Ah, summer days. How gloriously sun-drenched. How carefree. Carefree, that is, unless you have ‘leg issues’. From late September through till mid-spring, of course, anyone who feels theirs are less-than-show-offable can retreat into opaque tights, and nobody’s any the wiser. But come shorter hemlines and days when even 10 deniers are unbearable, there is literally no hiding place. And, we’re reliably informed, that moment might – just might! – finally arrive this month… Yikes.

Whatever shape or size yours come in, there are ways to make every pair of legs that bit lovelier. And however pale they are, there are not only self-tanners but leg tints which get rid of that ‘pastry’ look faster than you can say ‘fake it’. To get the most out of any of them, however, you first want to give legs some TLC – cocooning the skin so it’s velvety and smooth. Legs don’t naturally have too many sebaceous glands, so they get more papery (the skin can even ‘craze’ and crack), as we age.

It’s actually vital to keep the skin of the lower legs supple and resilient, because in old age, the skin here can take forever to heal, if damaged. An ounce of prevention, now, pays huge dividends in our dotage. Make this an excuse to indulge in a body cream that’s as rich, fragrant and sensual as you like. And if flaky shins are a problem, our friend Kathy Phillips has come devised the ultimate solution: This Works range: Skin Deep Dry Skin Leg Oil, packed with seven pure, cold-pressed plant oils including evening primrose, macadamia and coconut oil. It’s rich, it’s unctuous – and it’s miraculous, frankly. We also like Pukka Ashwagandha Tonic Massage Oil, which is great for dry, itchy skin. At a pinch? Any body oil will work wonders on shin skin, if applied lavishly and regularly. A once-a-week slurp just doesn’t cut it.

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Don’t know about you, but our thoughts are starting to turn to spring breaks and summer vacations. Of course, we alas no longer live in the golden age of travel, when the Grace Kellys, Elizabeth Taylors and Audrey Hepburns of this world were photographed setting daintily-shod foot onto aircraft steps, waving elegantly to the camera as they disembarked from their flight. (We’ve even seen in-flight pictures from the 50s in which women were photographed wearing hats throughout the journey.) Today, travelling is more likely to be cramped, stressful and positively bad for our looks – and health, if you’ve read the worrying reports about DVT.

But wait. It is possible to travel gorgeously – and ensure that you step off a plane, train (or out of an automobile) looking and feeling lovely. It just takes know-how…

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CHEEKY!

We’re not huge on ‘beauty trends’ at Beauty Bible (fact: you will never catch us wearing pink eyeshadow). However, there’s one make-up ‘fashion’ we couldn’t be more pleased to see make a return to the pages of the glossies, and the catwalk: after seasons of showing bronzer-brushed cheeks (or just pale, wan faces), there’s a re-birth of blush. Which is, frankly, good news for everyone – because there is nothing swifter for perking up a face than a hint of flattering pink.

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Which is more important: eating well – or keeping up your beauty salon regime? Most of us will find a way of juggling both, but with a little savvy it’s possible to extend the gap between salon appointments, turbo-charging the life of your manicure/pedicure, hair cut and colour. So do try these at home!

Want to postpone your haircolur session? Colour upkeep can be crippling, compared to haircuts, so…

• … First of all, try persuading your stylist to tell you which shade he or she uses, and find out if it’s available for home use. (Some are.) If you twist their arm, occasionally a colourist you know well can be persuaded to sell you a box. And if you don’t ask… If not, check out semi-permanent shades which are as close as possible to the shade your colourist uses. (Don’t try permanent colour at home if you usually go to a salon – these are the most challenging of haircolourants, and the most likely to end in tears if you’re not used to them.).
• Wash and condition colour-treated hair with a ‘colour’ shampoo and conditioner, as these really do work to keep the colour fresher for longer.
• Rather than go for a full dye job to cover a few grey hairs, we’re hugely impressed by Color Wow Root Cover Up, the first product John Frieda and Gail Federici have launched together since John’s own range. It’s a sexy-looking compact with a brush and a mirror, featuring a mineral powder compound which you stroke onto roots using the special brush to cover up grey instantly – and it literally lasts till you wash it out again. Could not be simpler.
• Use a ‘heat-protective’ spray on your hair if you use straightening irons, to avoid lifting the colour from hair.

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We’re often asked why we like Victoria Health so much (and we do, we do).  So as we hit 2013 running, we thought it was time to share our thoughts and also revisit some of the products that over the years our Beauty Bible testers have loved and adored on this extraordinary website.

Gill Sinclair and Shabir Daya are two people in the health and beauty industry who we’ve known for years.  (Gill organizes occasional ‘tiara teas’ for her girlfriends which are one of the only times we down keyboards, don a tiara and take a couple of hours away from our desks, during weekdays…!)  Gill’s mission in life is to seek out the best beauty brands and names in health, and bring them to the VH website.  Shabir is, quite simply, among the most sound, experienced and finger-on-the-nutritional-pulse pharmacists that we’ve ever met, and we turn to him regularly for advice for ourselves, our friends and our readers, both on our own website and for Sarah’s Health Notes on you.co.uk.  There are many health sites out there (not to mention almost too many on-line beauty retailers to count), but VH offers a combination of impeccable service, solid advice – and sound ethics.  There are lots of synergies between our www.beautybible.com site and VH’s, and that’s why we refer our readers here, and vice versa.

In fact, when we stumble across a range we love, we often share it with Gill so that she can bring it to VH’s customers.  And it works both ways:  Gill has introduced us to many products that have become staples and standbys for Beauty Bible’s own team.  But what really matters to us is finding products that don’t just live up to our own fairly high expectations:  our Beauty Bible testers (20,000 of them, and counting!) love them, too.  So here are a few highlights which have starred in our books, gone on to become beauty classics – and which you’ll find on this site…

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Ironic, isn’t it, that at this time of year – when we’re meant to look our most mistletoe-worthy – most of us are looking as frenzied as we feel, thanks to a ‘To Do’ list that seems to stretch from here to the moon. So while we at Beauty Bible always fantasise about having hours to prepare for a party, it only happens once in a blue moon. Usually, we have five minutes (with a cab ticking outside) to make the transition from desk to dinner, or cocktails, or office ‘do’. How we envy anyone who sets aside time to chill out after a busy day and guiltlessly, languidly preen herself to party-worthiness. In our case? We’re realistic: it’s never going to happen, because there’s always something (wrapping a last-minute gift, opening that day’s Christmas cards or making a mad dash to the school carol concert) that seems to take priority over self-pampering.

Happily, our experience is that you don’t need an hour to prepare: five minutes can make a huge difference. Fifteen is fantastic. Half an hour? True luxury. An hour? Well, we can all dream, can’t we? So here, the busy woman’s guide to party gorgeousness, to take you from frazzled to fabulous, fast.

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If you’re anything like us, you have a love/hate relationship with gravity. We’re delighted that it keeps us tethered to Planet Earth, but less–than–thrilled at the tricks it plays on a once–pert body. Because our bits – and probably your bits – are almost certainly Heading South. (Although when it comes to backsides, the reality that your rear is sliding off the hips and making a break for your knees is happily not one that we are confronted with that often. Wasn’t it kind of The Creator to put our bottoms behind us …?)

But there are moments – we’re thinking changing room mirrors here – when the truth is inescapable. And it is only a small comfort that everyone’s bottoms are getting bigger: hip measurements are apparently an inch–and–a–half more than they were 50 years ago. (Ah, so we’re not the only ones asking ‘does my bum look big in this?’). On the plus side, we have good reasons to thank heavens for living in the 21st Century, when science (and Lycra) are able to transform our rear views from flab to fab…

First, here’s the cheat. The fast–track to a gravity–defying backside is via the lingerie department –the deployment of Lycra.(Which as far as most women are concerned is right up there with the iPhone and a SkyBox as life–enhancing technological breakthroughs of the modern age.) You know how your stomach disappears when you suck it in? Bottom–lifting lingerie does the same, gently contouring without you having to exert yourself. (Menfolk take note, however: bum–lifting underwear jostles with anti–wrinkle creams for first place on the top of the list of presents we’re insulted to receive. We’re perfectly capable of buying our own, thanks.) Not for nothing has the founder of Spanx become the world’s youngest female billionaire (check them out for the full bottom-lifting, thigh-sucking, waist-erasing selection). But remember: once you take them off, it all hangs out again, so…

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4,000 women. 4,000 products. A team of six. (Us, plus our stalwart helpers Amy, Jessie, Dave and Ben.) Eighteen months. That’s what it takes to put together a new edition of a Beauty Bible book. But our crusade has long been to help steer women towards beauty products which really work – and there’s no area where that info’s more valuable than anti-ageing. After all, it’s possible to spend a great deal of money without seeing results – so knowing what works on lines, wrinkles, sagging, age spots etc. is what every woman we know really wants.

So in the brand new paperback edition of The Anti-Ageing Beauty Bible, we give chapter and verse on the products which have most impressed our testers. What’s really important to us, too, is the amazing support from the entire beauty industry (from supermarket brands to the cultest-of-cult) – because of the diligent way we carry out our trials. Every product goes to 10 women, who are asked to trial that miracle cream/cellulite treatment/stretch mark cream on one side of their face (er, or one thigh!) for comparison. We know they do, because so many women e-mail after a few weeks to ask if it’s OK if they start to use it on the other side, because they’re becoming ‘lop-sided’. (And by the way, we never take brands’ promises that formulations are ‘new and improved’ at face value. If they change a formula, it’s back to the drawing board – and the product starts from scratch, with our testers.)

We’re delighted that many, many of the products showcased in the new paperback are available on Victoria Health – so we thought we’d share some of our testers’ comments, here. We’re also delighted that (and we wouldn’t do this for anyone but Gill!) you can exclusively buy signed copies of our book right here, on VH. (At a fantastic price, too – just £10.99, against the RRP of £15.99.)

For a little taster, though – and a sneaky peek at a ‘fab five’ Anti-ageing Beauty Bible award-winning products? Read on…

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We regularly receive e-mails to www.beautybible.com asking if we can recommend all-natural fragrances. Once upon a time, of course, all fragrances were entirely natural. But the bottom line is that without synthetic molecules, perfumery would never have become so sophisticated.

By ‘modern’, that really means after 1882, the year when coumarin – a natural isolate of tonka beans – was unveiled in Houbigant’s Fougère Royale,  although of course it was Chanel No. 5 that really put synthetics on the map, which perfumer Ernst Beaux laced liberally with Aldehydes – ingredients which heighten natural essences and turbo-charge staying power.

What’s the real difference?  ’Synthetically enhanced scents are loud and tenacious; natural oils keep themselves to themselves,’ says Californian perfumer and author of Essence & Alchemy Mandy Aftel, who is leading a revival in sophisticated 100% natural perfumery in the US. (Hers is a truly wonderful, easy-to-read book, which you can find on www.amazon.co.uk.) ‘Synthetics leave their trail behind in rooms and elevators, while naturals evolve, mellow and age with the skin in a more intimate way. What you’re left with is the soft smell of the human body, not a tinny, chemical dry-down.’

At Beauty Bible, we rather like that – although one potential downside: without synthetics, a scent’s skin life is around two hours. Still, is that a bad thing…? According to Californian perfumer and fragrance author Mandy Aftel, her clients aren’t bothered by this. ‘They appreciate the true pleasure of perfume, the sensuality of re-applying it.’ (And so do we.)

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At this time of year, who has time for high-maintenance pampering?  We’d certainly rather be outdoors, enjoying the beach/barbecue/our begonias, or just watching the sun go down.  And at Beauty Bible we’ve a hunch what we all want – fixes that make us look fantastic – fast.

So this edition, we’re going to let you in on the secret of making your hair look fab, in a flash. So:  here are our best beauty cheats and short-cuts – so you can spend less time on getting gorgeous, more time on making the most of summer, while the sun shines.  (Trust us:  there’ll be plenty of time for long, languid beauty rituals in a locked bathroom, when the clocks go back again…)

And watch this space on VH for how to perform speedy miracles on face and body, next month…

HAIR

Slather on conditioner, in the sun. This does double-duty:  it protects your hair from the ravages of salt water and chlorine, and if you rinse your hair thoroughly when you get back from the beach, you shouldn’t need to shampoo and condition it from scratch.  Ideally, wet your hair first, then slather on a rich conditioner or a hair mask, and comb through.

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