Best Way to Transform Yourself with Beauty Aids

Why not transform yourself with the help of a few tricks of the trade? I’m not talking about having to face the surgeon’s knife, but clever little beauty-enhancing accoutrements. Here’s the low-down on the latest innovations, together with some of the beauty industry’s best-kept secrets.

Having waged war on your wrinkles, it’s now time to thicken, lengthen and fill out that sparse stubble that you call eyelashes with a few false lashes. The latest, individual lashes stay put, which means that there’s no risk of one landing in your drink! Add one or two, or a little cluster of them to the outer corner of your upper eyelids. For serious fakers – and all those who are unhappy with their eye colour – you can have those dazzling-green or deep-pool-blue eyes you’ve always yearned for: purchase either tinted disposable contact lenses or the type that you simply remove at night.

If you want to wake up without having to look bare-faced or free of make-up splodges all over the pillow, the latest advanced techniques in semi-permanent make-up mean that you can have naturally rosy lips, a fuller-looking lash line and more defined eyebrows that stay that way for up to five years. Using coloured pigments, this form of tattooing requires several treatments, which allows for a gradual build-up. If you don’t like the results, a good therapist should be equipped with a solution that removes the pigment.

If you weren’t lucky enough to be born with a Cindy Crawford beauty spot, you can add a sensual beauty mark yourself by either drawing one with a brown eyeliner pencil, or applying one of the stick-on types from a beauty-mark kit such as Temptu’s.

Moving swiftly on to your body: if your bust resembles little more than bee stings, try slipping a pair of breast-enhancing gel pads into your bra. If you don’t want to run the risk of having what others thought were your god-given boobs land on the dance floor, shop around for a booster bra, such as the Magic Bra, which comes ready-stuffed with gel pads. If you want to go braless, a good trick for creating pert breasts is to stick tape underneath them or to use purpose-made sticky pads. For those who are well endowed yet still lack a pneumatic, Pamela Anderson-style cleavage, invest in a cleavage-enhancing push­up bra, such as the Wonderbra.

Talking of pushing up, perhaps gravity is pulling your bottom a little too far south. If so, try bottom-sculpting knickers for a derriere to be proud of. Remaining on the underwear front, there are also control knickers that will give you a nipped-in waist while simultaneously flattening your tummy with their reinforced panels. Legs can be moulded into shape with slimming tights (and there’s an added bonus: allegedly they improve circulation and reduce cellulite, too).

Turn yourself into an art form with body art. A tattoo is too permanent a form of body art for most people, but you can now opt for more temporary designs using henna and found in the DIY kits available.

Now don’t go thinking that you can buy all these ingenious beauty innovations and then rest on your laurels. Work at looking after yourself or your partner will be in for a terrific shock when he or she sees you minus all your beauty aids!