Signs of Life

At one time, many years ago, beautiful skin to me meant it was flawless. That opinion is long gone. The women whose beauty I admire the most have gorgeous skin that looks alive. I recently had a conversation with friends about this specifically. I mentioned how I like the realness of skin that doesn’t look too precious or sheltered. There’s a fine line between minimizing wrinkles and spots and erasing all signs of a well-lived life. Personally, I do my best to avoid any additional sun damage by religiously wearing sunsceen, but I still enjoy the outdoors. Stimulating collagen production with lasers is part of my maintenance program too. I still have wrinkles, brown spots, freckles, etc. but that’s OK with me. Unless your blessed with naturally porcelain skin, I beleive that at a certain age, having skin that is too perfect can actually be aging and look artificially maintained. I appreciate the beauty of skin, whatever age, that is well cared for but looks like it has enjoyed life. Peggy Lipton(69), Bo Derek (59), Christy Turlington (47) are perfect examples of this ideal. And for the younger crowd, there’s nothing prettier than letting natural skin shine…freckles and all.

 photos: ©Marcus Ohlsson for Harper’s Bazaar Germany