Excerpt from Bobbi Brown Living Beauty

Introduction: The Living Beauty Philosophy

There’s a certain amount of peace that comes from 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” doesn’t mean that I have 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 own skin—and it is such a relief. Now my energy is focused on creating a new ideal, a new reality, and a new aspiration for myself—and that is the essence of Living Beauty.

I don’t know why it’s not OK to age. I think that a face without lines and planes is an expressionless face—it’s a face that lacks warmth and confidence. That’s why I am 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 old. There’s a very fine line between plastic surgery that looks good and plastic surgery that looks plain awful. When you go under the knife there’s no guarantee of the results—and no turning back.

Of course it’s very easy to feel bad. Open any magazine and you’re inundated by pictures of seemingly flawless girls who are barely twenty years old (and in some cases, 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? Don’t compare yourself to these images of youthful perfection—you’ll always lose. It’s human nature to compare, but at least do it in a realistic way, with women close to your age.