You want to wake looking like Sleeping Beauty, not Maleficent
Here’s the deal. Beauty sleep isn’t beauty sleep if you’re doing it wrong.
Let’s get the ugly truth out of the way: If you snooze on your side, odds are you’ll wake up (so to speak) with “sleep lines” on your face.
Tell-tale signs? Streaks running down the side of your nose, when your cheeks smoosh up against your mouth. “Side sleepers” may also find one half of their mien marred by more lines than the other – the consequence, it seems, of having the same side perpetually pressed up against the pillow at night.
Want more bad news? Do this every time you hit the sack and those creases on your cheeks may just coalesce into fixed furrows on your face.
(And skin skeptics, this isn’t some old wives’ tale, either. For what it’s worth, the American Academy of Dermatology itself notes that sleeping on your side is a surefire way of promoting premature ageing.)
If all of this is enough to make you want to lie down for a bit, have no fear. The solution is incredibly intuitive: Simply make a conscious effort to sleep on your back.
Easier said than done, I know. I turned to Nicolas Ian Travis, pharmaceutical scientist and founder of homegrown grooming label Allies of Skin, and our conversation quickly turned to pillow talk. “Invest in a memory foam pillow, which will hug the contours of your head and train your body to stay upright,” he advised. “And stick a small bolster under your knees to prevent your body from tossing and turning through the night.”
If sleeping on your back remains an impossible task, here’s the last, if rather luxe resort: Satin pillowcases in lieu of your usual cotton ones. Fabrics like satin will glide like well, silk, cutting down on as much friction between your face and your pillow as possible.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the youngest of them all ...
Oh, and do as I do and “bolster” your beauty sleep with a firming night treatment by way of Clarins’ fabulous Shaping Facial Lift. The French prestige brand says the new concoction, now in its fourth incarnation, has been carefully calibrated to provide a “lifting” and fat-burning effect while you sleep. Packed with potent depuffing agents, exotic kaki fruit extracts also promise to buffer collagen fibres from the sagging and bagging that comes with excessive sugars in your diet.
Entirely welcome side effect: I’ve found that the massaging motions of the relaxing ritual really contributes to the overall quality of my Z’s.
So, to recap. Lie upright (or on satin if you’re princessy); add a lifting night cream; wake to a visibly vibrant visage. See? Not so hard to sleep your way to youth. Sweet dreams!
Clarins Shaping Facial Lift, $106, is available at all Clarins counters. For more information, visit www.clarins.com.sg and follow Clarins Singapore on Facebook.