Special Section: The Most Beautiful You

Think about a time you felt beautiful recently. What gave you that feeling? Did your style look exactly on trend? Was your makeup perfectly applied? Had you just left the stylist’s chair with the perfect haircut?

Here’s a little secret: That “beautiful” feeling wasn’t because of the clothes, the makeup or the hairstyle. You felt beautiful because you felt confident, and there’s nothing more gorgeous than that.
So as you read through these pages of beauty treatments, makeup tips, skin care procedures and hair products, ask yourself: Will this make me feel more confident? More like the “me” I want to be? If the answer is yes, then your days of boosted confidence and beautiful self-image are just around the corner.

Skin
A key component to freshening your face is exfoliation. Judy Van Heiningen from Roswell’s Facelogic Spa says, “Most people don’t realize that at any given time you have about 30 layers of dead skin cells on your face. Yuck! They exacerbate your wrinkles, make your skin look dull and absorb all the great ingredients of your expensive moisturizers and serums.” She explains, “At 20 years old, nature takes care of exfoliating our skin every three weeks or so. But as we age, nature slows down the exfoliation process. So your best bet is to exfoliate your skin with a peel, microdermabrasion or enzyme mask.” www.facelogicspa.com/roswell

Stephanie Crystal from Joseph & Friends Lifestyle Salon & Spa elaborates, “Microdermabrasion instruments spray tiny crystals onto the skin, breaking up and removing the uneven outer layer of dead skin cells. This type of skin rejuvenation is used to treat light scarring, discoloration, sun damage and stretch marks.” Depending on where you go, the cost may range from about $50 to $200. www.josephandfriends.com

Innate’s Chamomile Hydrating Day Serum After exfoliating, hydrate with this oil-based moisturizer made in Sandy Springs. “Pure plant oils maintain the skin’s natural balance for soft and supple results without clogging pores,” explains Dr. Janelle Havelka, Innate’s creator. www.innateorganicbody.com

Save My Face pillow Avoid exacerbating facial wrinkles at night with this pillow. Its design elevates the sleeper’s face from the pillow, helps keep the skin smooth and may even help you avoid neck pain when sleeping. www.savemyface.com

Jane Iredale Liquid Minerals Foundation Support your skin care routine with this skin-friendly foundation. Aura Hair & Makeup’s Erin Jubril says, “This product is amazing! It firms, has CoQ10 to repair, hyaluronic acid for hydration and Aloe vera to calm.” www.aurahm.com

Beaute Pacifique D-force Vitalizing Body Creme During winter, you likely didn’t get much sun, which probably means you didn’t get enough vitamin D either. Lidia Nistor-Reteneller, founder of local med spa Skin IQ, recommends this lotion to help. “This body lotion already has vitamin D incorporated and gets absorbed topically while taking care of your dry skin,” she says. www.skiniqmedspa.com

New Youth Skin Care Local Georgia physician Dr. Monte Slater developed this skin care line that targets the process of glycosylation and other causes of aging skin. Pick up a bottle at Aesthetic Body Sculpture Clinic in Buckhead. www.slatermd.com

Planet Beach Hydro-Derma Fusion Heal from the dry winter air and get your skin ready for spring with this unique treatment at Planet Beach in Dunwoody. Hop into a vibrating massage bed to enjoy a soothing massage and warm steam to hydrate and moisturize skin from head to toe. You can also top your session off with the aromatic scent of an oxygen concentrate blended from natural ingredients. www.planetbeach.com/dunwoodyvillage

Hair
Often with age, your hair will lose pigment and may also become wiry or frizzy. In your quest to reclaim the hair you remember, Erin Jubril from Aura Hair & Makeup recommends, “Soften your hair color. Is your hair dark brown or black? Lighten it up a shade or two to diminish dark circles and erase fine lines and wrinkles.” It won’t actually take those wrinkles away, but they’ll be much less noticeable. And to combat the wiry texture, she suggests a coconut-oil based color. www.aurahm.com

Redken’s Chromatics Jubril says, “It will give you 100 percent gray coverage with tons of shine.” www.aurahm.com

MONAT’s REJUVENIQE Oil Intensive Cynthia Douglas, a local MONAT distributor, says, “The more you use it, the more your hair benefits because it is being providing beneficial hydration, necessary cleansing and nutrition for regrowth. It is also receiving the added benefit of UV protection to preserve hair’s radiance.” www.mymonat.com/agedefyingbeauty

GKhair’s Fast Blow Dry Pat Alessi from Roswell’s Salon 1580 recommends this new hair-taming formula for smooth and shiny hair. Fast Blow Dry helps reduce frizz and cuts blow-drying time in half! www.patalessihair.com

Eyebrows
The shape of your eyebrows can make or break your overall look, and you may be hanging on to bad plucking habits from decades past. Alyson Hoag, owner of Authentic Beauty, says, “As a professional makeup artist, I was taught to enhance the brow shape according to the eye and face shape.” Here’s how she recommends gauging your perfect brow shape:

1. Begin by placing the long end of a makeup brush against your nose. Line the brush up with the area that is in between the inside of the tear duct and the eye socket. This is where your brow should start.

2. Next, line your brush up from your nose to the area between the outside edge of your eye and the socket. This is where your brow should end.

3. The last angle and the most important area is your arch. Too many technicians try to make the arch straight above the pupil, which unfortunately causes the arch to be straight up and gives the appearance of the “rainbow brow.” To achieve the perfect arch, line your brush up to the outside of your nose and look straight ahead. Angle the brush so it is to the outside of the iris, and start your arch where the brush crosses your brow. www.myimagejourney.com

Luca Lash Alyson Hoag swears by this natural product to help regrow brows if you’ve overtweezed or if the hair has thinned due to aging. “It is derived from botanicals and contains no prostaglandins,” she explains. “It was designed for lash growth but works even better on brows!” www.myimagejourney.com

Kevyn Aucoin Precision Brow Pencil Keeping your brows shaped and filling them in with the correct color will frame and accentuate your face. Julian Reynolds from Julian’s Cosmetics + Skincare says this pencil is one of his favorite brow products. www.julianscosmetics.com

Eyes
Revision Skincare Teamine Eye Complex Alethea Tinkle, owner of Bella by Alethea MedSpa, recommends this cream to diminish dark under-eye circles, smooth fine lines and wrinkles, firm skin and even provide antioxidant benefits. Tinkle says, “It is effective on all skin types and is consistently one of our best sellers. Our patients swear by it, and it’s hard to keep it on the shelves!” www.beautybyalethea.com

Lips
Rodan + Fields Redefine Acute Care Local Rodan + Fields consultant Ashlee Dozier recommends these new strips to combat smile lines and lip wrinkles. Each strip delivers hyaluronic acid and peptides to the desired area, and the strips can be worn three nights per week for effortless change noticeable on the first morning after use. Maximum benefits are achieved after eight weeks, and the strips can be used on the eyes to combat crow’s feet. www.ashleedozier.myrandf.com

Teeth
Your teeth can reveal your age as much as any wrinkle, especially after years of stains building up. If you’re looking for professional whitening, Dr. Ashish Patel from Smiles on Peachtree recommends their in-office Zoom Whitening procedure, which provides dramatic results in about an hour, or take-home trays. “Patients can have custom trays done and spend 30 minutes whitening each day for five to seven days straight,” Dr. Patel says. To go beyond whitening and into reshaping your smile, cosmetic bonding and porcelain veneers are available options. Bonding can repair chipped or cracked teeth, fill gaps or even change the shape of teeth themselves, and veneers cover chips, gaps and stains to create a beautiful, uniform smile. www.smilesinatlanta.com

Let’s Face It
Our faces take the brunt of the elements, meaning they might need some more intensive TLC. Try these local facial procedures to restore your skin to its former vitality, lift and glow:

Bella by Alethea’s $300 Refresh Laser Facial reduces the appearance of wrinkles and redness, treats age spots and tightens skin. Owner Alethea Tinkle adds, “It is a pampering facial. There is no downtime, pain or peeling, but the results are dramatic!” www.beautybyalethea.com
Julian Reynolds from Julian’s Cosmetics + Skincare recommends a Caudalie Vinexpert Firming Facial. This $125 procedure, Reynolds says, will lift and sculpt contours of the face and neck while boosting skin’s collagen and elastin production. www.julianscosmetics.com
Fillers are always an option to quickly refresh your look. Dr. Linda Kelley from Cobb Wellness & Aesthetics recommends the ArqueDerma Restoration Lift, which uses hyaluronic acid fillers to reduce jowls, improve marionette lines, lift the brows and more. The procedure is a splurge, costing anywhere from $2,400 to $3,000. www.cwaesthetics.com
Warm things up with a ThermiRF treatment from the Maloney Center for Facial Plastic Surgery. This non-surgical procedure helps boost collagen production by heating the underlying skin support tissues. This also helps eliminate fat and tighten skin and can be performed in Dr. Maloney’s office. For a more dramatic result, Dr. Maloney can also provide targeted liposuction to the treatment area. www.maloneycenter.com

Before choosing any one procedure, be sure you’re with the right provider. Dr. Seth Yellin from Marietta Facial Plastic Surgery says, “After 20 years as a facial plastic surgeon and educator, the best advice I can give is to partner with a facial plastic surgeon who is skilled and experienced and whose aesthetic vision you trust.” www.mariettafacialplastics.com

It’s All In Your Head
Ellen Langer, a psychologist and current professor of psychology at Harvard University, has conducted a few small-scale studies specifically about the mind’s effects on aging. In one, conducted in 1981, she took eight men in their 70s and set them up to live for just five days in a temporary home. The catch? The home was designed to remind them of 20 years before. Movies, magazines, even their conversation topics were all meant to evoke the past and get the subjects to act like their younger selves. At the end of the week, the men’s bodies had responded as if they truly were younger: they were more coordinated, sat taller and even experienced improved eyesight.

When the experiment was recreated in 2010, attempting to bring subjects back to their 1975 selves, the subjects experienced similar changes – one who struggled to dress himself at the beginning of the week was hosting a dinner party on the experiment’s final evening. So if you’re feeling like the years are starting to catch up with you, remember that some of it may just be in your head! www.ellenlanger.com

Better Bra
Ladies, it’s time to put your best bust forward. According to Molly Hopkins and Cynthia Decker from Livi Rae Lingerie, 85 percent of women are wearing a bra that’s the wrong size. Here, these bra fit experts share three ways to tell if your bra really fits:

Shoulder straps should be loose and comfortable, not digging into your shoulders.
If your breast tissue is spilling over the top of the bra, it means that your cup is too small.
The band holds 90 percent of your bra support, so it should be snug to avoid putting stress on your shoulders and back.
If your bra isn’t cutting it, Try Livi Rae Lingerie’s “Virtual Fit” option online to find a better one. www.liviraelingerie.com

Posture
We know real estate is all about location, location, location, but did you know that your body size is often about perception, perception, perception? The key is posture. If you walk with rounded shoulders, an unsupported back, and a loose core, any extra weight you’re carrying will be accentuated. Try “losing” a few pounds today through proper posture!

“When you are standing, it is best to keep your shoulders back but relaxed to help keep the proper curve in your low back. One method to achieve this is by standing against a wall. You want your head, shoulder blades, buttocks and heels to touch the wall,” says Dr. Marly N. Dows-Martinez from Resurgens Orthopaedics. “This not only helps promote the normal spinal alignment but also helps make you look taller and more confident.” www.resurgens.com

Weight Loss
There’s no substitute for eating healthy, whole foods and breaking a sweat on a regular basis. But if you’re doing all the right things and still want some extra help toning and tightening, many new technologies can help. BEST, a Buckhead dermatology center, specializes in non-surgical options such as Exilis, CoolSculpting, Ultherapy and more to help you achieve your goals. www.best.dermatologyconsultants.org

Another popular, non-surgical option is Vanquish, which uses radiofrequency to get rid of fat cells. “If you have a stubborn muffin top or love handles, Vanquish may be just the ticket,” says Carolyn Morey, practice manager for Prima Center for Plastic Surgery in Duluth. Their board-certified plastic surgeons conduct four to six painless weekly sessions with Vanquish patients for maximum results. www.primacenter.com

Resources: Beautiful You

Here’s your complete guide to this issue’s beauty resources. Turn to each page to find great deals and the right beauty solutions for you!