HEAD TURNER AT 50? AND STILL GOING…..GOING……GOING......

KRIIIIIINNNNNGGGG!!!!!! KRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG!!!!! KRIIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG!!!!....goes my alarm, it’s 6:30 am Saturday, eyes closed, I struggled to drag myself out of bed. (Oh, don't wonder why, Saturday is the beginning of weekdays in Saudi Arabia. It is the equivalent of Monday in western and asian countries). With half closed eyes, I reached for the electric kettle for my coffee. Gosh, my brain seems not to function well until I have my cup! 

While waiting ‘till the water boils, I started to do some beauty morning rituals I used to do, before taking a bath. I  massage my face with olive oil so that it wouldn’t become so dry when I wash it with soap and water. As I was facing the mirror, I was checking my hair for any white hair that might stubbornly show when I comb my hair into style. The most common feeling and opinion is, when we are nearing fifties or in our fifties, we are old, sickly and unattractive.

In the intertainment industry, may it be local or foreign, these celebrities we adore seem not to age at all. Take for example the http://isabellasnow.hubpages.com/hub/Sexy-50-Year-Old-Women where some of the hottest and most beautiful women in their 50’s are enumerated. Now, we know for the fact that they spend a fortune just to keep their appearance because it’s part of their livelihood. But what I bout the ordinary you and i? personally I do believe that we don’t need to spend a fortune to stay young and attractive.

I use to give an allowance of 2 hours before my departure, to prepare myself in a more relax and comfortable manner. Relax and comfortable? You might raise one of your eyes brows………….but yes I do. And I bet most women does pay extra attention on their physical appearance when we are nearing 50's or more than 50's…..call it vanity? Yes maybe, but psychologically, we really need it for our self confidence, self worth and high moral. Physically, it’s the only face, skin and body we got. Once we neglect taking good care of it, we will need a real good doctor and a good amount of money to fix it. Besides, nothing bets the natural.

One day, I was in Balad with a very close friend Donald (you need to be with someone if you need to go out) to buy some personal stuff. As we just had our dinner, we decide to take the stairs going down from the second floor of corniche building, along our way down the stairs, we met two arab men, going up and both of them, eyes were focused on us. When we passed the first guy, he suddenly stopped and turned his head to watch me, and the next guy also his eyes on us, bumped into the first guy! Donald and I knew they were embarrassed so we really tried to hold our laughter, but upon reaching the ground floor as we looked at each other, without a word we burst into laughter, and when we looked up, we saw also the two guys looking down at us, burst into laughter trying to camouflage their embarrassment. It was a real funny situation, but my friends gave me compliment, being still a head turner at 50's can be both flattering and funny! Or there is no doubt that we felt flattered when we are mistakenly passed on as sister of our sons or daughters!

I can never forget a question tossed to me, during a job interview at Ritz Carlton Hotel in Sydney Australia. The HR manager asked me, “Do you enjoy making yourself beautiful?” I was surprised with the question, in truth I never expected that question, but instinctively I answered “yes”. And she said “why?” I did not pause to think for the answer, but I knew I answered from my heart. I said, “because when I look at the mirror, and I see myself beautiful, I felt good to myself. And when I felt good to myself, I will feel good towards other people.” Then she shake my hand, and sweetly handed me my job contract and said….”welcome aboard, welcome to the winning team!”

While some seems to struggle to maintain or preserve the glory that God has gifted them, some seem to just stumble on it naturally. I do believe that we need not spend a fortune to keep our youthful glow.

Personally I do believe that taking good care of our looks need not be very expensive. 


As a gratitude to womanhood, I am gladly sharing my personal secrets and some practical tips:

1. Avoid over exposure to damaging sunlight. It robs our skin of moisture, it causes dark spots on our skin and causes wrinkles too.


2. Always remove make-up and any traces of dirt on your face before retiring. Make up left on our face causes clogged pores, accumulates dirt and causes dry skin, thereby causing enlarged pores, wrinkled skin and uneven scaly skin appearance. Make-up removers are expensive, so I bought a 100 ml. bottle of virgin olive oil (cost 17 riyals or around 4.50 $ US, and lasts for around 2 to 3 months depending on your use), and I use it to rub on my face and wipe with tissue to remove the make-up, apply again and remove with cotton, and apply olive oil again and massage into my face and wipe it clean with eskinol in a cotton, repeat the procedure till the cotton comes out clean. My masseuse friend uses it also for my whole body when I need a massage.

3. Apply enough amount of moisturizer on face neck elbows knees and especially hands. Because we often neglect our elbows and knees where the skin grows thick and dark, and we wash our hands often with soap and water, thereby robbing off moisture. I use nivea long-lasting moisture lotion with almond, I squeeze 3 pumps into my hand and mix a drop of my chosen perfume oil to keep me smelling sweet and fresh whole day no matter how I perspire (Saudi Arabia is very humid most of the time).

4. As we grow old, we may lose collagen in our skin which is responsible for the elasticity of our skin. Facial creams are expensive, especially the ones that promised effective solution to facial skin problems. But I experienced, even if we use regularly expensive products, if we lost our natural collagen the effect is less beneficial. There is a modern way of injecting collagen into selected areas to uplift the sagging area and provide the area with collagen, and we can just maintain it with the creams. Once you had it, it’s easier to maintain it with creams.

5. Apply a moisturizer as a base for your make-up. I apply nivea moisturizing cream on my face before applying make-up. a jar cost only 5 riyals or 1.50$ US, and last for around 3 to 4 months.

6.  Select a hair style that will flatter your facial features. Sometimes we tend to copy hairstyles sported by our favorite celebrities because it looked good on them, we forget to check if it will look good on us. Check for professional help to decide what suits best your facial features. Remember it is our crowning glory. Or if you have a friend who knows photoshop, she can cut and paste your chosen hairstyle on your picture, and you will be able to see and choose the particular hairstyle, that will suit your face, even before cutting your hair.


7. Choose a less dark hair color. Try to stay away from black hair color; it tends to make white hair growth very obvious. And besides black hair looks dull.


8. Drink lots of liquid. Our skin needs liquid, i. e. water, milk and juices, to cool, moisturize, refresh and flush out oxidants from our system.


9. Eat healthy food. As we age we need to watch our diet, to refrain from gaining unwanted weight and to keep sicknesses common to aging people at bay. I am vegetarian and fishtarian! Lol (I used to joke about this)….and I used to take vitamins regularly. But when I discovered organic coco sugar, I discarded all the capsules I am taking (four kinds of them) and I used organic coco sugar and coco honey instead. I also snacked on coco sugar by-products, and I swear, I felt healthier, happier, and stronger. In fact I notice I have thicker hair (a lot more baby hair growing) strong nails, subtle soft skin, better eyesight, alert mental function and most especially my migraine..... gone!




10.  Avoid too tight hugging clothes as it tends to emphasize bulges. And avoid also too loose clothes as it will tend to make you look bigger. Stick to simple elegant designs that will hide or camouflage our defects, and emphasize our assets. Consult a professional and start learning from their advice.

11.When taking a bath, add a drop of olive oil to a luke warm water when taking a final rinse. You will notice that even you hair will become softer.

 12. Start preparing yourself at least two hours before departure so that you will not perspire and get stressed.

Lastly, we need not be sour and sorry thinking that we are not beautiful, for indeed true beauty doesn’t design the face. Because what truly makes a person beautiful is not the appearance of the face, but the kind of heart she has.