying? Here, i delve into my little black book of international contacts, built up over 15 years editing cosmetic surgery guides for the world’s glossiest magazines and now as founder of a cosmetic concierge service ( editors

list.co.uk), to bring you the most coveted French practitioners bringing their Parisian polish to Britain . . .

CULT FACIALS

WHiLE Britain’s cosmetic clinics are abuzz with high-tech machines to lift, zap and smooth away the signs of ageing, in France women still favour old- school facial massage techniques, passed down by their grandmothers.

Paris is the city of the super facialist; Joelle Ciccio and Herve Herau are the names to know, but no technique is more highly regarded than Martine de richeville’s Facial remodelage — and luckily for us Brits this is now available at a dedicated de richeville salon in West London ( martinedericheville.com).

Based on the rejuvenating effects of de richeville’s cult body contouring massage, the treatment is best described as gymnastics for the face. the facial involves pinching and rolling the skin to stimulate circulation, plump up tissues, and contour and lift angles of the face and neck.

‘the idea is that if you improve circulation, skin cells regenerate faster and one can look younger for longer,’ explains Martine’s son, Julien, who founded the London clinic. ‘My grandmother used to do this pinching movement in her bathroom every morning and had the most amazing skin right up until she died at 104.’

rather than saturating the skin with endless products, it starts with just a simple cleansing wash and tonic, followed by Caudalie’s Divine oil, a dry grape seed oil that contains rejuvenating resveratrol, said to have anti-ageing benefits.

the massage then works upwards from the décolleté, moving along the neck to the jawline, then vertically up the face, manipulating and softening the marionette lines on the sides of the mouth.

the therapist’s hands work to ease facial tensions. Care is spent around the delicate eye area to drain and de-puff under-eye bags.

London therapist Carol Yarde even dons a pair of rubber gloves to massage inside clients’ mouths to plump out the lips and cheeks.

Although the hour-long treatment feels fairly uncomfortable, the payoff is impressive: one leaves with temporarily raised cheekbones, a firmer-looking jawline and megawatt glow.

A course of five weekly treatments is recommended, from £160 each.

INJECT INDIVIDUALITY

No oNE loves a needle more than the French but not for them the heavy-handed fillers for big lips and cheekbones that are so popular from Chelmsford to Cheshire.

‘French women are looking to keep their own identity rather than change their look,’ says Nelly Gauthier, one of Paris’s most sought- after cosmetic doctors ( docteurgauthier.fr/en), who has an A-list following.

‘individuality is key and we want to hang on to our powers of seduction and charm. With injectables, lips are a focal point but extreme sausage lips are few and far between. Women over 50 want to tweak the corners of lips upwards with filler rather than drastically plump out their lips, and even past the age of 60, standards never slip.

‘i have a 93-year- old client who comes to fix the lines around her lips with light injections of hyaluronic acid. she tells me this is incredibly important as when she plays bridge with her friends she doesn’t want her lipstick to smear.’

in Britain, Dr sylvie Bourrée, who has clinics in Cannes and Paris, offers treatments in London at Michaeljohn salon ( michaeljohn.

co.uk) and specialises in subtle lip procedures. Her technique works on the projection of lips in a very natural way, injecting brands of filler including Juvederm and surgiderm XP24 with a super-fine needle, drop by drop, to redefine the border of the lip.

this results in what she calls the ‘gloss effect’, as it gives the same kind of subtle plumping you get from a lip gloss (from £400).

TRANSFORMATION TWEAKS

iN FrANCE, enhancing the eye area is done in a similarly subtle manner. ‘it is a little-and- often approach,’ says Dr Jean-Louis sebagh, who is largely credited with being the man who brought injectable treatments to the uK in 1992.

‘Parisian girls start to come to see me in their mid-20s to soften their frown lines; they want small tweaks, an artistic approach, and are totally on board with the idea of Botox as a form of prevention that will keep them looking fresher for longer.’

to tackle the often tricky area of under- eye fillers, he uses teosyal redensity ii, a filler which he says seamlessly corrects tear troughs. ‘this product is a more malleable hyaluronic acid filler, with a more liquid texture that volumises but also partially diffuses in the skin in the first two to three weeks.

‘the benefit of this unique formula is you have a far more gentle plumping that won’t swell and overpuff the delicate eye area with a telltale speed bump- style lumpiness or ball up into hard lumps.’

SUBTLE SKIN SAVIOURS

For the forty-plus crowd, leading French surgeon Bernard Hayot, who is based in Paris, visits London every month to hold clinics at the Epilium & skin clinic in Marylebone, London. He offers Derma Botox, shallow injections placed into the dermis, rather than the muscles of

the forehead, to maintain movement for a more natural look.

Dr Hayot says: ‘This technique also works well for people with oily skin as it helps to regulate sebum production so people don’t look so shiny. It also helps to refine large pores as the Botox controls excess sebum production which, left unchecked, can clog up pores.’

Skin texture is a key concern for French women. ‘They are more concerned about smoothing wrinkles and lines than erasing pigmentation,’ says Dr Sebagh, ‘as they are masters at camouflaging sun damage with make-up and don’t have the patience for inflammatory laser treatments and hydroquinone lightening creams, which require staying away from the sun — hard to resist when we have the Cote d’Azur.’

French women get their glow instead from mesotherapy treatments: multiple injections of vitamin- infused serums, delivered into the skin with a rapid-fire needle gun. Dr Sebagh’s Meso Glow (£500 per treatment) has a cocktail of hyaluronic acid and antioxidants to deliver the ultimate dewy skin.

LIFTING THE LEGS

‘FrenCH millennials are not so consumed by Instagram as they are here in the UK,’ says Dr Sebagh. ‘ For the French, a big Kardashian bum is a disaster. They still like the skinny, slightly androgynous look championed by Jane Birkin.

‘To maintain their figures they don’t snack but eat smaller meals, regularly paced throughout the day. They love to wear miniskirts and show off their legs and are very conscious about cellulite.’

Paris therefore boasts a plethora of beauty treatments and creams for tackling cellulite and improving legs’ appearance. Dr Jean-Marc Chardonneau visits London monthly to work at the epilium & Skin clinic ( epilium. co. uk). Specialising in treating veins, he also offers injectable treatments to target a range of problems from slimming down heavy legs to tightening up crepey thighs.

The secret is apparently organic silicium and DMAe, a compound that helps tighten skin and reduces sagging, administered in mesotherapy injections which target the fibroblasts of the skin to create new collagen and elastin.

But by far the most popular anticellulite treatment in France remains mesotherapy. For the legs it is cocktailed with diuretic and slimming ingredients such as caffeine, DMAe and L-carnitine, an amino acid, to speed up circulation, boost metabolism and help drain water retention.

At Dr Sebagh’s London clinic he is now offering a new mesotherapy treatment injected into the backs of thighs and knees that uses Prostrolane Inner B, a peptide gel that increases lipolysis (the process in which fat cells are broken down) for targeted fat reduction.

DECOLLETE AIRBRUSH

WHereAS in the UK the neck is a primary focus for many women, in Paris it is more about the décolleté, with women in their mid- to late-30s signing up for Profhilo injections to ensure this area looks fresh and pretty.

Profhilo is an injectable treatment that rehydrates and retextures crepey skin in a way no topical moisturiser could. It ‘bioremodels’ the skin, stimulating collagen and elastin production in a process called neocollagenesis. This triggers a patient’s collagen receptors in the skin for a dewier skin texture.

Dr Jules nabet, who splits his time between his clinics in St-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, and the Omniya clinic in Knightsbridge, London, is a champion of Profhilo. He recommends two treatments paced one month apart (£350 per treatment).

STEALTHY SURGERY

One of France’s leading cosmetic surgeons, eric Auclair ( editorslist.

co.uk), who visits London quarterly to see patients, says that when it comes to surgery French women want extremely natural results.

‘They are very demanding and don’t want any visible scars, which has forced French surgeons to come up with alternative solutions,’ he explains.

‘ For breast augmentations, rather than make an incision under the fold of the breast, which leaves a scar that is visible, we place implants through small incisions in the armpit. Often we use smaller implants in combination with the patient’s own fat.’

This procedure is called fat transfer. The surgeon liposuctions fat from the patient’s ‘donor’ fleshy areas around their stomach and thighs, then transfers it into areas where fat is needed.

In France, fat transfer is also hugely popular as a way to fill ageing faces. One of the masters of this technique is surgeon Olivier de Frahan, who visits HB Health ( HBHealth.com) in Knightsbridge, London monthly (£ 100 for a consultation).

He uses fat transfer as the icing on the cake for his face and neck lifts, which start from £12,000. For an additional £1,000, he harvests and injects the fat to soften wrinkles and hollows around the eyes.

Dr Hayot, whose surgery specialises in facial rejuvenation, offers a procedure called additional blepharoplasty ( from £5,000) to rejuvenate upper and lower eyelids.

Already popular in France, this will be available at the epilium & Skin clinic in London from the new year.

Ultimately, for the French, their cosmetic procedures are always about looking fresher rather than ‘done’. That’s why the doctors are just as discreet as their patients.

Dr Hayot says: ‘If anyone says, “You’ve had a treatment with Dr Hayot,” that would be a catastrophe for me.’

Parisian girls come to see me from their 20s to soften lines. It is a little-and-often approach. They want to keep looking fresher for longer DR JEAN-LOUIS SEBAGH