^You're welcome. I enjoyed reading it so thought I'd try to find some more articles...
http://timesonline.co.uk
The Sunday TimesNovember 26, 2006
I wish for...health and beauty
You’d think being a model would teach you everything you needed to know about looking great. But you’d be wrong, says Laura Bailey
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I make a living as a model, which should expose me to all the tricks of the beauty trade. I’d like to be able to say that I glide into the studio camera-ready, oozing inner confidence. But that would be untrue. Team effort and computer trickery create that brief photogenic chemistry. The efforts of several professionals combine to neutralise the insecurities, dramas and “ugly day” feelings I often have when I arrive.
Somehow, I can’t imagine Kate or Claudia having that kind of day. They seem as beautiful on the school run as they are in airbrushed ads. I envy them and the rest of their breed. You know the type — the confident beauty. The one who exudes an effortless glow. She is not necessarily a model or an actress — and if she is, it’s not her professional perfection I admire. No, what I long for is her languid ease of movement, lack of self-consciousness and ability to light up a room in a slow-burn kind of way. You don’t notice the label on her dress, the roots or the nails. She doesn’t look like she’s tried. She may be a size 8 or a 16. But when I see her, I stare more than I would at any cute guy.
The confident beauty is not the party show-stopper, the rich guy’s arm candy or dolled-up gossip-magazine fodder. She’s usually a girl’s girl, quick to laugh and safe in her skin. She’s the woman strong men fall in love with, not the one they just get a horny crush on. And she’s not a control freak who spends her life at the salon being teased into groomed perfection. She simply puts the time in to make the very best of herself.
A friend of mine, who runs in the park each day, has the brightest eyes and rosiest cheeks. She never thinks of make-up. And why should she? Meanwhile, I rely on Shu Uemura products to paint the illusion of rest. When two friends at the same dinner hug me goodbye and whisper, “Get some sleep”, I make a mental note to start wearing concealer. I run, too, but sporadically, and it never becomes me in that joyful, footloose, bouncy-ponytail way.
My problem is, I’m too emotionally extreme to be a confident beauty. I’m the type of person who diligently writes the times of yoga classes I’ll never go to in my diary, and who won’t see the osteopath until I can’t look to the right when I’m driving. Whereas confident beauties know exactly what maintenance they need and book their waxing and hair appointments months in advance, I will always leave it to the last, most stressful moment. I can transform myself in about 10 minutes and am never fashionably late. I’m a low-maintenance speedfreak who enjoys the thrill of racing out of the door, buzzing on perfume, adrenaline, Chanel and coffee. I’m full of good intentions, but in truth I am totally hooked on beauty chaos.
The confident beauty does it differently. She surrenders to grooming rituals, not out of vanity, but because she’s on a private schedule that allows time for serious pampering, a serenade to the self. She enjoys the calm-organisation part of it — the breathing, relaxing, floating around in a negligee in a steamy boudoir, relishing her space — because she values herself in a way that too many women don’t. She may take five minutes or five hours to get ready. It’ s irrelevant. For those effortless girls, who never seem rushed or ruffled, who glide and smile, gorgeousness is based on inner peace. I can almost taste the freedom such carefree confidence brings. I sometimes briefly touch it. An unplanned evening that escalates randomly — old friends, good food, laughter and the knowledge that the baby’s safe and well at home. And, yes, sometimes when I’m made-up, blow-dried and digitally smoothed into a more serene person, I glimpse another version of me. I am trying to be more like the women who sail beautifully through the day. Sometimes I get it — when I bike through the park, head and heart full of the Rodins at the Royal Academy, cheeks burning red as the sky turns pink, on my way home to find a collage from my son: “Thank you for happy Thursday, Mama.” Those rare perfect days take you out of yourself, and then bring you more intimately back again. In those moments, the natural beauty of the world briefly shifts a little closer to the psyche, and you, too, are one of those graceful women, dancing on the inside. Sophia Loren got it right when she said: “Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.” Maybe one day I’ll find that poise. Maybe not. If I transformed myself into a confident beauty, all inner balance and outer organisation, I might long for the days when it felt flirty and mad to go home and throw make-up on top of make-up, scrape my hair into a ponytail and hit the town running. Perhaps, in truth, gliding through life would seem dull compared with making it up as I go along.
I love the candid, I want that bag!
