How To Be Beautiful: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Looking Good - Softcover

Baird-Murray, Kathleen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0091884314 ISBN 13: 9780091884314

Publisher: Vermilion, 2002

Synopsis

Being a beauty editor is a bit like being a doctor: wherever you go people are always asking 'What should I do about this patch of dry skin?'; 'What's the fashionable eyebrow shape?'; 'Do the latest anti-ageing creams really work?' But Baird-Murray has turned this to her advantage to write the first book that gives you the inside track: the knowledge that only models and the best connected people in the industry can hope to have. Packed with practical information, the book tells you how to get the hairstyle you want, and the colour; explains which shampoos and hair treatments work and why; discusses skin care routines and facials (including fillers and fixers); key make-up tips from the best make-up consultants in the world, right down to how to choose the right perfume. If you've ever wanted to look just a little bit better this is the book for you!

About this title

About the Author

Kathleen Baird-Murray is currently Health & Beauty Director at Tatler. She has also worked as Beauty Editor for Telegraph Magazine, spent a year at Australian Marie Claire and Elle. She has contributed beauty and style related features to many other magazines including Marie Claire, Health & Fitness, Express, Standard, GQ Active. Married with two children, she was also the girl from the Pantene ad.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One
THE QUEEN OF CLEANSE

Sooner or later - and it's usually sooner - a beauty editor is confronted witha dilemma of such magnificent proportions that it throws her whole careerinto orbit. She spends sleepless nights tossing and turning, weeks on end readingvast tomes of pseudo-scientific beauty books, and asks - surreptiously, of course,because no one will admit to not knowing the answers - her peers, numerousexperts, and the girls behind the Estée Lauder counter: Do anti-ageing creamsreally work?

To ask such a question is a bit like asking 'Does Jesus really exist?' or 'IsFather Christmas real?', because, disappointingly, there is no real answer beyondsome scientific evidence, some testing, and a good measure of Suspension ofDisbelief. No wonder they call them Hope in a Jar.

Why is it so important to know? First of all, I just hit 34 and it's startingto happen - you know, the ageing thing - and I think I should know. Andsecondly, it's the question people ask me as soon as they find out what I dofor a living. We all want one - a moisturiser that sloughs off dead skin cells,plumps up the sagging bits, gets rid of under-eye shadows, 'diminishes finelines', knocks off 20 years - and if you can do it for under a fiver, even better.I refuse to recommend creams to anyone who asks, first because I don't knowthat what works for me will work for anyone else and second because I don'thave the specialist knowledge that a facialist or dermatologist will have. Third,and I am now treading on dangerous ground, I am expected, to a degree, towrite about new anti-ageing products - people want to know about them. Sowhat does that make me, if I don't know the answer? A big fat liar, that's what5.it makes me. And I am not 100 per cent comfortable with that.

My problem is this: I am of English extraction - okay, quarter Burmese,quarter Irish, half Scottish, but I've lived in England all my life - and I seem tohave made cynicism, that underlying English quality, my forte. My sense ofhumour, sadly, is based on the knocking down, ripping apart, tearing asunderin-joke dig-dig ha-ha kind of humour. This is a very useful trait in journalism- if you're looking for the lie in the press release, you're more likely to discoverthe truth. I am sure that if he were alive, and concerned with such trivial mattersas anti-ageing creams, George Bernard Shaw would agree. 'The power of accu-rateobservation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it,' heonce said. But somewhere along the line you have to start listening to TheExperts.

The Experts - and there are lots of them - don't always agree. Of course theydon't, you might argue, they're trying to push their particular product's ownline of thinking. In doing so, most beauty editors are left somewhat confusedand some will give up entirely on the science, or facts, as they used to be known.Before you rush to blame the beauty editor, bear in mind that the averageskincare product launch goes something like this:

Arrival: Beauty press (around 30 select glossy-magazine beauty editors) arrive ina hotel suite/conference room and are greeted with tea and breakfast. Everyonemakes a pretence of eating the fruit before gorging on the croissants. The PRstick the editors off on lists as they arrive. There are always one or two who arelate and keep the rest waiting. I won't name names (because often it's me).

Lecture: This always involves a diagram showing a cross-section of the skin withall its numerous layers and hair follicles, and goodness knows what else. Adoctor, of either science or dermatology, talks for rather a long time, and thentwo or three of the journalists ask questions, while some others make notesand most start peeking into their goody bags or wondering how they canpossibly reach their deadline when they are clearly about to be trapped in thisconference for most of the day.

Departure: One by one everyone shuffles out, with a few inevitable 'What wasall that about?' 'I think what he meant was . . .' discussions whispered conspir-atorially.Most will feature the product on a 'news' page, one or two will makea phone call to The Expert and ask him to explain once more just what hemeant by 'The genes which allow the synthesis of the enzyme in the nucleusof the cell . . . part of a global concept to retrain the cells to be self-sufficientby tweaking the mechanisms that exist already so that they are reactivated . . .'

If listening to The Expert isn't muddling enough, it's nothing compared with what happens when you talk to not one, but two or three Experts. I once sat through a lecture about the skin and sun given by a highly distinguished professor (of science, not dermatology . . .) who said that it was not necessary to wear a sunscreen in Britain on a normal winter's day. As the company on whose behalf he was speaking is famous for its sunscreens, I was rather impressed by this brave stance. It had always seemed ridiculous to me to have to put on my Factor 30 when I was going to be lucky to catch so much as a glimmer of sun - possibly between jumping into the cab from outside my door and jumping out again at the office. I decided to share this with some other Experts.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vermilion
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0091884314
• ISBN 13: 9780091884314
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224