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My new best friend

2nd March 2007 by Helena 10 Comments  

How often have you been to a hairdresser’s and had access to your emails? Well, New York is ideal if you’re an e-mail addict (see below blog). Here I am writing this blog from the comfort of my seat in the exclusive Rodolfo Valentin salon on Madison Avenue while my roots are being seen to by Mayer from Colombia. Rodolfo, the great man himself, has promised me some of his famous hair infusions as a welcome present.

“I am not responsible for any sexual abuse,” he tells me very seriously in his husky Argentinian accent. “If they grab you in the street afterwards, it’s your problem.”

Another hard day at the office.

Dr LookGoodI am here to research the anti-ageing book. My new best friend is the top cosmetic dermatologist Steven Victor, conveniently also located on Madison Avenue. He is known as Dr LookGood and his clients include Fergie, Jasper Conran, Jane Seymour, Sharon Osborne and soon-to-be moi. On Saturday I am going back to him for a procedure I can’t disclose now but which doesn’t involve any scalpels. I’ll keep you posted on progress. This is a man who revels in making women look good. He loves his job and is always coming up with new and less painful procedures.

While I am there I meet a sprightly 72-year-old who has just had one of his new lunch-time face-lifts. That’s not actually what he calls it, he has yet to name it, but it takes about an hour and involves small incisions in front of and behind the ear that lift the face and the neck. The patient is awake throughout and this particular one is off to a party tomorrow night. She is thrilled.
“You have to see the neck,” she says, from behind a white elasticated bandage. “it’s incredible.” Nora Ephron take note.

I ask Dr Steven who women are doing all this stuff for.

“They do it for other women,” he tells me. “It’s just like a man buying a new car and showing it off to his friends.”

Tomorrow I am off to see a New York University professor who is going to tell me how to keep my brain young. I’ve a feeling the lunch-time face-lift might be a lot easier. It’s certainly a lot quicker.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Style, Women, blog --> Tagged With: friend

10 thoughts on My new best friend

  • Amber Lee says:
    2nd March 2007 at 6:19 am

    Cutting one’s self for beauty scares me! Besides that though, I’ll be excited to read your book when it comes out.

  • mad muthas says:
    2nd March 2007 at 1:45 pm

    i’ve inspected your photo closely, and i feel you’re very ill-suited for this kind of work. you should have asked me – i’m extremely wrinkly …

  • Peggy says:
    2nd March 2007 at 7:04 pm

    What I want to know is, do you have any sexual abuse to report?

  • spymum says:
    2nd March 2007 at 9:49 pm

    Peggy, that was so funny, I laughed out loud! LOL! Well, Helena – did you?!!

    And when you find out how to krep your brain young, I am willing to bribe you with cash money to share the secret! I am too keep losing my specs five times a day, and I have been known to put my car keys in the fridge. 😉

  • helena says:
    2nd March 2007 at 9:55 pm

    None yet, but am working on it…..
    Hx

  • Peggy says:
    3rd March 2007 at 12:01 am

    Well, Spymum, I figured someone had to pop that question! BTW, I solved the specs problem by throwing my specs away. Everyone looks so smooth and benevolent to me now, it’s wonderful.

  • krusti says:
    5th March 2007 at 5:40 pm

    looking forward to the book!

    ps make sure they don’t turn you into a cling film girl, the stuff only looks good round last night’s leftovers!

    pps do you know a good chemical peel dermatologist in Montpellier? I’m no good at home kits!!

  • spymum says:
    15th March 2007 at 9:23 pm

    Helena, I walked past the Village Bookstore (Dulwich not Greenwich I’m afraid!). I saw the Nora Ephron book sitting proudly in the centre of the window, thought of your blog and laughed out loud!

  • Susy Parker says:
    25th March 2007 at 12:19 am

    It is expensive the “hair infusion” by Rodolfo Valentin!. I really want to get them asap!

  • helena says:
    25th March 2007 at 9:22 am

    Hello Susy, I think it is quite expensive but darling Rodolfo (and he is a dream) gave me mine as I am writing about him, both in the book and an article. The initial cost is quite a lot (I’m not sure but I think about $1800) but then you can have the hair taken out and put back in next time for a lot less (around $500). Give them a call on 212 327 4227.
    Hx

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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