Do My Lips Make Me Look Like a Duck?

When I was 16 I had a French beauty mentor who used to say, "We live in profile." As  I integrated this concept into my make up application it revolutionized my entire aesthetic regard. I realized it meant so much more than checking your jawline for foundation lines.

"We live in profile" means familiarizing yourself with the geography of your face and seeing your actual présentation through others' eyes.   It can be both unnerving and consoling, but it is always dead-on accurate.

Staying aware of your profile is an active art, for knowing your changing face helps you intelligently converse with your physician your aesthetic desires.  This applies to surgery but even more importantly to soft sculpturing with the multitudinous fillers that impart volume and lift to the face.

But here is the fork in the road, as Frost said, and I, like Robert,  am adamant about taking the one lest traveled.  Injectable errors abound and I must conclude it is a dual misstep. A prodigious pout on an over forty face could be nature but truth lies in the profile.  And while a woman who demands such volume could take heed from the advice of my mentor,  I am of the opinion her physician should have his license removed for lack of aesthetic judgement.

Madame X by John Singer Sargent

The woman who chooses  growing old gracefully doesn't have to deny herself all aesthetic tricks.  A little nip, a bit of a tuck, a needle artfully placed now and again can ease one into an admirer's memories without any benchmarks of abrupt change.  But diving into the fountain of youth over and over thinking one is a perfect plum of eternal pleasure might find much to her shock, that upon profile view, she is just another prune.

Ah Dears, I'm approaching another birthday and it  always makes me feel a little nostalgic about my vanity.  What I really want to say to you as we embark upon a new year is this:

Spending a bit of time getting to know your face in profile is time profitably spent.  Understanding what you are dealing with is where good make up application begins.  From that vantage point you can then learn how to minimize imperfections and accentuate your best features, or alternately, maximize society's perception of imperfection., one of my favorite slants on beauty.  Here I am thinking of John Singer Sargent's magnificent Madame X.

Clearly, différent is more an imposing beauty than cute, pretty or beautiful and the difference is most pronounced in the lift of the chin, the erect shoulders, the impervious attitude.  That's what I call a great beauty . . . and one hell of a broad.