Bobbi Brown - Bobbi Brown Living Beauty

Copyright 2007 by Bobbi Brown Evolution, LLC

Photography copyright 2007 by Henry Leutwyler

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Springboard Press

Hachette Book Group

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New York, NY 10017

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First eBook Edition: April 2009

Springboard Press is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Springboard Press name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-446-55223-3

Contents

As always, to the lights of my lifemy boys.

Steven, my rock and my soul.

Dylan, Dakota, and Duke, my heart.

By Debra Winger, New York, 2006

The prospect of writing about a woman aging gracefully has always given me pause. The term itself sounds as if one is lingering on each landing of a descending staircase, waving elegantly. The descent is what I do not like.

Aging, I feel, is more of an ascension; I like that it is an ing word. It denotes a process that is alive and happening, growing up and getting closer. Now, we all know what closer may mean, but I think of it as moving toward the essential: what was there in the beginning and will be there in the end. We spend a lot of time in between trying to mask our age, hide it, reshape it, but it usually looks just that way an altered state.

I have tried in the last decade to abstain from value judgments of those who choose plastic surgery. I dont know enough about it to even remark. Sometimes the results are startling to the untrained eye, but many times Im sure I dont notice what has been done. For me, though, I am actually interested in the process of aging as an unfolding of some mystery. When I was little, someone told me that when you age, you turn into the person you were all your life. My grandmother, although possessing beautiful skin, had a sort of permanent grimace that she called her smile. It did things to her face that said a lot. My mother, whom I didnt get to see age past seventy, had a twinkle in her eye that stole your attention immediately.

Each time I travel to another country and encounter another culture, when I return I am struck by the degree to which American culture is led by the media and not the lives and inherent beauty of its general population. This is not to say that everyone subscribes to this view, but it is safe to say that the popular culture has no room for real wrinkles. We are the specialists in no lines, no map, no history, and this includes the history of many other lands. My favorite state of mind is when I am not made to think about myself from the outside in. The fact is, this is a fools errand. Through a series of events early in my life, I found that the message I got about vision is that you will never truly know what you look like to others, because it is your consciousness and your critical eye that are looking in the mirror. It is simply a measure of ones own compassion for oneself, which we all know is the first step to compassion for others.

It seems to me that the challenge is to be the embodiment of whatever is happening in your life at the moment. Sad faces can be extraordinarily moving and beautiful. Happiness is a message, not a look. Making it more difficult, the movie industry in the United States promotes a lineless, motionless look for women of all ages that is, ironically, so nonthreatening that it is scary. But not scary in the way we want in the movies. Not in a way that would wake us up, kick us in the butt, and say, Hey! Get on with it!

Debra Winger

The knowledge that Bobbi has shared begs the question of how palpable can beauty, enhanced or not, be without acceptance of oneself at every stage of life. I am interested in this question. I also applaud those who hold up different approaches to beauty. It is a big world and there is room for us all. A deeper understanding can only lead to a greater appreciation. The effects of our actions are written on our faces. Why not tell countless stories in many languages?

The Living Beauty Philosophy

Theres a certain amount of peace that comes with getting older. I realize this as I am entering my fifties (yikes!). After so many years of aspiring to unattainable ideals, I have finally learned to let go and relax. Letting go doesnt mean that Ive stopped caring about my face, my hair, or my body. I still care, but I am more realistic about my expectations of myself. I am (finally) comfortable in my skinand it is such a relief. Now my energy is focused on creating a new ideal, a new reality, and a new aspiration for myselfand that is the essence of Living Beauty.

I dont know why its not OK to age. I think that a face without lines and planes is an expressionless faceits a face that lacks warmth and confidence. Thats why Im dismayed at the number of women today who are altering their faces in an attempt to look younger. Visits to the plastic surgeon have become as commonplace as visits to the hair salon. I have to admit that there are some women who get nipped and tucked and actually look great. But I see many more who have been pulled so tight that they look completely artificial, and others who are so plumped up and frozen that they just look odd. Theres a very fine line between plastic surgery that looks good and plastic surgery that looks plain awful. When you go under the knife theres no guarantee of the resultsand no turning back.

Of course its very easy to feel bad. Open any magazine and youre inundated by pictures of seemingly flawless girls who are barely twenty years old (and in some instances, as young as fourteen). Models older than thirty are a rarity. Television shows set in Los Angeles and New York glorify the lives of twenty-something characters. My advice? Dont compare yourself to these images of youthful perfectionyoull always lose. Its human nature to compare, but at least do it in a realistic way, with women close to your age.

I know a woman in her forties whos an average beauty, but who carries herself with above-average confidence. I ran into her once during fashion week and started complaining about how hard it was for me to be in a business surrounded by teenage models. She laughed and told me that I was in the wrong industry. As a successful attorney for a teamsters union, she was surrounded by teamsters who thought she was hot. She felt great about herself. Theres another woman I know whos in her mid-sixties, but who says she still feels like a kid. She works as a music therapist at a senior citizens home and is a few decades younger than many of the residents, who tell her she is stunning. So you see, beauty and aging are all relative.

Too many women of my generation feel bad about the fact that theyre no longer young. These women have a laundry list of things they dont like about themselveswrinkles, baggy eyelids, a too-small upper lip I could go on for days. These women are so caught up in the negative that they dont have any energy left to focus on the positive.

I believe there needs to be a fundamental change in the way we think about beauty. We can either fall into this cycle of self-loathing, or we can empower ourselves with the knowledge to deal with the things that make us unhappy. I want to get rid of the stigma that surrounds aging. Aging (or getting older) should be seen as a process through which a woman can gain more vitality, strength, wisdom, and a new sense of her beauty. It really is an evolution. Today, there are many ways for women to be their best at any age. With knowledge, a strategy, and many lifestyle changes, women can feel better at forty, fifty, and sixty than they did ten, even twenty years ago.