Wealden Times | WT232 | September 2021 | Winter Interiors supplement inside

Beauty
Time for
Action
Don’t suffer in silence! Josephine Fairley tackles some
of the beauty challenges thrown up by the menopause
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We can honestly thank our lucky stars to be
living at a time when the word ‘menopause’
isn’t just something that’s mentioned gravely
in hushed whispers. (If mentioned at all.) It used to be
totally taboo – certainly, in my mother’s day. And until
recently, the beauty industry has continued to regard
it as such, ignoring the many beauty challenges faced
by women going through menopause, and beyond.
Ah, ‘beyond’. You might think that’s something I
understood, working in beauty and wellness. But no. At a
women’s literary festival at the end of July – Primadonna, in
East Anglia (which I thoroughly recommend for 2022 for a
weekend of fun, friendship and fab books), a mate asked if
I’d like to join her at a menopause workshop. We both joked
that menopause was a ship that had sailed long ago, but were
nevertheless keen to hear Eleanor Mills speak; formerly a
high-flying editorial dynamo at The Sunday Times, she’s since
launched her own media platform, noon.org.uk, to empower
women at midlife. We duly trotted along – and not only did
my friend and I end up eating our words but in fact, our
jaws were open, most of the workshop. Because officially,
far from ending when hot flushes and night sweats do,
menopause lasts the rest of our lives – and there’s much we
can do to mitigate the impact of menopause on our health. (I
thoroughly recommend bookmarking Noon’s resident medical
expert, Dr. Nighat Arif, for her wisdom on the subject.)
Officially, menopause has three stages: perimenopause,
menopause and post-menopause (that ‘rest of your life’
bit). And whether you sail through it almost without
noticing, or are a slave to hot flushes every five minutes,
you’ll almost certainly find that menopause poses plenty
of beauty challenges. The aforementioned rollercoaster
body temperature drenches underarms and has us
throwing off covers in the night. Often, perimenopausal
women will find their skin breaks out, or develops dry
or oily patches (which is linked to a drop in oestrogen
levels or an increase in others, such as testosterone).
At menopause, collagen production also slows down,
meaning skin starts to sag. Dryness can be a problem,
too, while natural hyaluronic acid and ceramides in
the skin – which act a bit like cement, in the skin
barrier – both start to drop, so skin becomes thinner.
So: let’s look at those different challenges, what you
can do about them – and at some of the products
(from brands including Vichy, PRAI, VENeffect and
even good old Avon), which are daring (YAY!) to
tackle the problem loud and proud, even emblazoning
the word ‘menopause’ across their packaging.
Skin starting to lose its ‘bounce-back’ factor?
Sagging, bagging and softening of facial contours is
caused by plummeting collagen and elastin levels. One
of the brands specifically setting out to tackle this is
VENeffect – founded by sisters Rebecca Booth, M.D., an
experienced gynaecologist and hormonal wellness expert,
and her sister Cecil Booth, who’d worked for 30 years in
the beauty industry – which offers age-defying skincare
designed to ‘restore skin to peak hormonal vitality’. It’s
definitely a range worth exploring for its radiance-boosting
product line-up, with two particular favourites of mine
being the wonderfully plumping VENeffect Anti-Ageing
Intensive Moisturiser, £148 for 50ml, and the VENeffect
Firming Neck & Décollete Crème, £124 for 60ml.
More affordably, we have Vichy Neovadiol Rose
Platinum duo, £59 for two x 50ml, a ‘matching’ night
and day cream which specifically target menopause,
offering rose-hued pigments to restore luminosity while
boosting hydration and targeting pigmentation issues,
and PRAI x M&S MenoGlow Collagen Boosting
Cremegel Moisturiser, £25 for 50ml, which has the
most wonderful skin-quenching texture. (I recommend
you check out the whole PRAI x M&S MenoGlow
range, actually – brilliant formulas, brilliant value.)
Skin acting super-sensitive? A very common problem,
because of skin-thinning. Avoid potentially sensitising
ingredients like retinol, simplify your routine while you allow
skin to settle down, and work to rebuild the complexion’s
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