Midlife actresses are redefining red carpet glamour. Photo / Getty Images
Midlife actresses are showing off sculpted arms on the red carpet. These are their weapons against the inevitability of ageing skin
This year’s Oscars red carpet will feature the usual parade of sumptuous décolletages and sculpted arms – displayed, more than ever, by actresses well over 40.
With Nicole Kidman and Pamela Anderson leading the charge of midlife actresses bearing glorious flesh on the big and small screen, it’s obvious, at last, that mature women can give the young ones a run for their money.
As ever, it takes some commitment and maintenance. Personally, as a lifelong exercise fan, I was incensed to discover loose skin on my body at age 54: no cardio or weight-bearing training can halt the collagen loss and subsequent thinning skin that comes with age. It will show up as crepey, less-than taut bits all over your body.
That’s life – but of course, Hollywood has antidotes for it, and so does the beauty industry. Luxuriant flesh, it seems, can be maintained – but how? We asked the skin gurus of the rich and famous.
Read more: Natural ways to increase HGH for anti-aging benefits
Asked how she maintains her flawless porcelain limbs, Kidman claimed “oil baths and sunscreen”. Glib as that sounds, it makes sense to Dr Anna Persaud, the chief executive of ThisWorks. “The heat will help any oils in your bath penetrate the skin and prevent it drying out overnight when trans-epidermal water loss is at its highest,” she says. She regards essential fatty acid oil-rich products with “gold-standard skincare vitamins A, B3 (niacinamide) C and E” as key for nourished, stretchmark-free skin that glows naturally.
Nichola Joss, face and body sculptor to Kate Moss and Gwyneth Paltrow, favours rich oils with lymph-stimulating castor oil for massage that contours and improves tone and texture. “A quick and simple daily technique will pay dividends,” she says, advising to start at the ankle and work up the leg. “Don’t be afraid to use deeper sweeping and circular movements upwards from the thighs, downwards from the belly button and inwards on the arms.” If it’s good enough for Meghan Markle (another one of Joss’s fans), it’s worth a go.
UV ages the skin more than anything else, so sunscreen is key. As a strawberry-blonde Aussie, Kidman will have been slathered in it from before she could walk, and the result is clear in the quality of her skin.
ThisWorks Deep Sleep Beauty Oil has fatty acid-rich blackcurrant seed oil, bakuchiol (a retinol alternative) and terpenes for their cell-regenerating properties, and a clinically proven sleep-promoting scent.
Dr Organic 100% Pure Castor Oil can be used neat or with added drops of essential oils for a powerful lymph drainage massage.
Joanna Czech, a Hollywood aesthetician with Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett on her books, begins any red carpet or on-set body prep with intensive but non-aggressive micro-exfoliation. Using pastes featuring ultra-fine sapphire or diamond particles, plus a “water peel spatula” (an ultrasonic tool with a metal spatula that dislodges dead skin and debris) on particularly rough areas, she refines skin and ensures it absorbs subsequent products perfectly.
But you can slay chicken skin, brighten dullness and drain away puff all at once, she admits, with regular dry body brushing sessions, starting, like massage, at your feet and making long upward sweeps towards your heart.
Sapphire Dust Skin Activator offers deeply smoothing dermabrasion and hydration at the same time, thanks to sapphire dust and glycerin.
Dermaflash Dermapore Ultrasonic Pore Extractor is great for working on especially rough patches.
If you’ve spotted an Oscar-level A-lister slinking down Harley Street this week, don’t be surprised: they may have had to pop over for a body booster that’s unavailable in the States. “Profhilo (the popular quenching and smoothing injectable skin booster) has still not been FDA-approved in the US,” says cosmetic physician Dr Sophie Shotter. That hasn’t stopped half of La-La land getting it injected into their faces (the radiant glow is the giveaway) by London’s premier cosmetic doctors – and now they’re getting it in their bodies too.
Profhilo Body, which comes in larger units than face Profhilo and is charged from £400 ($911) per session nationwide, will visibly and almost instantly smooth and plump crepey, loose skin on the décolletage, arms, knees and even tummy. But doctors admit that for really good results, you need to have it often. Shotter likes to inject a chosen area every six months after the initial two-session protocol, while Dr Preema Vig has clients that get it every three months “for really significant results”.
Supermodel Yasmin Le Bon once stated: “If I don’t like an anti-ageing potion on my face, I put it on my butt.” She was well ahead of her time, because today’s body lotions teem with face-care staples such as hydroxy acids, ceramides, niacinamide and peptides.
Most reliable for results are retinoids (vitamin A derivatives). Expect them to smooth rough texture in less than two weeks. Plumping crepey skin and tackling discolouration (and regulating oil production, which should help get rid of the scourge of the backless dress: bacne) will happen with a good two months’ use.
Nescens Anti-Skin Slackening Complex is a tightening retinoid, vitamin C and niacinamide serum Joss massages with before red-carpet events.
Naturium Retinol Body Lotion has the maximum (in a body product) level of 0.05 per cent retinol plus a host of calming and nourishing agents.
For the famous (and civilians) who don’t jump at the chance of being lasered or injected, red and near-infrared light therapy is as gentle as it is science-backed for increasing hydration, calming redness and softening wrinkles. Long-term and consistent use (four times a week at least, recommends Czech) is key but, she says, “I’ve had celebrities see and feel a difference in their skin before a red carpet event in just a week.”
That requires pro-strength sessions (The Light Salon, from £50 ($115) for 30 minutes) but there are LED panels that therapists and dermatologists use and that are (semi) accessible, price-wise, to the public as well. The Celluma Pro (£1,995 - $4545) is a favourite of cosmetic doctors and “yields tremendous results”, says Czech.
Getting a Hollywood celeb to admit to having anything more drastic than a body scrub is like squeezing water from a stone, but Jennifer Aniston, Victoria Beckham and Drew Barrymore have admitted to relying on lasers for tackling skin pigmentation and textural issues. A particular favourite of Jen-An and (who else) Kim Kardashian, is the one-two sucker punch of BBL Heroic pulsed light and Moxi laser to magic years off their embonpoints and other body parts in no time.
The first, explains cosmetic physician Dr Maryam Zamani, zaps redness, broken capillaries and pigment patches (they will fade away in the days and weeks after treatment) ultra-fast, leaving skin far more pristinely even-toned. The speed makes it easy to tackle larger areas anywhere on the body, and downtime amounts to mild redness for a day or two.
Canny Oscar-nominated celebs like to team this with Moxi laser, which punctures tiny channels just under the skin to kick-start noticeable tightening, plumping and smoothing. The skin surface is unaffected after treatment, but will then peel for up to a week to replace gnarly old cells with plump ones.
Three to four treatments, four weeks apart, are needed for optimal results from both treatments, making them a rather perfect combo. Zamani charges from £700 ($1595) per session for BBL Heroic and £1250 ($2850) for Moxi.
Warm water in therapeutic pools reduces swelling and eases joint pressure.