Time to prep your body for the party season

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Hannah Betts Better… Not Younger: Time to prep your body for the party season

  • UK beauty expert recommends face, body and brain savers this festive season 
  • READ MORE: Bin the blonde and go chocolate brunette this winter

By rights, we should only be on the cusp of Christmas. Yet it feels as though Yule 2023 is starting earlier than all previous festive onslaughts.

My personal party season kicked off last Tuesday. Already I’m on the floor: lips chapped, throat like sandpaper — all I can focus on is my bed. And I don’t even drink, have children, or need to drag myself to an office.

Still, it happens to us all, ‘staring down the barrel of 43 social obligations before finally limping into actual Christmas’, as a friend so eloquently puts it.

This year, I am determined, if not to enjoy myself, then at least not to get sick or go mad. I shall be embracing certain face, body and brain savers in pursuit of this goal and strongly suggest you do, too.

First off, my ravaged mouth. No pots at this time of year — fingers are too germy. Instead seek out Beauty Pie Super Healthy Skin Nourishing Lip Balm SPF 30 (£10 for members, £25 for non-members, beautypie.com). With vitamin C to target midlife wrinkles, and avocado oil to soothe, this renders lips not merely nourished, but inviting.

To make sure you survive the festive season without getting sick, be sure to embrace Hannah Betts’s face, body and brain savers

I started knocking back Hollywood’s favourite, vegetable-stuffed supplement, 8Greens Skin Effervescent Tablets (from £15.99, uk8greens.com) — the vitamin B equivalent of 187lb of salmon — to ensure that a diet of canapés doesn’t lead to boils and scurvy.

Then, I had a relaxing and entirely medicinal massage — specifically an Aromatherapy Associates massage (from £30 nationwide, aromatherapy associates.com/pages/spa-locator), with the company’s chief therapist and educator, the gifted Christina Salcedas.

Regular readers will know how deeply I cherish this great British brand’s 14 oils. These are no mere toiletries, but genuinely therapeutic concoctions with powerful curative effects.

For my massage, I chose Inner Strength oil (from £12), the ‘well-being hug’ created by Aromatherapy Associates’ co-founder, the late Geraldine Howard, when she was trapped in the ‘black hole’ of cancer.

The oil’s focusing frankincense, restorative cardamom and balancing clary sage are intended to see one through challenges mental and physical — even if mine is merely sequin season.

Ask for an Aromatherapy Associates massage by way of an early Christmas present, or score a bottle of your chosen essential oils balm during the Black Friday spending spree.

Just think of it as a gorgeously fragrant means of attaching your own oxygen mask first.

I’m cossetting my face, hands and body via an oil cleanse, with the fantastically cost-effective and nourishing Bioderma Atoderm Cleansing Oil For Very Dry To Eczema-Prone Skin (£11.60 for 1ltr, boots.com).

Hannah enjoyed a relaxing and entirely medicinal massage – specifically an Aromatherapy Associates massage, with the company’s chief therapist and educator, the gifted Christina Salcedas

Then, I apply a layer of my much adored Sisley Ecological Compound plant-based serum under my SPF sunscreen. I have been using and loving Ecological Compound for well over two decades.

So imagine my utter excitement when I recently discovered that Sisley has now brought out Ecological Compound Advanced Formula (currently £94.40, down from £118, sisley-paris.co.uk), which I had somehow neglected to take on board.

The original, which launched more than 40 years ago, operated by improving skin resilience and its ability to defend itself against external aggressors — whether that be cold, heat or wind.

Naturally, it was wildly successful, despite its punchy price — with one selling every five seconds — because, once sampled, fans of this product couldn’t go without it, even if this meant scrimping elsewhere.

Sisley’s thrilling new formula, which took a decade to develop, improves skin’s balance and immunity resilience.

At the same time, its antioxidant-laden centella extract benefits from a state-of-the-art extraction process making it 3,500 times more potent. Given how brilliant the original was, I can’t quite take this in. Finally, I have a reason to party.

RACE YOU TO IT!

Harry Styles’s buzz cut wasn’t his only beauty contribution last week, given that his skin, cosmetic and apparel line — Pleasing — arrived at Selfridges, where it sold up a storm. 

His nail varnishes are the brand’s breakaway hit. I’m craving Pleasing Nail Polish in Hairy Mermaid (£20, selfridges.com), a glorious titian blue. 

MY ICON OF THE WEEK

Jessica Chastain

With her porcelain skin, Jessica Chastain uses vitamin C before sunscreen to boost protection against sun damage

The Oscar-winning actress, 46, loves Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Pur Couture Lipstick in 01 Le Rouge (now £25.60, boots.com) with ‘barely any eye make-up and messy hair’. 

With her porcelain skin, she uses vitamin C before sunscreen to boost protection against sun damage, favouring Skinceuticals C E Ferulic Antioxidant Serum (£165, lookfantastic.com).

FIVE BRILLIANT HAIR BAUBLES

(£16, oliverbonas.com)

A large, embellished, twinkling star hair grip with gems conjuring up the style of the sophisticated 1930s.

(now £10, claires.com)

A glamorous bow bedecked with geometric rhinestones and attached to a sturdy barrette.

(£12, asos.com)

A trio of slim diamante bands creating a discreet finishing piece.

(now £22.50, slipsilkpillowcase.co.uk)

Crystal-adorned silk scrunchies designed to be gentle on hair.

(£16, anthropologie.com)

A chic rhinestone claw that will hold party hair off your face.

 COSMETIC CRAVING 

One of the great things about make-up is its ability to freshen and modernise your look at a stroke. 

Behold, my ‘festive cool-girl who happens to be a woman of 52’ diffused-lip obsession: Dior Rouge Dior Forever Liquid Sequin in 993 Magical (£39, dior.com).

In four shades, liquid sequin is billed as a transfer-proof, yet non-drying, liquid lipstick — ultra-glittery and ultra-pigmented. 

Dior recommends applying lavishly, letting set for five minutes, then, when dry, pressing the lips together for a glittering finish.

I prefer to brush a little on, then smudge it in with my finger for a modishly blurred and blended effect that lasts and lasts. Easy, low-key and spectacular.

  • Instagram: @hannahjbetts 

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