Time in a Bottle - Skin Care that Works!

The beauty industry may not be able to help you get more shut-eye or work meditation into your schedule, but they can give you four ways to keep your hectic lifestyle from showing in your face.

1. Prevention - Easy tricks to minimize the effects of the times you don't get enough sleep or for when stress levels rise.

2. Dynamic Duos - Products tailor made for calming, soothing and rejuvenating at night - and their partners that invigorate your skin in the morning.

3. Quick Fixes - Okay, it's too late to catch forty winks. Here's what you do before you apply makeup to give your complexion a boost.

4. Cosmetic musts - for all you "Type-A Personality" make-up mavens. (You know who you are. Didn't we see you steering your SUV with your elbow, while applying mascara and making a hair appointment on your mobile phone?)

An Ounce of Prevention...
It's late... really, really late... Here's 4 tips to keep the short night from showing in your skin.

1. If you know that you're going to be up late, or if you're up late frequently, drink as much water as you comfortably can. Eight glasses may not be enough to counteract the stress and fatigue that result from not getting enough sleep.

2. Eat right and/or take a multivitamin. Poor eating habits (like eating on the run) and a sleep-deprived lifestyle tend to go together. Whatever you can do to boost your nutritional intake will help keep you going and keep your skin radiant. Antioxidants like vitamin B, C and E are especially helpful when you're burning the midnight oil.

3. Invest in a good ENT - Emergency Nighttime Treatment! This isn't necessarily the product you'll want to use every night, but it's a treatment that we all sometime. When you get home late and you know it's going to be an early day - use a product that's a bit more hydrating then you usually use (especially if you've had alcohol or been around smokers), and an ingredient to increase cell turnover - like AHA's, BHA's or Retinol (vitamin A) derivatives, to give skin a boost while you sleep.

The most tailor-made product for preventing fatigue from showing up in the complexion has to be Midnight Secret. The active ingredient in Midnight Secret, Hydronoctine, allows the skin to recover at an incredibly accelerated pace. In addition to stimulating micro-circulation and cellular oxygenation, it inhibits free radicals, and instantly moisturizes and decongests. Though there are now several lines claiming the same results, Guerlain was one of the first companies to combine the revitalizing effects of Ginkgo Biloba, Lactic Acid and Vitamin E.

For more information, visit Guerlain's new site at Guerlain , or go to Sephora's online store at Sephora .

Blue Heron's resident make-up artist, Kathleen's favorite ENT is Yves Saint Laurent's Nighttime Revitalizer Creme, a super-hydrating, rich gel-creme that contains camellia oil, lactic acid, vitamin E and loads of humectants. For her everyday skin care routine, she uses YSL's Visible Energie Lotion (oil-free), which has an Enzymo-Magnesium Complex to keep her skin radiant and protected while she dashes from appointment to appointment.

Another favorite ENT product, especially among aestheticians, is Payot's Creme Liposome. As the name suggests, it contains ceramide liposomes with Vitamin E, amino acids that stimulate cell metabolism, and licorice extract to soothe the skin. Payot has a website (still under construction) at Payot Paris and products are also available at the luxury spa Harmonie's online store, e-Harmonie Day Spa .

4. Never, never sleep in your make-up. There are products on the market, like Lancome's Eau de Bienfait, Lierac's Cleansing Water for Face and Eyes, and Shiseido's Pureness Cleansing Water that all work as face cleanser, eye make-up remover and toner - all in one, so it takes very little time and effort. This is especially popular for those who travel extensively. The old skin care adage that you age your skin 7 days each time you sleep in your make-up isn't far off. Nighttime is the best time to pamper your skin since that's when your skin is most able to use active ingredients. So save your face, and your pillow cases - don't skip this before-bed ritual.

Information about Lancome and Shiseido products can be found at their respective websites:

Lancome
Shiseido

Dynamic Duos
This falls under the category of prevention - but takes it a step further. Frequently traveling, stressful jobs and demanding family duties can stretch us to the limit - so it's best to be prepared. If you know that rest time is limited, invest in a day-night combination that can help your skin cope with your hectic schedule. The best bets - pair Vitamin A, AHA or BHA products (best used at night) with a glow-enhancing Vitamin C product for day.

Looking for the right products to battle signs of fatigue is fairly simple - even though there are scores of them out there. The key is to first prevent dehydration, and second, encourage cell turnover. Stimulating circulation and/or chemically exfoliating the surface of the skin (with AHA's, BHA's, vitamin A etc) keep the skin from looking dull and ashy in the morning. Exfoliating products can also do their job more efficiently at night when they don't have to compete with make-up or battle the sun's rays.

Clarins recommends its Energizing Morning Cream and Renew Plus Night Lotion to fill this need. Energizing Morning Cream "wakes up" skin's natural vitality every morning and promotes a clearer, brighter complexion all day long. Vitamins (A, B, C, E, and K), minerals (zinc, manganese, magnesium and calcium), and plant extracts like cashew nut, peach, orange, kiwi, papaya, pineapple and sesame, work together to hydrate and protect the skin, while smoothing and revitalizing the complexion. The clever "airless", automatic-dose jar preserves the vitamins' effectiveness.

Clarins' Renew Plus Night Lotion evens out blotchiness and rough patches, smoothes, softens and firms as it minimizes lines and wrinkles. The primary active ingredient - Pre-Retinol, the most effective and most stable of retinol precursors. This innovative ingredient helps improves cellular renewal and cellular cohesion and stimulates the formation of collagen. Like all Clarins products, Renew-Plus contains highly effective plant extracts:

Wintergreen and papaya to improve cell turnover, kiwi, macadamia nut, and ginseng extracts to protect and energize new skin, olive extract, sugar beet, and silicium to inhibit free radicals, Macadamia nut and Kiwi oils to restore skin's hydrolipidic film.
For more information on Clarins products, visit Clarins Paris

Payot's Creme de Choc Multi-Vitamin Booster and Creme de Reves Regenerating and Relaxing Night Cream. Creme de Choc boosts the skin's energy level with a cocktail of vitamins (A,C and E), Cocoa. Orange, tea extracts, royal jelly and ultra-powerful moisturizing agents. The Creme de Reves meanwhile, has an instant relaxing effect with an anti-stress complex rich in Sandalwood, soothing licorice extract and nourishing ingredients like jojoba oil and shea butter. The aromatherapeutic fragrance is comprised of linden, lavender, artemisia, and jasmine, as well as sandalwood.

Quick Fixes - A Rescue Kit for Tired-looking Skin
Mask Pick-Me-Ups

If you've got a few extra minutes, revitalizing masks are the best way to boost circulation, re-hydrate the skin, and smooth out any rough patches. Unlike their clay counterparts, treatment/moisturizing masks don't need to "set", so they're quicker to use and remove. Here are some of our favorites:

Sisley's Express Flower Gel Hydrating, Toning and Firming Mask
With extracts of lily, iris and sesame, which is rich in essential fatty acids, to improve skin's clarity, while making the texture velvety-soft. Sisley has an extensive web site at Sisley.

Payot's Masque Eclat Lifting (Glowing Lifting Mask)
A satiny-cream masque with wheat protein, that increases suppleness, smooth wrinkles and fine lines, and gives a radiant complexion

M.D. Forte's Skin Rejuvenation Hydra-Masque
A very potent formula containing AHA's, BHA's, Proteolytic Enzyme-Papaya with Vitamin A and E, to refine and intensively hydrate the skin - leaving skin smooth and radiant. Information about MDForte is available at MDForte.

Shiseido's Benefiance Firming Massage Masque
This very soft gel actually goes on like a scrub at first, with little capsules that burst as you massage the skin. These Vitamin E conditioning granules provide gentle exfoliation, refining surface texture. And Bio-Hyaluronic Acid and other humectants hydrate skin, keeping it moist and soft.

YSL's Natural Action Exfoliator (Granule Free)
This beautifully scented, detoxifying gel-creme removes impurities and dull skin cells without abrasive particles. The skin is left soft, smooth and absolutely radiant.

Quick Treatments
First, prep your skin. There are several products that give your skin the beautiful texture and healthy glow that you didn't necessarily wake up with.

YSL's Instant Firming Gel, for example, does so much more than it's name implies. Humectants, glycerin, milk protein, panthenol, jojoba oil, vitamin E, vitamin C go to work instantly to make skin feel perfectly smooth and radiant - the perfect canvas for your make-up.

Guerlain's Divinaura Pure Gold Treatment, also a gel, contains gold particles for instant radiance, plus glycerine, sodium hyaluronate, arnica extract and super-moisturizers to soften and hydrate the skin.

Clarins' ever-popular Beauty Flash Balm uses a filmogenic agent, witch hazel and olive extracts, to tighten and smooth, plus algae to stimulate, milk glycoproteins to moisturize, and bisabolol (from chamomile) to soothe and soften.

For Your Eyes Only
When it comes to specialized eye care, no one pampers peepers like Lierac! Since fatigue does its worst damage to the sensitive, thin skin of the eye area - it's too important a feature to overlook. This French cosmeceutical line actually makes five eye treatments (and two eye-makeup removers) in its Diopti line -
Diopticreme - Rejuvenating Cream for wrinkles around the eyes. Dehydration and stress can make the lines around our eyes seem even more prominent - so Diopticreme is formulated with soothing calendula, and alchemilla, ivy horsetail and prunes to improve elasticity and circulation.

Dioptigel - Reducing Gel for Bags Under Your Eyes - For the bags you couldn't check at the ticket counter, Dioptigel comes to the rescue! Chamomile and other botanical ingredients cool, calm, and decongest the delicate eye area.

Diopticalm Soothing Balm for Eyelids - Another soothing and decongesting treatment formulated for the extremely delicate skin of the eyelids. Since creams and gels tend to very mobile when applied to the eyelids, this treatment is extra-gentle and soothing.

Diopticerne Beauty Care Cream for Dark Circles. This comes in an untinted cream for nighttime use, and a lightly tinted cream for day. Both are formulated with the protective properties of arnica, used for centuries to treat bruises.

Dioptilisse An ultra-firming eye treatment with an instant smoothing effect. This fresh, transparent gel "lifts" the eyelids in just a few minutes to give a more youthful, rested appearance to the eye area. Dual-purpose with both a smoothing and firming effect, it's formulated with aqua-lifting microspheres to plump and lift the skin, Fucogel for moisturizing action, and acetyl for its restructuring and antioxidant properties.

You can find Lierac products in select Sephora and Saks Fifth Avenue stores and at www.sephora.com .

Colour Products
It's the morning after - too late for slathering on a good night cream and gulping down a multivitamin - so what's a girl to do? Thankfully there are loads of skin-treating cosmetic products to rescue your fatigued complexion.

Prescriptive's wildly popular line - appropriately named "Magic", seems designed just for this.

Illuminating Liquid Potion is a luminous fluid with a very subtle, softening shimmer that perfects the appearance of uneven tone and discolorations. Illuminating Cream Potion, the compact version of this (both products are oil-free and have a silicone-based formula), has a richer feel and slightly more coverage. The Liquid Powder, which leaves a slightly lustrous finish, soothes, refreshes and awakens the skin with it's 70% water formula. The last color product in the series is the Cooling Wand, and also contains 70% water. The stick instantly cools, brightens and refreshes the eye area.

Another slightly shimmering powder, Guerlain's Meteorites, does a fantastic job of giving the skin a healthy-looking glow. Yves Saint Laurent's Touche Eclat (Radiant Touch Pen) is the long-standing favorite for fixing up under eye circles or other dark patches on the skin. This light fluid in pen form, isn't a concealer per se, but is actually a translucent highlighter that instantly brightens the complexion - just where you need it - without making the skin look made up.

Prescriptives products are available at larger department stores and by calling Nordstrom's Beauty Hotline at (800) 7 BEAUTY (U.S.) Or visiting Nordstrom Beauty Hotline online at : Nordstrom

Make-up Artist Tricks:
Here are a few tricks straight from the professionals.

Use a navy mascara (deep navy - not bright blue) instead of black or brown mascara. This creates an optical illusion making the whites of the eyes look brighter and less bloodshot.
Don't use a concealer that's too light for your skin - especially under the eyes. This common mistake draws unwanted attention to tired peepers and actually makes under-eye bags look bigger. If necessary, use a yellow color corrector like Lancome's Maquicomplet in "Correcteur" under a concealer that closely matches your skin tone.
Use a cream blusher or bronzer (sparingly) to add a glow to cheekbones, temples, bridge of nose and chin. The cream texture is especially important if lack of sleep has made your complexion dehydrated.
Don't over-powder your skin. With a brush and loose powder, lightly apply just enough powder to set your foundation. Heavy powder can make skin that's prone to dehydration look rough and crepe-y.

And remember to get your beauty sleep whenever you can!