Product Description

Turning forty, fifty, or sixty is not about getting older, it's about becoming ageless . . .

Renowned style expert and fashion consultant Christine Schwab sees aging as an opportunity to revitalize your style and enliven your attitude. In her frank, opinionated, and provocative style, she writes the book that defies many of the fashion and beauty industry philosophies.

Now more than ever, women have the ability to look and feel fresh, chic, and fabulous at any age, simply by understanding age maintenance. Schwab is adamant that with all this new ageless information and technology, it is imperative to be informed about what works and what does not..

In this honest and empowering book, she offers the first open-minded approach to style, beauty, health, and well-being that will help every forty-plus woman achieve a classic look while maintaining her edge and personality.

A personal stylist and support group within a book, The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style addresses every aspect of aging, from hair and makeup to sex and family life. Straightforward and candid, Schwab even embraces once taboo subjects, offering the lowdown from leading doctors and surgeons on injectable skin treatments, cosmetic surgery and dentistry, and hormone replace-ment therapy. Accompanying her eye-opening advice are dozens of fun, revealing photographs—including celebrity profiles, woman-on-the-street snapshots, stunning professional photography, and even personal photographs of Schwab herself—that demonstrate style disasters (sleeveless tops, head-to-toe denim, and more), and dazzling triumphs.

The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style holds the ultimate insider's secrets to a beautiful, sexy, and healthy life after forty. An essential book for the modern "grown-up girl," it is sure to dramatically rejuvenate the already-stylish, the aspiring-to-be-stylish, and the simply style-challenged woman in her prime.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #511298 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-01
• Released on: 2006-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

About the Author
Christine Schwab is one of the world's leading lifestyle and fashion reporters. She has appeared on Today, Entertainment Tonight, Oprah, NBC Nightly News, CNBC, E!, and Fox, and is a regular contributor to Live with Regis and Kelly. She has also been a spokesperson for many of the country's leading fashion and beauty companies, including Estee Lauder, Revlon, LensCrafters, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and more. She lives in Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, California, with her husband, Shelly.

Customer Reviews

Guide To Feeling Bad About Yourself
If you want to find lots of reasons why your body is inadequate, this is just the book for you. This book is NOT about maintenance! Maintenance would cover topics like skin care, exercise, hydration, sleeping well, etc. This book is about how disgusting you will look as you age; the author believes that women become frumpier, dumpier, and lumpier the older they get.

The advice on skin care is: don't get any sun. If you already have, too late honey! Facial expressions can lead to wrinkles over time, so get through every day as deadpan as possible. Sleeping? Lying on your side can leave "creases" from your pillow "even with silk sheets". If you must sleep, do it on your back. (She admits it is hard to sleep this way.)

The advice on just about everything else: cover it up. Under no circumstances should you wear anything that shows more than two inches of skin anywhere. This includes your neck; keep in covered with a scarf, even in summer. Shorts? Don't wear them, even in exercise, because you will have a visible panty line. Her advice for this is to wear thong underwear. Ouch! During a workout? Has she ever actually tried that?

In fact, if you must have parts of your body exposed, for instance during love-making, she recommends keeping the light turned off.

Fully half of the book is advice about what kinds of plastic surgery you will need, along with many other cosmetic dermatological procedures. For instance, to "plump up" your lips, you can have collagen injected into them, after which the surgeon sticks his fingers into your mouth to "move the silicon into the correct position - imagine silly putty!"

I kept waiting for her to mention the #1 most important factor in a gracefully-aged appearance: genetics. The word is not mentioned. The idea seems to be that if you are genetically prone to wrinkles, extra weight around the middle, or big ankles, either have surgery or hide all your "flaws". In fact the author is obsessed with how flawed women's bodies are in general.

If you are convinced that everyone in the world is looking at you and will actually care if you have veins in your feet, there is some good advice here.

For those of us who have more to do during the day than constantly touching up our makeup between dashes to the botox clinic, read just about anything except this.

My advice to the author would be to spend some of that surgery money on a good therapist who could help her find out why she thinks self-worth depends on how few wrinkles you have on your face.

Guide to hiding your "old" self
I agree with the reviewers who were disappointed in this book. While it's beautifully presented and there were a few excellent fashion tips for "women of a certain age," there were so many "DON'Ts" that I ended up feeling worse about my aging body, even though I am not overweight and enjoy nice clothes. For starters, unless your feet and arms are model perfect, you are instructed not to wear open toed shoes, sandals, or sleeveless tops. If your neck is droopy, conceal it under a scarf. (Should I hide in the house all summer, or sweat it out in "cover-up" clothes and shoes...?)

Secondly, if the crisply tailored "working gal" look isn't your thing, then this book probably isn't for you. There is little room here for real personal style, unusual accessories, or free-spirited artistic expression. Yes, I also love white shirts, tailored pants and jackets, and other classics -- which are emphasized in this book. But is wearing a uniform what it's really all about? And yes, I know I don't look good in short skirts and shorts -- so I usually avoid them. Yet I don't think aging means I have to dress like everyone else. Where's the fun and freedom of personal style?

Apparently the Dove campaign for real beauty and pro-aging hasn't hit the fashion world yet, because this is not the only book or magazine that promotes such limited fashion options for the older woman. Most of us over 45 are still feeling as though we will never measure up to Madison Avenue perfection, and that we have a lot to cover up and be ashamed of. What a shame.

Wow! Maybe I'm scary!
I really looked forward to ordering this book after reading the blurb about it & couldn't wait to read it when it arrived. The author is absolutely gorgeous & looks fabulous in the pictures, but after reading it I felt as though it was intended for a much older person than myself (I'm in my 40"s). She essentially says not to wear a bathing suit unless you're actually going to swim, hide all skin as it's aged & crepey, cover up - you're not your daughter! In checking to see what part of the country she's from I discovered she lives in California like me,where a lot of the women are in very good shape without horrible skin & hopefully look very attractive showing a little skin somewhere. While
I agree that 40 plus women should not attempt to look 20, the book made me feel as if I had passed the chronological point of being able to step out of my home unless discreetly covered basically everywhere & I truly hope that isn't the case! I actually ran into the bathroom while reading this, stripped down & looked at my skin & muscle tone, then consulted my teenage daughter on whether my look was inappropriate! I think that for some women this book will be enabling, showing them how to look attractive without being tarty, but if you've done the maintenance, this book will make you feel as if you're 330!