LOVE YOUR CHEST!

We’ve all heard about our docollette (day-col-ette-eh,) which is really just a fancy/genteel-sounding word for your chest, and how we should take care of it as we would our face. Annoyingly I haven’t taken care of mine as much as my dermatologist would have liked – despite the botox, her forehead managed to wrinkle into a semi- frown when she caught sight of it under those awful magnifying lights they use.

“Yes – I know, extensive sun damage,” I quickly said before she could. Unfortunately I only started looking after my decollete when I turned 4o and before that I would happily bake it in the sun, as I do like to have a bronzed decollete. Why, you might well ask, did I not use self-tanner? Coming from the UK, where every rare ray of sun is to be treasured, I spent my first few years in Los Angeles just loving the fact that I could get color on my ghostly white skin, year-around. Moreover, I spent most of my teens baking my skin like a roast chicken  – literally we’d slather ourselves with olive oil and lie on sheets of aluminum foil, whenever we went on vacation.

Apparently the biggest give-away of a woman’s age is her chest and her hands, and my dermatologist did say that I’m not alone with the sun damage-on-the-chest thing. She said that this is one of the main areas of the body that she lasers because it’s one of the few things that really works in getting rid of the deeper damage. Lovely! So now I might have to shell out serious dollars for all those years of being just plain silly, and way too vain. There are, however, many steps that you can take if you don’t want to go the expensive laser route.

The solution is to look after my chest from now on, as much as I look after my face. Being the natural skin care product junkie that I am, this won’t be hard, although one of the drawbacks is that you use double the amount of product. Do we need different products for our neck and chest? I don’t believe so. Skin is skin and althougth the skin on your neck may be a bit thinner than that of your face, the products do the job regardless. I think products that “target” a particular area like your neck, can be a waste of money. So here are my new-found neck/chest remedies:

1. Exfoliate like crazy: I need to exfoliate my chest as much as I do my face. A gentle everyday exfoliating product is the best. I like The Golden Grain Gommage by Arcona, and the One Love “Brand New Day”. I also use an exfoliating body cloth all over my body, and use it gently on my chest area.

2. Fruit Acid Peel: This is really important for my chest because of the sun damage. I either make the wonder AHA Mask from my book Do It Gorgeoulsy, or if you want something less messy, but more expensive, I recommend The Raspberry Resurfacing Peel by Arcona.

3. Vitamin C Serum: I highly recommend making the Vitamin C Serum from Do It Gorgeously. It’s inexpensive enough to slather over your chest morning and night, and it will help repair the damage.

4.Moisturize: I recommend moisturizing with whatever moisturizer you are using on your face. I also recommend adding a few drops of cold-pressed avocado oil to your moisturizer, as this plant oil is excellent for damaged, dry and mature skin. Try making your own moisturizers from Do It Gorgeously, or a great all-round cream is the Age-Defying Cream with Sea Buckthorn from Tilvee.

5. SUNSCREEN: When they say apply sunscreen every two hours, you really need to, especially on your chest and hands. Our faces tend to be more protected as many of use use foundations which have an SPF on top of our sunscreens and also wear a hat in the sun. Even my wide-brimmed hats don’t always shade my chest, so I need to slather the SPF on regularly. I love Verabella Sunscreen, Solar Rx, and Badger – all of which are non-toxic, offer great protection, and won’t leave your chest greasy and white. Although these sunscreens are naturally water-resistant, I’d still apply them every two hours.

So I’m on a mission to get my decollete skin in as good shape as my facial skin. I’ll let you know how it goes – oh and all of the above should be done on the hands and forearms too – Phew – talk about high maintenance!