Wow – I can’t believe I left you hanging like this…. My life has been crazy busy!
Ok – well since my last few blogs have been about the skin… I think I will share my experience with Neirda Joy – facialist to the stars and the adorable Miss Jennifer Lee who is known as the “Airbrush Queen”, but who is also an Esthetician and does make-up on movie sets. This particular day was super fun.
Actually – I might have to start with my visit with my good friend Anne Samoilov who is a Pilates reformer instructor. She gave me a 1-1 lesson that was amazing! Have any of you ever used one of these things – I loved it!
“In both private lessons and group classes, Anne always impressed me with the way she could create an intense workout, ensure the proper alignment of all of her students, and make modifications for those who needed them. She is a gifted teacher who truly cares about the well-being of her clients!”
— Jennifer Zacuto, Santa Monica
I thought the quote above from one of her clients was spot on – I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Anne is an amazing instructor, and I was shocked at how easy and challenging this workout was. I felt it everywhere I needed too, but not in my knees or joints. It was surprising to me that just by the slightest variation of your foot – you’d hit a whole different set of muscles… Let me share with you a little more about what Anne and pilates is all about via this wonderful guest post she did for Sheila Viers and Live Well 360.
After my workout with Anne, she graciously offered to drop me at Nerida Joy’s office in Beverly Hills – BEVERLY HILLS – WOW! What an amazing place….Nerida Joy is like the skin whisperer. She can look at your skin and tell you exactly what is going on within your body. How? Well for those of us who were fortunate enough to hear her speak at Val’s Beauty and Fitness Summit, she shared some of her secrets with us – which you may have to wait to hear until the dvd of the event is released for sale. 😉
Nerida is a firm believer that the state of your skin reflects your whole being – the thoughts you think, your emotions, your stress levels, the food you eat, toxins in your environment, how you treat your body, and even the people around you, as well as the skin care products and regimen that you use. She of course can just look at your skin and tell what needs to be done to improve it in a split second, but she goes deeper than that, she goes to the body. She does this by using Face Diagnosing and Iridology, which are great tools to determine where the skin symptom (pimple, rash, redness, hyper pigmentation, sallowness, darkness, or wrinkle) connects deeper in the body. This is such interesting stuff, and I loved hearing her speak about it at the summit, you could feel and hear the passion for what she does in her voice.
One of the first things she addressed was the laxness of my skin, or my jowls (yes, I was crying on the inside). She started my session by massaging my face – mainly foucusing on my cheek or “lax” areas. As she worked she explained that massage helps to get the blood circulating in the area where the skin is sagging which results in the tissues and muscles underneath the skin to tighten. Trust me, I did not take this bit of information lightly – since my return from LA – or the last 6 weeks, I’ve made a point each morning and night to spend extra time massaging my day and night creams into these areas, and honestly, I am starting to see a bit of a difference. We also chatted about products, how they affect the skin – and how important retinols and AHA’s are for mature skin types… like mine. In a nutshell, they help thicken the skin, improve the quality of elastic fibers, and increase the density of collagen – all things that helps to plump the skin, smooth fine lines and wrinkles, and to some extent, help to reverse the signs of photo-aging.
The rest of the experience was a bit of a blur, at this point I just remember it was amazing and my skin after was absolutely glowing afterward. To be able to pick the brain of one of the leading skin professional in the industry – was a dream come true, and something I’ll not soon forget.
Next I walked a mile through Beverly Hills to my next appointment with Jennifer Lee (with me on right). The area really is as beautiful as you see on TV. So even thought Val hooked us RCR girls up with Jennifer because of her spray tanning talents (yes, she is actually known as the “Airbursh Queen” to the stars in Beverly Hills) I called and asked if she also did makeup consults – and she did! Ok- I have to tell you … My 1-1 experience with Jennifer was well worth the investment. Take a look at my rooftop pic, where I implemented her techniques (below, me with Miss Amanda Lindsey – who designed both of the beautiful necklaces you see). I have to say putting your make-up on the right way makes a HUGE difference. You don’t see the bags under my eyes and the way the flash bounced off my face, well – I found flattering.. you know we are always our worst critics – right?
The reason I wanted a professional make-up consult was that I’ve always wanted to know how to do a smokey eye, but really I got so much more than that. Jennifer also shared how shading could give me beautiful cheek bones like Kim K., and some other tricks of the trade – it was a blast ! So – first the basics, which is matching your foundation to your skin. You do this by brushing different shades of foundation that are close to your coloring, on your jaw line (this area is usually not effected by the sun). The one you can’t really see is the one that blends the best with your skin and is the right color for you. Second – to even out and lighten the color under your eyes you need to go a shade or two lighter than your skin. I just happened to purchase the right color that day at Bloomingdales. Three – after we had on my foundation she started to shade my cheeks as follows… between mid cheek and eye – basically along the cheek bone, she use a high light or a lighter color than my skin, between my jaw and mid cheek (suck in your cheeks and follow the indented line) she use a low light, like a bronzer and sweep the color up to my temple, then she had me smile 🙂 and brushed the perfect shade of pink on the apples of my cheeks – who-la! Perfect shading, Perfect coloring, and a Perfect illusion. Next she showed me how to do a smokey eye – yeah!! For my eye color, which is brown, she recommended Mythology (an orange-red color from Mac) and Mystery (a brown color also from Mac) – I purchased both later that day. At first this surprised me since most people say purple and greens are best for brown eyes, but these two colors and her application made my eyes look bigger and pop. Here is how she did it – first she brushed on the orange-red color from my eyelid to mid eye (kind of where your eye ball ends, right before your brow bone) and then took the brown and did a “V” motion from the corner of my eye to the mid-eye (again, where the eye ball ends), and lastly she used a high-light or a white right under eye brow and dab in corner of the eyes – since I had just had a set of fake eye-lashes put on I didn’t need mascara – they were fun to have for a while, but are not fun to maintain.
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