TITLE: Do You Want To Look Ten Years Younger?

SUMMARY: 12 beauty tips on how to look 10 years younger.

ARTICLE BODY follows:

Do you want to look ten years younger?

Here are twelve beauty tips that are guaranteed to work, if you follow them *all*. There's no point eating fresh fruit and vegetables, and then smoking like a chimney!

1. Moisturise.

This is a misnomer, you can't actually put water in your skin. You can, however, oil it up (like leather!), and trap water next to the skin.

After every wash, put an inert oil on your face. Johnson's Baby Oil is good. Put it especially on your laughter-lines (around the eyes), your forehead, around the mouth and on the neck.

You don't need expensive ointments; independent studies show these are a con.

2. Eat Good Food.

Eat plenty of fruit, fish and vegetables, drink water. A healthy diet makes for a healthy body, and health makes you look younger. Conversely, note how you feel after a piece of cake or a packet of chips; a bit sick.

3. Sleep.

MOST IMPORTANT.

At least eight hours. A good night's kip will make you look years younger.

Go to bed before midnight, as early as possible. You've had enough when you bound out of bed in the morning, full of energy. If you don't, you need more, or you're depressed, or you went to bed after midnight.

Lack of sleep is very ageing. If you don't get enough sleep you look haggard i.e. old. Sleep deprivation is akin to being a zombie; your IQ is less, memory poorer, and your reactions slower. You become more prone to disease.

4. Give Up Smoking.

Smoking constricts the capillaries in your face. This is why smokers look pale. It ages the skin. It makes your hair lank.

A smoker is essentially in a constant state of ill-health; weaker immune system, less energy, less stamina. In time smoking can lead to serious disease. It lenghtens recovery time from other diseases. Doctors tend to write-off smokers; they know their work is being wasted.

Cigarettes contain poisons like formaldehyde, ammonia, arsenic, and benzene. The reason people crave them is because they also contain nictotine, which is very addictive, yet gives little in the way of worthwhile stimulation.

5. Abstain From Alcohol.

Again, alcohol is a poison. Drunkenness is a mild form of poisoning; hence its alternative name: intoxication.

I once knew some Australian girls when I first came to London. They used to 'party hearty'. One of them was very pretty. After 6 months she looked like she'd aged fifteen years; 20 going on 35.

When I was very young I used to wonder why adults looked so old, tired and fed up. Certainly life has its disappointments, but we help death mark our card early on.

6. Keep Out Of The Sun.

In neolithic times men used to cure animal hides by exposing them to the sun. This was the earliest form of tanning; they were making leather.

This is what's happening to sunbather's skin. That's why 35 year-old sunbathers look 45, and 45 year-old sunbathers have skin the texture of a leather armchair.

Sitting in the sun for hours is weak-minded. Look at the great beauties, the older ones. They kept well out of the sun; their skin is milky white. You don't see their sisters in magazines, who, for a season's healthy glow, sacrificed their looks forever.

7. Leave Your Hair Its Natural Colour.

Unless your hair is grey or mousey, leave off putting chemicals on it. If you are healthy, your hair will reflect this. Bleaching is bad for your hair, and you may damage the follicles. If the dye doesn't suit your skin tone, it won't make you look good anyway.

8. Dress Younger.

Dress younger, look younger! Avoid formal clothes. Wear clothes from a younger generation, unless you look like a tart. Men: putting a suit and tie on ages you; we associate business clothing with maturity.

9. Be Clean Shaven (for men).

If your hair is thinning and long, or you have a beard or moustache, you'll look older by ten years. Conversely, a short hair-cut and a clean-shaven face takes years off you. Cut off your sideburns; voila! instant youth.

10. Keep Off The Surgeon's Table.

Cosmetic surgery is a trap. Because a man has M.D. after his name doesn't mean he has the skill of a Michelangelo or Da Vinci. That's what you need to remodel a human face.

Why? Because our perceptions of human character and beauty rely on very subtle clues in another's face; small lines, dimples, contours, expressions.

A cosmetic surgeon cuts these out, and you are left with a mask. You lose some of your personality. You become a type; a Hollywood social x-ray, a waxen-faced thing. Don't do it, girls!

We are not machines; cut us, take a part out, replace it, and we are never quite the same again.

11. Take It Easy.

Avoid over-dieting, over exercise. This makes you look scrawny and haggard. A slightly fleshy face looks younger; the wrinkles fill out a bit.

A bit of exercise gets the blood flowing, and reminds your muscles they exist. Too much intense exercise (more than two hours a day), a low carbohydrate diet, and you look haggard; worn out, old, under par.

12. Remain Calm.

If you have problems, resolve to deal with them, or deliberately avoid them; but decide, and then put them out of your mind. Stress and worry make you haggard, and pre-dispose you to disease. They keep you awake at night, and ruin the quality of your sleep.

Meditate. Resolve your problems before you go to sleep at night. Observe your thoughts and emotions dispassionately. You may be surprised to find how crazy most are!

In short, youth is a combination of factors; one cream or regime won't do. Address your entire person, body and mind.

Here's to your good health!

About the author: T. O' Donnell (http://www.tigertom.com) is the author of 'The Black Book Of Power', a free personal development ebook, and lives in London, UK.