I want to thank all of you who responded to my request to help me figure out exactly how to describe my skin care and makeup company, Paula’s Choice, to other people who don’t know my products, books, or bulletins.

All of your comments were thoughtful, insightful, flattering, humbling, and truthful. Most of all they stimulated a meaningful contemplation of what my business is all about.

My marketing team and I have spent quite a bit of time discussing what you have contributed. It has brought a keen understanding of how those of you who shop Paula’s Choice, read my books, or use Beautypedia.com experience what we have created.

After reading all of your absorbing and fascinating comments, I think I can sum up my company and life’s work like this:

Paula’s Choice is a specialized range of skin care and makeup products I formulated after 32 years of research and writing 18 books analyzing the facts about skin care and makeup products.

Because my only mission is to help you find the best products to take care of your skin I am the only cosmetics company in the world that recommends products other than my own.

Come visit us at PaulasChoice.com and find out what you are missing!

Call in & talk to Paula about your skin-care questions during her live Internet talk radio show,
Be Beautifully Informed with Paula Begoun,
The Cosmetics Cop.

Every Thursday beginning
6pm PST, 8pm CST, 9pm EST

• Best & worst products for the week.
• Behind-the-scenes look at cosmetic tips, advertising, & procedures.
• Call in & get personalized advice from Paula.
• Select callers can win free products on every show! 

To tune in…
Call (347) 426-3783 to listen live & ask questions at show time, or listen to live & archived segments online .

Did you ever wish you could meet Paula up close and personal, get her take on skincare myths in the cosmetics industry, purchase a signed copy of her best-selling book, “Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me,” and get free samples of her newest products? Exciting News! Paula will be giving a free presentation on Skincare Mythbusting.

Date: Monday, February 16, 2009
Time: 7:30-9:00pm
Location: Warwick’s Bookstore
Street: 7812 Girard Avenue
City/Town: La Jolla, CA

About Paula: Paula Begoun is a nationally-recognized consumer expert on the cosmetics industry and the best-selling author of “Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me, 7th Edition.” Paula covers research-based reviews of thousands of skin care products and state-of-the-art ingredients.  Her goal is to cut through the hype and identify the best (and worst) products available in every price category to give everyone the chance to achieve beautiful, healthy skin. Paula’s work has resulted in thousands of interviews including repeat appearances on CNN, as well as programs such as Oprah, The Today Show, 20/20, Dateline NBC, The View, and Primetime.

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All in all I’ve been happy (actually, really happy) with the results I’ve experienced from the medical corrective procedures I’ve chosen. I do look younger, my tummy is flat (even though I’ve gained some weight since the operation), my face is doing great (no surgery, just Botox, dermal injections, and laser resurfacing), and my breasts have held up pretty well (no pun intended).

The problems I’ve experienced along the way was due to my tummy tuck (pretty major complications) and with the form of dermal injection I chose, Artecoll (also called ArteFill).

Why did I choose Artecoll? Well, I’m pretty high maintenance as it is, given how often I have to get my hair and nails done for media appearances and photo shoots. I already get Botox once every 6 to 7 months. So, anything I can do to spread out appointments, especially those requiring downtime, I’ll do.

I chose Artecoll because it lasts for years. Some would say it lasts “permanently” (but permanent needs qualifying because while Artecoll doesn’t break down the face will still “age” and the younger appearance will diminish).

The first time I had Artecoll injected was in 2000, and though I probably could’ve waited another two or three years at least. At the time, I wanted to get my lower lip done anyway and adding a little more along my upper lip and the fold that runs between the nose and lip made sense. I wanted a fresher, but still natural, appearance.

I know all the risks with dermal fillers. Artecoll shares the same risks with every other filler but Artecoll has an additional twist. Because Artecoll is a “permanent” filler the problem is that when something goes wrong the complication often remains. That was what happened for me. I got small, relatively imperceptible granulomas (little hard bumps) that I could slightly feel around my lips. Those little lumps did eventually go away (at least as far as I could feel). However, even now, if I press too hard on my lips to remove lipstick or once in a while in the middle of an intense kiss, it does ache. Not the best, but damn it does look good!

I’m not one to keep my beauty secrets a secret. Why bother. It just creates a distance between women and clouds reality. If your boobs are fake so what? From any perspective plastic surgery or cosmetic corrective procedures such as Botox, dermal injections, or laser resurfacing, should not be shocking or embarrassing. They are just choices like having sex, going on vacations, or dieting, and how much you do or don’t do is up to you.

For me, because I’m in the public eye more then most, I also don’t want people guessing at what I’ve had done. Sort of like we all do to celebrities, wondering what happened to Meg Ryan’s lips or Melanie Griffin’s face, or Penelope Cruz’s nose, or the fact that no celebrity or model over the age of 40 can raise their eyebrows (that’s Botox). And I surely don’t want to mislead people thinking that my face looks like it does simply because I use my products.

So for the record, I had breast implants in 1984 (I have not had them redone, they are the same ones and still look pretty good), a tummy tuck in 2006 (that looks great but I had serious complications after the surgery was over), dermal injections (twice now since 2000), Botox (every 6 or 7 months for the past several years), Thermage (that was not worth the trouble), IPL (about 4 times, which worked pretty well for brown skin discolorations and red surfaced capillaries), and FRAXEL (which has been very good for smoothing and firming).

As I do more, which I’m sure I will, I’ll let you know how it goes and why I made the choices and decisions I’ve made. Mostly I’m trying to avoid plastic surgery for as long as possible, that step seems truly scary as there are just too many examples of where people just don’t look the same and if anything they look really weird or other-worldly.

“We only use natural ingredients; synthetic ingredients are bad for your skin because they are fake and made from gasoline, such as mineral oil and petrolatum.”

I have yet to see any cosmetic that is “all” natural. Some synthetic ingredients are awesome for your skin, and regardless of the protestations of cosmetics companies to the contrary, every cosmetics product in the world contains its share of synthetic ingredients.

Synthetic ingredients are derived from many sources, but they all start as natural because everything comes from our environment; nothing is created via alchemy. Petrolatum and mineral oil are indeed by-products of the gasoline industry, but what is unnatural about that? Ironically, gasoline, which is derived from crude oil, is decidedly natural in and of itself as it comes from organic material, such as tiny aquatic plants and animals, that has been buried in the earth for millions of years. Petrolatum and mineral oil are remarkably good skin-care ingredients; they are also recognized by cosmetics chemists the world over for being superior emollients and completely harmless (Source: Dermatologic Surgery, June 1998, pages 661–664). Even the claim that these ingredients are occlusive (blocking) and, therefore, bad for skin is also without proof (Source: Contact Dermatitis, September 1996, pages 163–168).

“You have nighttime free radicals and daytime free radicals. Daytime free radicals are the sun and pollution, the nighttime free radicals are, um, I’m really not sure what those little boogers, the little nighttime pesticides, are that damage your skin at night, but they are there!”

Free radicals are destructive molecules that cannot tell time! Yes, it is true that sunlight is a major source of free radicals generated in the daytime, yet pollution, whether coming from auto exhaust or industrial pollutants, is ever-present. The level of pollutants may be higher during daylight hours, but it certainly doesn’t disappear when the sun goes down! And what about the fact that the oxygen we need to live is a potent source of free-radical damage, and that’s around all the time, too?

I don’t know what to make of the “nighttime pesticides” comment, but unless you are sleeping in a field or on farmland that has recently been crop-dusted, I wouldn’t be too concerned about pesticides on your skin at night.

Regardless of whether it’s day or night, antioxidants are state-of-the-art ingredients to look for when shopping for skin-care products, and there are dozens available (with no clear-cut “best” choice among them), but none of them can distinguish between daytime and nighttime free radicals. In theory, antioxidants in well-formulated skin-care products should perform regardless of the time of day.

Ever since I can remember I’ve had a problem with lipstick bleeding into the lines around my mouth. I have always hated that flaw. I could never wear the glossy, slick, ultra-creamy lipsticks and lip glosses that make your mouth look sensual and full, that fetching come hither look that everyone else was able to wear. On me they just ran into the vertical lines around the border of my mouth creating a smeared, unattractive mess.

Yes, I tried all the tricks in the book, lip liner, blotting lipstick, using a matte foundation over my lips, keeping moisturizer away from the skin around my mouth, and applying products designed for keeping lipsticks from bleeding, which all helped a little, but little is the operative word, at the end of the day, or even by mid-morning it was all in vain. So for years I’ve had to seek out the most ultra-matte lipsticks possible. I should mention that even this wasn’t fail safe, because eventually, by the end of the day, my matte lipstick would betray me and end up exactly where I didn’t want it! Back then, this problem of bleeding lipstick was rare for a woman my age (I was only 16!) but it is anything but rare for women with sun damage who are over the age of 40 or 50.

Yet somehow this problem doesn’t change a woman’s desire to wear slick, greasy lip glosses and lipsticks that slide and glide in to lines around her mouth. I see this on women all the time and it is even detectable on female actresses of a certain age especially on High Definition TV (of course you would never see this in a fashion magazine because photo-retouching would never allow such a flaw). Yes, glossy lips look great especially compared to the effect of matte lipstick, there is no doubt about that. The sensual glossy appearance is hot, which explains why gloss is one of the best selling items at the cosmetic counters. But using a makeup style that ends up looking like you missed your mouth is as bad as stuffing your bra with Kleenex to look more endowed, only to have the Kleenex spill out on to your cleavage or under your arms is not pretty.

Having said all this, let me tell you about a “gloss” I recently found that surprised even me. While it still bleeds eventually, it does so minimally. I could hardly believe it. I tested it several times and several different colors just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke (sometimes a really pale gloss bleeds but you don’t see it as well). That wasn’t the case, it minimally bled into the lines around my mouth! Hallelujah! The brand is Illumminare and the gloss name All Day Mineral Lip Color. They do have a regular gloss and that one bleeds in a heart beat but the All Day one, it will barely make it pass your lips. It is worth checking out. One more thing, this All Day Mineral Lip Color does not last all day in the least, what a joke, and what is even funnier is that there is nothing about this that would be considered “mineral”, you might as well call my computer mineral by those standards.