30 Days to 10 years younger--10 minute tips. Tip 23: Send in the clones

Every time I try to rejuvenate my look, I run into a problem that can end up paralyzing me. And paralysis = not making changes = right back where I started.

The problem is fear of dressing too young. And it manifests itself not by the time-honored query "does this dress make me look fat?" but "is this too young for me?"

If this has never crossed your mind, you're dressing too conservatively. If you want to look and feel young, you're going to have to take some risks. Sure you can stay safe and secure in your cashmere twin sets and gray flannel trousers. You won't offend anyone. But you'll be dressing like an old lady. I say put down the Talbots catalog and live a little.



The question is how young can you go? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you can easily dress 10 to 15 years younger than your chronological age. Not only will nobody be offended, they'll think you're stylish as hell.

Now, the question is, what's the easiest way of dressing 10 to 15 years younger? Easy. Find a celebrity whose style you admire and copy her.



I'd love to pretend to be a style guru like many of the bloggers I read, but I'm really more of a makeup and skin care person. When it comes to clothes, I've been examining, dissecting, and stealing the brainy style ideas of other, better-dressed women since I was a sophomore in high school.


So pick a celebrity who's the right age--10 to 15 years younger--and use her as your style guru. I don't mean run out and buy what she buys; nobody can afford that except another celebrity. But examine her outfits and incorporate aspects of her style into your own.

Say hello to Jennifer, my celebrity style crush. Now, I don't look like her at all. I lack her golden tan, blonde hair, banging bod and hunky ex-husband. But her simple, pared down style really appeals to me. I admire and respect celebrities like Chloe Sevigny and Bjork, but they're too extreme for me. Jennifer Aniston is perfect. She goes bare and glamorous at night, and always looks wonderful on the red carpet. But it's her day time outfits I like best.


So that's my advice. Find a celebrity who's a good 10 years younger, and steal as many style pointers as you can from her. I'm generous, so I'll even let you use Jennifer.


After all, I'm probably not the only woman who spots something cute in a store and wonders WWJD?

30 Days to 10 years younger--10 minute tips. Tip 20: Think like a decorator

A decorator once said that if you walk into a house and look around, you can tell how old the owners are.

I find the whole idea depressing, because I suspect that my house is telling the world I'm 80.

But let's explore the idea and apply it to clothes. Can people tell your age from your clothes? I think they can.

Young people just starting out stay current because current is all they know. If my daughter decided to buy a white t-shirt, a jean skirt, and a cardigan, she'd end up getting something like this:

Fitted T-shirt from Forever XXI

Jean skirt from The Gap

Ruffled-edged tie-front sleeveless cardigan from Forever XXI

Meanwhile, my mother would end up with stuff like this:

T-shirt from Lands End

Chambray skirt from Vermont Country Store

Cardigan from Lands End

Now, when you think about it, nothing says a cardigan has to be a plain, button-up, long-sleeved sweater. Or that a jean skirt has to graze the top of your ankles. Or that a t-shirt has to be boxy.

And certainly nothing says you have to wear the old lady stuff from head to toe.

So for today, do a youth inventory of your clothes. Figure out the likely demographic for each piece you're wearing. See if you can't tweak your look a little. (And include your accessories! The right shoes, bag, and jewelry can shave off a lot of years.)

When every day is a bad hair day

OK, right away I will mention that I haven't undergone chemo, and whining about bad hair seems pretty insensitive when half the women I know are going around with scarves on their heads (instead of around their necks where I'm sure they would much rather be wearing them, if at all.)

But I'm going to whine about my hair anyway, because at the rate things are going, I'll be wearing scarves on my head sooner or later. I mean, it just seems inevitable at this point. Doesn't it? Almost like everyone's fifteen minutes of fame?

So on to the burning issue of my hair and why it drives me crazy.

Because I am not as young as I used to be (by the way, dear Reader, I can tell without looking--call me psychic--that neither are you--but I digress) my hair is dyed. Because it is dyed, it is fried. (Hellooooooo Dr. Seuss!)

So what I have is a mess of medium chestnut brown hair with some of it highlighted lighter (so as to escape that "I poured a bottle of brown shoe polish on my head" look) and some of it low-lighted darker. My hair dyer assures me this adds "depth and a look of extra fullness," but we're all going to have to take her word for it. It's possible, of course, that this depth and fullness is going on behind my back where I can't see.

So anyway. I'm sitting here with it wet, and I can feel it drying into little wiggly frizzles. Now pre-chemicals, my hair was as thick and straight as a horse's tail. So I breezed through the 70s and 80s pretty much wearing it long and straight or short and bobbed. I bought a can of mousse, developed a faint competence with the blow dryer, and all was well.

Now, however, those choppy layers are in style. And I hereby curse whoever the hell it was who did that to Meg Ryan in the first place. Also the person who did that to Jennifer Anniston the first time around. Because now we all have all these damned layers cut into our hair, and I, at least, have no idea what to do with them.

So for the moment I have two kinds of hair: the envy-producing professionally- colored and blown-out just-left-the-salon high-maintenance look. And the starting-to-show roots, madly frizzy, ineptly-blown-out-at-home look.

Unfortunately, since I loathe beauty salons and only go when things have gotten really, really bad, the ratio of the first to the latter is about 1 in 60.

Speaking of which, I had better go apply some product and blow my hair out now, or I will spend the rest of the day cringeing every time I pass a mirror. I've truly enjoyed ranting, but I have my public to consider.

-P.