A veteran magazine beauty editor/writer (and a member of the 40+ club), Genevieve Monsma created MediumBlonde to help Gen Xers and Baby Boomers age the way they want.
All in Hair
I exfoliated my scalp. Yes, my scalp. I recently wrote a piece for a national magazine on scalp skin health, which got me thinking how most of us spend a lot of time and money exfoliating our aging faces, but few (next to none?) do the same for the scalp…which is also aging skin.
When we were first dating, my husband said I worked the word exfoliation into almost every conversation. I was a new beauty editor at the time and obsessed with peels, scrubs, microdermabrasion, retinoids, derma-planing, you name it. Anything that cleared out clogs and sloughed off old skin. I believed it helped with breakouts, fine lines, sun spots, calluses, even just tired, hungover skin (this was my twenties, after all). And I still believe this—probably more so now that I’m nearly 46, and my skin cells aren’t turning over nearly as quickly or efficiently as they did twenty years ago. So, when I have a day off (rare; freelancing life means deadlines are always looming), I love nothing more than to do a head-to-toe deep exfoliation.
It’s been six, not four, weeks since my last Lash Boost update. I stretched the time between posts in hopes I would have some notable changes to report. So, here goes…
I wrote about the hydrating and scalp-nourishing benefits of coconut oil a few weeks ago. But today, as I was researching another magazine story, yet another expert (this time, a dermatologist who specializes in disorders of the scalp) said coconut oil may also help with dandruff, seborrheic dermatitis and get this, a greasy scalp. What can't this oil do?
I’m researching a hair story for a national magazine, and the experts I’ve been interviewing keep waxing poetic on the healthy-hair benefits of coconut oil. (To clarify, they’re not advocating you eat food cooked in coconut oil, though that’s not a bad idea. Rather, most are suggesting you slather it on like a VO5 hot oil treatment.) My stylist Nunzio Saviano has been touting the benefits of coconut oil for a few years, so its accolades are not new(s) to me. But, given that several experts offered up coconut oil as a “surprising” source of good-hair health, it seems word is not getting out...
I just passed the twelve-week mark, and have seriously l-o-n-g lashes, corner to corner. As I noted at the eight-week mark, I was hoping another month of Lash Boost use would bring improved density.
Two weeks ago, I had by my brows shaped by arch expert Kristie Streicher. Here are the products she recommended (and/or used on me), many of which I’d never have thought to try on my own. And after two decades in the beauty business, that's saying something.
I had a fascinating chat with brow guru Kristie Streicher (clients include Emily Blunt and Mandy Moore) on my recent trip with Mary Kay to Blackberry Farm. I’ve assumed for years that my thin(ning) brows were the result of DNA. So, I’ve become fairly adept at using a pencil to fill in sparse spots—and have come to (mostly) accept that anemic arches are just one of my lots in life. Turns out, this may be wrong.
In the past week, I’ve been to New York City, Greenwich, Bronxville, Jersey, and Tennessee. All this traveling did prevent me from posting—but not from stockpiling new beauty and health info. My trip to the East Coast was peppered with breakfasts, lunches and cocktails with editors and publicists (and I took copious notes). Then Mary Kay took me—and about two dozen other beauty editors—to Blackberry Farm outside of Knoxville to showcase their new spring and summer launches. I’ll be weaving info from this weeklong trip into posts for weeks to come, but here, to start, are five (surprising!) tips and tricks I picked up along the way.
As part of a regular series, I’ll be asking inspiring, in-the-know women (all 40+, of course) to share their best tips and favorite products. The point? As always, to find out what works. This week's beauty insider: Jane Park, CEO and Founder of Julep
I have been using the Évolis Reverse Activator for about a month now. It is worth noting that I did not stop using minoxidil because Maria Halasz, Évolis' CEO, said that could cause shedding for a few weeks, making it hard to properly review Évolis. So I’ve been applying a one-two punch of minoxidil topped with the Evolis treatment twice daily, and although it is still early days, I do have new hair growth. For sure.
As part of a regular series, I’ll be asking inspiring, in-the-know women (all 40+, of course) to share their best tips and favorite products. The point? As always, to find out what works. This week's beauty insider: Naomi Whittel, 43, founder of Reserveage Nutrition and current CEO of Twinlab
When I first started working as a beauty editor, I butchered the pronunciation of more than one French beauty brand. My friend and fellow beauty editor, Didi, practically collapsed on the floor when I told her I was on my way to a Guh-vin-chee press launch (I was trying to say Givenchy, which Didi, through hysterics, explained is actually Ghee-von-shee). I’ve still not lived that one down. But I know I'm not the only one who never took high school French (or Italian or Japanese), and who has struggled to sound out fancy, foreign-sounding beauty brand names.
If you've got fine, limp or thinning hair—or you just crave more body and volume, you should not live another day without Living Proof’s Full Dry Volume Blast.
If every anti-aging product on the market really did what it claimed, we'd all look 18. And while there are many effective products that help make the most of our looks as we age (and I, for one, like the way I look better at 45 than I did at 18), there are also many that are nothing but snake oil. Thus, I've created this series, Spend or Skip?, in which I will apply my twenty years as a beauty guinea pig to objectively road-test and review buzz-generating, anti-aging products that everyone's talking about. The mission: to help you decide whether to buy—or bypass—the latest fountain of youth.
