Gucci Westman Loves Jergens Natural Glow Self Tanner

The tubes are not chic, you find them at the drugstore or the grocery store, and yet Jergens Natural Glow instant and gradual self tanners are just so good that even celebrity makeup artist Gucci Westman, lover of expensive beauty products and founder of Westman Atelier (my favourite ‘clean beauty’ line, hands down) uses them, as seen in this YouTube screen grab. (Yes, this is the self-same Gucci Westman who did Gwyneth’s wedding makeup, which must be the biggest clean beauty flex of all time.)

Jergens Natural Glow products create a beautiful, authentic-looking tan, come in two strengths (for fair or deeper-toned skin) so you can’t overdo it and the gradual tan lotions are on sale right now at Shoppers Drug Mart, possibly getting cleared off of shelves for winter (which makes no sense, because that’s when we need self-tanner the most.) So I would humbly suggest you go get some immediately.

Pro Pedicure Tools & Techniques From Tips Nail Bar

Photo: Vogue Paris

If you were inspired by our last post to give yourself a pedicure, but don’t know where to start, the team at Toronto’s beauty editor favourite Tips Nail Bar has created a professional grade nine-piece Deluxe Pro Pedicure Kit ($75), which comes with all the ‘how did I ever live without these’ tools to bring your feet back from the brink. Just follow the steps on their IGTV video (below, or find it on Instagram in their IGTV under ‘10 Steps to Pedicure Perfection’ and then sit back and admire your handiwork.

Photo courtesy of Tips Nail Bar

The kit contains these professional grade items: a wooden foot file, a stainless steel cuticle pusher, straight edge nail clippers, a nail file and buffer, a 2oz Bodtini exfoliating body polish/scrub, a 2oz Bodtini hydrating silk lotion, 2oz cuticle/callus softener, 2oz 100% acetone and a pair of hydrating foot booties/foot mask.

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Extreme Measures Foot Saver aka The Tips Medical Pedicure

If you’ve watched your feet get into ever-worse shape as a result of aging or even just walking too much because Covid closed your gym (thickening nails, uneven texture, code red-level calluses) there is a pedicure for that.

Tips’ own Naomi Misu and Melissa Pepe have trained in and offer a medical pedicure that I can attest is truly life-changing. (I was rendered speechless by its clock-rewinding effectiveness that borders on magic.)

This medical pedicure can “alleviate the discomfort and pain associated with ingrown toenails, creates toenail enhancements on nails that have been damaged or don’t grow properly, as well as being an ideal pedicure for diabetics, or seniors as the skin is more fragile and requires a different approach and products.”

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These could be your feet!

Pedicure Secrets From Essie Nail Pro Rita Remark

Essie’s Tangerine Tease and Bikini So Teeny

After feeling like a hobbit these past many months, I’m happy to be pedicuring again. Pedicure appointments are up 200% from their pre-pandemic numbers, because freshly done toes make you feel instantly groomed and provide a happy hit of serotonin each time you catch a glimpse of your feet.

But if a salon visit is still out of the question, a DIY pedicure can also provide a happy feeling even if your execution isn’t 100%. After all, your feet are far away, so you or anyone else can’t be inspecting them too closely. (That’s at least one bonus to having failing eyesight.)

As we age, getting glossy, perfect toes may require overcoming such dubious delights as ridges on nails and ever-drier skin. So we asked Essie’s ebullient and super-talented lead nail artist, Rita Remark, how to handle these obstacles (with product recommendations too), as she is a firm believer that you can do it yourself with a bit of insider knowledge.

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Oldish: I understand that you have your own optimal pedicure posture?

RR: For a lot of us it’s common to sit on a chair, and fold ourselves in half like a compact, with our head between our legs and we’re polishing that way. That just makes me dizzy.

When you apply polish with your chest on your knees it’s really not comfortable, so I always recommend you sit on the floor and prop your foot up on a book. If you get your foot a little higher off the ground at a better level, it makes the whole process much easier.

What are your favourite summer colours?

It’s not summer until I have Bikini So Teeny (above) on my toes. It’s beyond sky blue –if you took sky blue and made it neon. And Tangerine Tease is such a bright orange, a traffic cone orange.

Are there any polish finishes you should avoid over 50?

I would absolutely avoid anything frosted or metallic because these shine a light on the ridges. If you want a glamorous look, instead use a glittery polish (small or large glitter bits work) which obscures imperfections on the nail. Other textures that work great for ridged nails are cream, sheer and jelly. Just make sure to always pair them with the ridge filling base coat.

Do you recommend buffing and/or using a ridge-filling base coat?

Essie Smooth-e base coat

A light buff with a buffing block will be helpful for superficial ridges, but it's critical to not overdo it or to buff too often. Once every couple weeks is fine, but too much will thin your nails or cause peeling. 

To conceal ridges, start your manicure with a ridge filling base coat like Essie Smooth-e, $12.99, Shoppers Drug Mart. it doesn't just even out the surface of the nail, it also contains ceramides that lock in moisture for dry nails. 

Any special top coat?

A more voluminous topcoat like Essie Gel.setter $12,99, Shoppers Drug Mart, will fill in any left-over ridges or uneven areas on the nail, leaving a glass-like shine.

When you apply top coat, always use a light touch and make sure the brush doesn’t press into the polish – the brush should just glide down the nail. Just hover and bring it down lightly and always cap the tip, to prevent chips. 

Dry skin seems drier now. But even diligently applying a rich lotion doesn’t seem to do enough.

As we age, our nails, like our skin and hair, have a tougher time retaining moisture. So it's important to use a cuticle/nail moisturizer daily (or many times throughout the day) to keep nails and cuticles soft, strong and beautiful. 

Essie Apricot Nail & Cuticle Oil

I love Apricot Nail & Cuticle Oil, $12.99, Shoppers Drug Mart, because it uses apricot kernel oil which mimics our skin's own sebum so it's absorbed easily without a greasy residue. it also smells delicious which is a great incentive to use it all the time.

And cuticle oil will extend the life of your pedicure because if your cuticles are intact, your polish grows out really nicely.  

Skincare with Sunscreen Included For Those Days When You Just Can’t

Maybe it’s the incessant heat that can grind you down or just the tyranny of having to take care of yourself like a grown-up, but there are some mornings when even after two large coffees, the thought of applying skincare and then sunscreen is just all together too much. For those times, hybrid skincare-slash-sunscreen gets it done in one step: not only protecting skin against the sun’s damaging rays, but helping it heal pre-existing damage. It’s multi-tasking for the lazily inclined.

The trio above protect skin from UVA (aging) and UVB (burning) rays, absorb quickly and contain premium skin-building ingredients. And with added skincare ingredients, you might feel more inclined to reapply your sunscreen during the day knowing you’re getting a vitamin or antioxidant boost along with sun protection.

Clockwise from upper left: Vichy LiftActiv Collagen Specialist Daily Anti-Aging Moisturizer spf 30, $61.95, Shoppers Drug Mart, protects with broad spectrum SPF 30 while providing serious skincare with vitamin C to boost radiance and peptide to build collagen and elastin, all in a light, ‘cosmetically elegant’ (I love that expression) lotion formula.

Garnier Green Labs Pinea C Brightening Serum Cream spf 30, $23.99, Shoppers Drug Mart, ticks all the good-for-you boxes. It provides the skin brightening of a vitamin C serum (get a start on reversing any summer sun damage) and a broad spectrum 30 spf sunscreen all in a soothing cream. Oh, and it comes in a 100% recycled plastic bottle.

Prevage City Smart Broad Spectrum Sunscreen SPF 50 $88, Shoppers Drug Mart, is perfect when you really need a bit of skin-tone evening and a light tint. This gold medal winner (well, in my mind it should have won some award) contains antioxidants to prevent free radical damage and perk up dull skin, and anti-inflammatories to sooth and repair. And its soft tint counteracts whiteness from the mineral formula while subtly evening out skin tone.

These Gradual Self-Tanners Will Keep You From Resembling an Oiled Walnut

James Read Express Glow20 and Bondi Sands Everyday Gradual Tanning Milk give you a subtle summery glow.

In the wrong hands, a too-dark self-tan can make you look like a reality show contestant who gets kicked off the very first week. And when you’re over 50, that same faux tan might leave you resembling Magda from There’s Something About May.

Her tan may have been over the top, but Magda’s earrings and shimmery aqua eye shadow were brilliant.

This duo, above, of James Read Express Glow20 and Bondi Sands Every Day Gradual Tanning Milk will keep you looking natural while delivering a warm, subtle and believable faux tan.

James Read Express Glow20 ($44) is a hydrating tanning serum that you massage in like skincare and then rinse off in either 20, 60 or 90 minutes, depending on how deep a colour you want. It even contains skincare ingredients: skin plumping hyaluronic acid, antioxidant vitamin E, and vitamin C for brightening. So, unlike time spent in the sun, with Express Glow20, you’re actually repairing skin while getting (fake) darker.

Bondi Sands Everyday Gradual Tanning Milk, ($27.99, Shoppers Drug Mart) smells quietly beachy with a subtle cocoa butter scent, while the pump dispenser makes it easy to us when you emerge from the shower. I’m pretty slapdash with application but it’s impossible to mess this up. (I used this tanning milk as my body lotion all through last winter into spring to take the edge off my ghostliness.) Colour appears slowly as a glow which then deepens with repeated daily applications. So you will never look Oompa Loompa or Magda orange again.

Now go forth and spend as much time outside this summer as humanly possible. This year more than ever, I do not want to spend any more time indoors than absolutely necessary.

D&G Light Blue Body & Hair Is Impulse Body Spray For People With Actual Taste

As a teen in the 80s, I knew that perfuming yourself all over, like the model in the Impulse body spray commercial, was peak grown-up glamour. I didn’t want a man running through the mall to offer me flowers - that seemed terrifying - I just wanted to drench myself with scent. But even then, I intuited that Impulse fragrances, with problematic names like “Instantly Innocent”, were kind of cheap. (Still, all respect to the eBay seller asking $6,000 for a single can of Impulse ‘Innocent’ last week.)

Dolce & Gabanna’s new Light Blue Body & Hair spray (100 ml, $42, Shoppers Drug Mart) taps into this nostalgia but instead of (shudder) Impulse’s “Always Alluring” or “On Fire” fragrances you can mist yourself with Light Blue’s singular Sicilian lemon, apple, cedar and white flowers scent. A consistent but never over-exposed success since 2001, Light Blue evokes languorous sun worshippers on the Amalfi coast. More complex than any one-note lemon summer fragrance, it’s bright and citrusy but heady with white roses and jasmine and a skin-scent musky amber finish. And it demands to be sprayed on sun-warmed skin after a day at the beach.

But best of all, Light Blue hasn’t been tediously overexposed on social media and ‘gifted’ to a zillion influencers, so you won’t feel weird buying it if you’re over the age of 23.

This Guerlain Bronzer Dupe Is Only $23

Physicians Formula Light Bronzer is great for paler skin tones.

Oh, that sickening feeling when you drop a compact.

This busted Guerlain Terracotta Light bronzer in Natural Blonde (top) was my favourite. It contains pink along with the expected bronze and gold tones, so you get a natural-looking glow, not a flat, muddy brown tint that can look like you wiped your face with dirty fingers.

But Guerlain discontinued it (the new version is nice, but not the same) and my only one decided to leap to its death (or rather, I was clumsy and dropped it.)

Physicians Formula Multi-Colored Bronzer in Light Bronzer ($23, Shoppers Drug Mart) is an excellent substitute. Like Guerlain Terracotta, it’s finely milled, and goes on lightly for a bronzy, blushy glow that looks believable even on pale skin. Which is good if, like me, you lost your makeup application skills during the pandemic.

The only drawback is that the packaging isn’t nearly as nice as Guerlain’s and there’s no signature Guerlain Terracotta scent. But did I mention that it’s only $23?

What Your Body Scrub Says About You

Summer is almost here, which means it’s time to:

1. Switch your closets from winter to summer clothes.

2. Confront your flaky-skinned limbs that have been hidden under clothing during a long winter of dry air and central heating.

3. Choose the right body scrub that aligns with your worldview and current state of mind.

Do you need at least two cups in the morning to be a civil, functioning human? Is your blood roughly 50% shade grown Arabica? Would you kill for an on-demand, cold brew tap in your kitchen? If so, then Drunk Elephant Sugared Koffie Almond Milk Scrub ($37, Sephora) is the perfect reward for waking up and making it to the shower.

Not only is its ground coffee and raw sugar blend a gentle natural exfoliant, coffee seed oil is an antioxidant to calm winter-beaten skin while its heady scent subliminally tells your brain that you’re getting caffeine. Jojoba, marula and coconut oils soften skin, and almond milk moisturizes and soothes and makes the whole thing smell like a custom latte made by angels for the Good Lord herself.

Do you wish your home was a spa? Do you have white terry hotel slippers by the front door to keep guests from wearing their gross ‘outdoor’ shoes in your house? Do you only drink water spiked with fresh mint and cucumber and do you put bowls of cubed watermelon in the fridge and pretend your 'staff' did it?

Clarins Tonic Sugar Polisher ($52, Shoppers Drug Mart) gently exfoliates with hazelnut oil and shea butter while its geranium and rosemary scent will leave your bathroom smelling like the Four Seasons Tribeca (a hotel so luxe it makes Toronto's Four Seasons feel like a Motel 6.) Clarins Tonic is a gorgeous mood-lifter and even its translucent yellow jar glows with the promise of endless summer days spent reclining on a poolside chaise.

Aveeno Positively Radiant 60 Second In-Shower Facial ($13.99, Shoppers Drug Mart) is meant for faces but works brilliantly on bodies too. The glycolic acid effectively dissolves the bonds between dry skin cells and natural cellulose helps sweep them away. It’s a full body spa scrub experience at home.

You may feel wanton using a significant chunk of one tube on your body, like when Kim Basinger allegedly rinsed her shampooed hair with Evian water — there’s a pop culture reference only women my age will get.— but if you do feel guilty, just buy multiple tubes when it goes on sale at Shoppers. This is a perfect example of being extravagant, but never wasteful, which is a useful trait to carry to the rest of your life.

Do you miss travelling? Is your favourite lockdown pastime pouring a large glass of Pinot and “strolling” the streets of Paris on Google Street View? The Body Shop Spa of the World French Grape Seed Scrub, $32 smells brightly green and luxuriously fancy to remind you that you weren’t always a homebound, elastic-waist-pant-wearing drudge.

With powdered grape seeds and evening primrose to gently exfoliate and grape seed oil to soften skin, it can psychically transport you to the vineyard of your choice. The tub is massive which makes its already reasonable price even more of a good deal. It’s a given that you will want to travel once lockdown is over, so if all that online comfort shopping you did over the past year depleted your plane ticket fund, it’s time to build it back up.

Do brightly coloured personal care products give you seizures? With its sleekly minimalist packaging and energizing herbal scent, Necessaire Eucalyptus The Body Exfoliator ($45, Sephora) is all business and a perfect companion for anyone who uses their shower time to brainstorm projects and make endless To Do lists in their head.

The Body Exfoliator contains physical exfoliants bamboo charcoal and volcanic pumice, along with a trio of chemical scrubs: glycolic acid to sweep away dead skin cells, lactic acid to moisturize and salicylic acid to dissolve oil and unclog pores. Now go forth and conquer the day, you sleek-limbed thing, you.

Olay Regenerist Mineral SPF is Your Holy Grail Non-Whitening Sunscreen

Olay Regenerist Mineral SPF is Your Holy Grail Non-Whitening Sunscreen

There’s nothing like trying to run out the door, but being stuck in front of the mirror, rubbing in mineral sunscreen. The “hey, I’m a mime!’ white cast it leaves is annoying on pale faces and completely untenable on darker skin.

We put up with the whitish finish and load up on bronzer and blush to look less corpse-like because mineral has its benefits over chemical sunscreen (it’s instantly protective the second you apply it - no 20 minute wait, and if you have sensitive skin, it’s less likely to sting.)

But Olay Regenerist Mineral SPF 30 sunscreen (Shoppers Drug Mart, $44.99) is a non-whitening revelation. It’s a light lotion containing micronized zinc oxide that rubs in quickly, so you couldn’t sport Elle Macpherson’s striped 80s ‘zinc nose’, even if you tried.

But like a late-night tv ad that says ‘wait, there’s more!’ Olay Regenerist Mineral SPF 30 has added benefits. Because it was created by the obsessives at P&G (I am a longtime fan of their next-level attention to detail) not only does it go on easily to protect your skin from damaging UV rays, but it’s a twofer that also tackles existing damage with powerful skin-building peptides to stimulate collagen production and Vitamin B3 to smooth texture and minimize large pores.

Which means you don’t have to apply your skincare and then your sunscreen, because your healing skincare ingredients are in your sunscreen. Saves time, saves money and you aren’t piling on layers of product.

A+.

Bring Those Skimpy Brows Back to Life

Around age fifty, you’ll see a photo of yourself and realize that your brows and lashes have done a slow fade, like someone turned down the contrast on your face. Bringing brows back to life is actually pretty easy and enlivens your face the way smiling or a good dose of blusher can, and no one will figure out what you’ve done. You’ll just look better rested or like you had a vacation.

Brow rescue is a two-pronged affair. Part one is brow serum, which as a former tweezer enthusiast, I can affirm does actually work to repair what youth and cluelessness put asunder. RapidBrow Eyebrow Enhancing serum, ($43, Shoppers Drug Mart) contains peptides to stimulate growth and spur those snoozing, dormant hairs on to greatness, while biotin and panthenol strengthen the age-diminished hairs themselves.

It takes a couple of months of twice daily applications to see results, so diligence is key. And you have to keep at it once your brows have returned. Some people may squawk about having to continue using brow serum, but just remember that you also need to eat food every day. You can’t just eat for a month and then never eat again, so it’s like that.

If like me, you recklessly tweezed away the little ‘fan’ hairs at the inner corners of your brows in the misguided belief that wider-set brows make eyes look wider set, (they don’t) Rapidbrow serum can bring those back. (God, all those unhelpful, ancient beauty stories that instructed you to hold a pencil beside your nose to determine where your brows should start.) Not to mention the 90s skinny brow trend that too many of us succumbed to. Even Canada’s national treasure, Celine Dion, is a cautionary tale of inner brow over-tweezing and while you could argue that that’s her look, I don’t want that for you.

Maybelline New York Tattoo Studio Longer Brow pencil in Blonde,

In the meantime, while you wait for your brows to awaken like Sleeping Beauty, you can do an artful patching job with Maybelline New York’s new Tattoo Studio Longwear brow pencil in Blonde, ($12.49, Shoppers Drug Mart.) This shape-shifting, ashy taupe ‘blonde’ shade will invisibly fill any sparse areas even if your brows are dark. It’s also magically perfect if you have some silver hairs mixed in there as well. Just apply tiny, feathery strokes to the sparse areas. Go slowly, and always step away from the mirror to see your handiwork before adding another stroke.

And Maybelline New York Tattoo Studio brow pencil claims to last 36 hours, which is longer than you’ll need, as we are now past the age of dancing all night in illegal clubs and emerging at 4:00 a.m. with our make all smudged, in search of breakfast.