Permanently Beautiful

As we age, our skin texture changes. Fine lines and creases seem to multiply as we stare into the makeup mirror. Our skin looks drier, less “plumped,” less “dewy” than when we were younger. We may start to envy the youthful radiance of younger coworkers and friends. Yet, many women, particularly those who enjoy outdoor sports and activities, begin experiencing midlife skin changes in their mid-30s, quite a few years shy of middle age. The common solution is to throw more makeup at the problem, filling lines and creases with extra coats of concealer and foundation, hoping to hide lines from sight. Makeup artists say that’s the wrong thing to do. More makeup will actually make you look older and less attractive.

The professionals’ advice for women in midlife makeup crisis? Less is more. Makeup artists counsel their clients to embrace their natural beauty as they age. Rather than trying to hide themselves behind a wall of makeup, women should use lighter foundations which deemphasize lines and focus on highlighting individual features, particularly their eyes and lips. Permanent makeup can help minimize the visual effects of aging. Permanent lip color can bring the appearance of fullness and youthful color to pale, thinning lips. Eyebrows that have grown light and thin with age can be darkened and shaped with permanent eyebrows. Permanent makeup allows you to embrace life’s changes beautifully.

On NBC’s The Doctors yesterday, permanent makeup took center stage as the doctors discussed the benefits permanent makeup offers many women. As obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Lisa Masterson and plastic surgeon and reconstructive surgery expert Dr. Drew Ordon pointed out, permanent makeup offers time-saving advantages for busy women from soccer moms to corporate executives who want to look their best but don’t have time to spend on makeup. Permanent makeup also meets the beauty and grooming needs of women who are allergic to makeup; people who suffer small motor impairment caused by arthritis, disease or aging and find it difficult to apply makeup; and women with vision problems who cannot see well enough to apply makeup.

The audience observed permanent cosmetic procedures being performed on 35-year-old mom and pilot Trish. Extremely fair, Trish had very light eyebrows with some small gaps in the hair growth and nearly invisible eyelashes. With facial skin, lips and eye lids nearly the same tone, Trish’s face lacked color and definition, leaving her looking sallow and washed-out without makeup. Using permanent cosmetics, Trish’s eyebrows were darkened and the gaps filled with hair-like brush strokes. Permanent eyeliner was added to bring out Trish’s eyes and add definition to her lashes. Permanent lip color in a shade somewhat darker than her skin tone was applied to define her lips. The transformation was stunning. Trish went from mousy to vibrant right before the audience’s eyes!

Next time: Permanent makeup advice from The Doctors

Drew Barrymore

Have you seen the new commercials for Cover Girl Outlast Lipstain starring the always darling, inimitable Drew Barrymore? Highlighting Drew’s sunny smile, Cover Girl’s latest lip cover looks fresh and carefree, the perfect choice for easy, breezy summer wear. Light and pretty, the new lip stains introduced by Cover Girl, Revlon, Sephora, Candy and others brush your lips with light-weight color that lasts all day. An interesting new lip color product, lip stains feel less heavy on the lip and less “cakey” than traditional lipsticks, yet they provide a more penetrating lip cover than sheer lip glosses. Actually, what they seem to mimic most is permanent lip color.

Women who wear permanent lip color never have to worry about their lipstick being fresh, leaving those unsightly lipstick rings on glasses or smudging some hunky guy’s shirt collar with telltale lipstick smears. Artistically applied permanent cosmetics are used to saturate lips with permanent color that won’t wear off! Permanent lip color is the ultimate long-lasting lip stain, making your lips look fresh and kissably lush 24 hours a day.

Permanent lip color can be applied with or without lip liner. You can choose a shade that enhances your natural lip color or bring in your signature lipstick shade for matching. When applying permanent makeup to lips, nationally known permanent makeup artist Melany Whitney can repair lip line flaws, add fullness to thin lips and add symmetry to problem lips. Permanent makeup gives you lips that are always beautiful.

Beautiful Permanent Lip Color

Lip grafts are the newest thing in plastic surgery, touted as a longer-lasting lip plumping technique than Botox injections. Those who covet Angelina Jolie’s plump pout are having a muscle from their neck grafted onto their lips. The surgery is said to remove puckers and make lips look fuller, but it is certainly not for the squeamish.

Developed by Florida plastic surgeons, the lip graft surgically grafts segments of muscle and connective tissue from the side of the neck onto the lip. The procedure is not without its critics. Far from permanent, grafts only last two years. When not combined with a face lift, scarring at the hairline is likely. Some women have also experienced uncomfortable numbing or total loss of lip sensation; and sometimes the body rejects the graft, leaving the lips permanently scarred.

Rather than go under the knife, why not choose the safer option: permanent makeup. During the artistic application of permanent lip color, lips can be reshaped and made to appear tantalizingly fuller. Permanent makeup can also correct any irregularities in your lip line, giving you a pleasingly symmetrical lip line that looks beautifully natural. Permanent lip color is individually mixed to create the perfect lip color for your skin tone. Permanent lip color can be artfully blended to correct pigment imperfections and hide small scars. Permanent lip color even allows you to choose a natural look or create a signature lip color all your own.

Permanently Beautiful Lips

Have you heard about the latest lip plumping cosmetic surgery procedure? It’s called a lip implant and involves grafting a snip of your neck muscle onto your lips. It’s said to improve lip color as well as form. Pioneered in India, the procedure is fairly new and largely unstudied. Possible side effects include loss of feeling in the lips, head movement limitations, neck pain, nerve injury and lip deformities. All that risk and U.S. researchers say the procedure only provides beneficial results for 2 years. After that, lip color fades again.

How much smarter (and more cost effective) to use permanent makeup to make your lips permanently full and rosy. In permanent cosmetics, a paramedical tattooing process is used to insert natural pigments under the skin to add permanent, long-lasting color to pale lips. An expert permanent makeup artist like Melany Whitney can make lips appear fuller and even correct uneven or irregular lip lines and minor scars. Permanent lip clients can choose to go natural and have their lips colored a slightly darker shade than their skin tone or call more attention to their lips by having Melany match their favorite lip stain color to create a signature look.

It’s hard to believe but the ’80s are back! Big hair, football-size shoulder pads, kohl-lined eyes and ruby red lips. In the 1980s women came into their own in the workplace. Clothing fashions, hair styles and makeup reflected women’s new-found power on the job and served to augment her presence in heretofore male-dominated board rooms. Fashions were forceful and imposing and makeup had to be bold and colorful to stand out. In the 1980s women wore more makeup and eye makeup and lip colors were darker and more noticeable than they had been before. It was a look that commanded attention.

Research has shown that every 30 years fashion styles repeat themselves but with a new twist on the original. Today’s makeup styles give the brassy, look at me ’80s a  softer, more sensual appearance that exudes self-confidence and says we’ve arrived and we’re here to stay! The dark kohl-lined Goth eyes of the 1980s have been softened into far more sensuous smoky eyes. Lips are still red; but instead of the bold, brassy reds of the ’80s, lip colors are softer, warmer, earthier reds. It’s the lip liner not the bright color that calls attention to the lips today; but instead of matching liner and lipstick colors, liners are going more brown this season. And put the lip gloss away during the day. Matte-finish lip stick says I’m in charge at the office.

Permanent makeup can give you the perfectly applied lip liner that is the base for today’s powerful, sensuous red lips.

When you’re standing in the checkout line at the grocery, who doesn’t love to sneak a peek at the less than glamorous pics of Hollywood’s elite on the pages of Star or the Globe? It’s fun to catch the rich and famous with their hair down and their makeup off; kind of levels the field. One celeb the paparazzi will never catch in a less than photog-ready moment is singer-songwriter and business mogul Dolly Parton. Despite the admonishments of cosmeticians to strip off your makeup at night to give your pores a rest, the Nashville legend with the giggly laugh goes to bed with her makeup intact, particularly when she’s visiting LA or NYC where her Tony Award-nominated Broadway show 9 to 5: The Musical will close on Labor Day.

Dolly isn’t about to let the paparazzi catch her in a Nick Nolte moment. “I think I’m not going to wash my face until morning, and then I’ll clean it off and I’ll put it on in case I have to get up in the middle of the night,” she told CNN. “If I go out in public, people expect me to look a certain way. And if you say, ‘There’s Dolly’ … you expect to see them in the way that … you know them.”

What Dolly needs is permanent makeup. With natural-looking permanent eyeliner and permanent lip color, you look picture perfect day and night.

Let’s face it. Face, hair or figure, certain female physical traits have been considered as classic beauty by our culture for centuries.  Tastes change and politics change. But some things remain the same.

Take hair. We’ve had feminists, mullets and mohawks. Yet most people – male and female – still consider long flowing tresses to be a key part of feminine allure.  Venus on that half shell and Mona Lisa both have long locks just like Brigitte Bardot and Beyonce.

Scientists who have studied trait preferences will tell you it’s because long hair symbolizes youth and vitality. Males are programmed to be attracted to ladies with long hair, large eyes, rosy lips and symmetrical figures.

Scientists will further tell you that all of this is because the attracting traits that signify a young female indicate fertility. It’s those genes talking. But the funny thing is even if a guy doesn’t want any heirs, he’s still attracted to long hair and all the rest.

So why not just follow the rules of attraction?  To turn heads, simply let your hair down and augment your lips, eyes and eyebrows with permanent makeup.

Today’s magnificent lip colors will make your lips look beautiful, soft and natural, just as if you were born that way. No need for that painted lipstick look although you can always put lipstick on over permanent color when you want extra drama. Add some permanent eyeliner and brows, and you’re putting you’re best face forward.  Fluff your hair to its fullest potential. And voila, you’re a classic beauty.

When you’re traveling, it doesn’t make sense to pack your whole makeup bag. Here’s how the experts travel light.

When it comes to packing up a beauty bag for a few days or a week away, no one does it better than a makeup artist. These experts are always on the go and can be found on desert islands with just a tube of gloss and still manage to make someone look gorgeous. How do they do it?  Basics, say the experts at MAC. You’ll need a few basics such as mascara, lip gloss and a base for the skin, then everything else should be dual-purpose.

A good moisturizer is essential, so choose one that you can wear a little or a lot of depending on what your skin needs at any given time. You can also mix moisturizer with your usual foundation or concealer to create a lightweight base that’s more comfortable and beats the parched, dry air of an airplane. For lips, mix lip balm with lip color to create a variety of textures from ultra sheer for day to more intense for the evening.

Waterproof mascara is another favorite. It’s perfect in all climates. Also creamy blushers to give skin a beautiful radiance.

Also make sure to schedule an appointment with an experienced permanent makeup professional several weeks before your departure date.  That’s the best way to lighten your travel makeup bag and still look fabulous 24/7 on your vacation getaway.

Here’s a list of people I never want to see in a wedding flick again: Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, Cameron Diaz – and Anne Hathaway’s getting close.

But we’re halfway through June, so we can safely assume Hollywood has no more wedding movies up its digital sleeve. However, out here in the real world there are still plenty of June weddings to go.

If one of them is yours, congratulations. Now do yourself a favor and get some permanent makeup. You’ll be stressed out enough. Do you really need to worry about eye makeup and lipstick? With permanent makeup, that’s all taken care of.

Here are several more reasons why it’s a great idea to face your wedding day with a face made gorgeous with permanent makeup:

No makeup to drip black rivulets onto your white gown if you get teary-eyed at the altar.

Wedding photos

Wedding night. I repeat, wedding night.

Honeymoon – especially if the honeymoon involves snorkeling or otherwise plunging into large quantities of water, salty or chlorinated.

On that special wedding day, every bride wants to look her very best and be at her most beautiful, but presenting your best face can be a little daunting.  How do you make sure your wedding makeup stays on all day, looking flawless in your wedding photos, and manage to make you feel like a model, but still look like you?

Easy. Permanent makeup. Trust me, later when you’re putting together your wedding and honeymoon scrapbook and pleased with how terrific you look in all the photos, you’ll be very glad you did.<-->