From the Splendicity community, comes this week’s best in Beauty, Fashion and Shopping.

BEAUTY
The Fragrance Fanatic tells you some great ways to Wear Your Fragrance.

Aging Fabulous introduces us to Boots No7 Protect & Perfect Body Serum.

Beauty Banter asks celebrity makeup artists how to do a white eyelid right… must-have application tips and products for a fierce, summer white eye!

A Touch of Blusher looks at Dior’s fall 2008 makeup collection.

The Scented Life is excited to hear that Justin Timberlake will be the face of Givenchy’s new cologne, Play.

15 Minute Beauty Fanatic finally finds a great concealer that will cover up her undereye area all day! It’s Tarte’s The Eraser!

Beautiful Makeup Search picks out some products from the Shu Uemura 25th Boutique Birthday collection.

Steeping Beauty Gets Smart with Peter Thomas Roth’s Un-Wrinkle Pressed Powder!

FASHION
Wardrobe Oxygen offers some suggestions to give a modern and youthful look to your makeup routine.

The Well-Heeled Society shows you a worthwhile shoe investment, available in a spectrum of colors from Ralph Lauren.

She Knows Best is glad to report that David Arquette has redeemed himself.

Style Tots is giving away a Tutu from Prissy Poofs.

Snarkstress marvels that the potentially future First Lady, Michelle Obama, is an off-the-rack shopper - and is creating quite a frenzy in the process.

The Fashionable Kiffen asks “Denim or Not?”

SHOPPING
Style It Less offers up an Under $100 Look with a belted tunic, jeans and a Christian Louboutin Pumps replica.

Teen Style Lounge invites you to get your cute on with this summery (and cheap!) sundress and accessories outfit from Forever 21.

Have a splendid weekend!

Share This

I notice that two good review papers on the topic of stem cells, stem cell niches and aging are presently freely available in the latest Aging Cell. Journal publishers tend to put out these free full text promotions for a limited time, so take a look while the looking is there.

Stem Cell Review Series: Aging of the skeletal muscle stem cell niche

Declining stem cell function during aging contributes to impaired tissue function. Muscle-specific stem cells ('satellite cells') are responsible for generating new muscle in response to injury in the adult. However, aged muscle displays a significant reduction in regenerative abilities and an increased susceptibility to age-related pathologies. This review describes components of the satellite cell niche and addresses how age-related changes in these components impinge on satellite cell function.

You can find more about satellite cells and the aging stem cell niche back in the Fight Aging! archives as well. Just follow those links.

Stem Cell Review Series: Regulating highly potent stem cells in aging: environmental influences on plasticity

Significant advances in the past decade have revealed that a large number of highly plastic stem cells are maintained in humans through adulthood and are present even in older adults. These findings are notable in light of the reduced capacity for repair and regeneration in older tissues. The apparent dichotomy can be reconciled through an appreciation of the age-associated changes in the microenvironmental pathways that govern adult stem cell plasticity and differentiation patterns.

As this second paper illustrates, the weight of evidence is shifting to the view that we are packed full of functional stem cells even as we age. These stem cell populations are shut down by changes in biochemical signals and systems, possibly due to accumulated damage that causes aging and malfunction, possibly as an evolved defense against the increasing likelihood of cancer in old tissue. As cancer medicine becomes increasingly sophisticated, safe and effective, learning the signals to set our stem cells back to work begins to look like a plausible near term strategy for enhancing longevity.

The product development team over at L’Oreal has stepped it up a notch. Their new-ish line of Skin Genesis products are amazing. When I saw that their main ingredient mix of Pro-Xylane + Hyaluronic work together to help the skin to strengthen as well brighten and tighten, I knew I needed them.

I have been using the L’Oreal Skin Genesis Multi-Layer Cell Strengthening Daily Treatment together with the Multi-Layer Cell Strengthening Daily Moisturizer for a few weeks now. My initial reaction - I am impressed.

My main concern I have with my face, well amongst the fine lines, is brightening. I strive for an overall even skin tone, which I have never had. And by using skin brightening products, I sometimes see results. I can say that I have not seen such as quick of an improvement, than I have with these two products. I think the results are so great as these products work layer upon layer, building deep into the skin - not just on the surface.

Here is more about this multi-layer cell strengthening system and ingredients:

L’Oreal Research has developed patented Pro - Xylane™, a superior naturally - derived molecule so small it can penetrate skin’s surface layers.  Combined with Hyaluronic Spheres, this complex boosts cell activity layer by layer to strengthen skin.

Pro - Xylane™: A Unique Ingredient

• 100% naturally - derived from an environmentally friendly process called “Green Chemistry”
• Bio - assimilable, bio - degradable
• Delivered in an airless pump to protect its purity.

Skin Strengthening Benefits

• Builds strength deep within skin’s surface.  Reinforces skin’s matrix to add fullness, improve elasticity and renew skin’s evenness from within.
• Strengthens between skin’s layers.  Helps promote healthy collagen production to fortify skin’s structure and support*.
• Smoothes the surface layer.  Boosts cellular renewal to help erase fine lines, and instantly hydrates for more even, light - reflective skin.

Both of the serum and moisturizer have a light weight feel to them, and spread easily onto skin. They are both lightly fragranced and come in fantastic airless pumps. I use only one pump of the serum for my face and neck, but two or sometimes three pumps of the moisturizer, depending on how fry I feel. The moisturizer even seems to have a bit of iridescence to it - to instantly brighten while it works deep.

I will continue to use these products for sure. And the price and availability of L’Oreal products are a great plus as well. The Daily Treatment Serum and Daily Moisturizer both sell for $19.99 and sell nationwide at major drugstores. Actually, next time Ii am in CVS, I plan to pick up the Eye Serum as I have heard raves about that one before.

To read about how other users feel about the Skin Genesis products from L’Oreal, head on over on Total Beauty.

image’s credit: L’Oreal

Share This

Today’s link is to one of our very own in the Beauty & Style Channel. As Indie Style File is still our Blog of the Month, I figured that I would link back to this wonderful blog one more time before the month was over.

image (c) Teri Cosenzi

Share This

A timely piece in Wired today:

Gandhi once said, describing his critics, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

After declaring, essentially out of nowhere, that he had a program to end the disease of aging, renegade biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey knows how the first three steps of Gandhi's progression feel. Now he's focused on the fourth.

"I've been at Gandhi stage three for maybe a couple of years," de Grey said. "If you're trying to make waves, certainly in science, there's a lot of people who are going to have insufficient vision to bother to understand what you're trying to say."

This weekend, his organization, The Methuselah Foundation, is sponsoring its first U.S. conference on the emerging interdisciplinary field that de Grey has helped kick start. (Its first day, Friday, will be free and open to the public.) The conference, Aging: The Disease - The Cure - The Implications, held at UCLA, is an indication of how far de Grey has come in mainstreaming his ideas.

The Methuselah Foundation's research is beginning to produce results:

In research that will first be presented on Friday at the conference, Methuselah-funded scientists will demonstrate a proof-of-concept experiment for using bacterial enzymes to fight atherosclerosis, or the hardening of the arteries. That's an idea that de Grey has been pushing for years.

The signs continue to be promising for the Methuselah Foundation to be the boulder that leads the avalanche, gathering legitimacy and researchers to the task of repairing aging at an accelerating rate. Those folk who helped to get this initiative off the ground back in 2004 should be feeling pretty pleased right about now.