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Heather Weston photo courtesy Cindy Joseph
Cindy Joseph doesn't believe in hiding one's age and letting the fashion industry dictate how one should look or feel about oneself.
By Nadine Kam
In the world of cosmetics, youth sells. Every day, new products appear purporting to address every baby-boomer desire. Creams and serums promise anti-aging, tightening, lifting and spot-fading formulations.
The message is clear: You are not OK unless you retain the complexion, or perfection, of a 20-year-old.
Rising above the harangue is Cindy Joseph, one of the few women who will tell you it's perfectly fine to look your age and has no qualms about sharing her age at 60.
"There's not a woman who doesn't want to look younger than she is because we're told that as we age, our value goes down. The graph of life we're given is a triangle," she said, indicating a peak in the middle and a long slope down, which she deems "archaic." The real graph should be a "V," she said, where life starts at a point and expands, growing richer and fuller.
She should know. Joseph enjoyed a long career as a makeup artist before, at age 49, becoming a model herself. She was approached on the street by a casting agent to pose for Dolce & Gabbana, photographed by Steven Meisel.
If anyone had invited Joseph to model 30 to 35 years ago, she would have laughed her head off. She's a natural beauty, for sure, but as a high-fashion makeup artist at the time, she knew she didn't quite measure up to her clientele, the generation of supermodels that included Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford.
But at 49, she had a different kind of beauty, complete with character lines and a silvery mane that she refuses to color for any job. Her face has appeared in beauty campaigns for Olay, Elizabeth Arden and Aveda, and she's graced magazine covers ranging from Real Simple to Glamour.
During her makeup artist career, she was a proponent of the natural look and recently added CEO to her list of accomplishments, having developed a simple line of cosmetics designed not to mask, hide or correct but simply to enhance a woman's natural beauty.
BOOM! By Cindy Joseph is a set of three multi-use products that should be able to replace a drawerful of cosmetics. In Joseph's eyes, these are all any woman needs to head out the door looking naturally beautiful. There's BOOMSTICK COLOR for rosiness, BOOMSTICK GLIMMER to highlight with a pearly sheen, and BOOMSTICK GLO to add moisture wherever it's needed.
"They don't hide anything, they're not concealers. They just make you look alive," she said during a recent Honolulu visit that included checking in with Honey Girl Organics, which supplies the emollient organic bee propolis for BOOMSTICK GLO and her new BOOMSILK body moisturizer, which launched on Black Friday. She said she wasn't planning to add to her line, preferring to help women simplify their lives, but fans keep requesting more products.
Any one of her BOOMSTICKs ($24 each or $68 for the set) can be applied to the lips, eyes, cheekbones or decolleté for a paraben- and phthalate-free dose of color and moisture.
"It's very forgiving," she said.
BOOMSILK moisturizer protects, heals and nurtures the entire face and body. It's handmade by beekeepers in Hawaii, formulated with beneficial organic ingredients: organic extra virgin olive oil, organic beeswax, organic propolis, organic pollen, organic honey and Vitamin E.
In coming up with her line, Joseph said she observed the women she worked on over the years, from top models to actresses such as Uma Thurman and Susan Sarandon. "I'd study their faces and tried to figure out just what made them extra beautiful when they were in a particularly good mood. That's when they glowed."
Her products mark her attempt to package that glow so that by wearing her products, no one will suspect cosmetic enhancement, only that one is flushed from a light workout or good laugh.
"All facial structure is good as it is and maybe you just want to enhance or accentuate what you have," she said. "It's sad that people resort to Botox or surgery to look younger, at younger ages. If we stop concerning ourselves with age, maybe our country can start behaving like other countries that value the contributions and wisdom of their elders."
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BOOM! by Cindy Joseph line is available at www.BoombyCindyJoseph.com.
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