How To Look (and feel!) Confident

Confidence is alluring.

Giovanna Battaglia in New York with Fendi bag

It walks hand in hand with success. Confident people are considered to be more desirable, happier, whether true or not they are thought to have more friends and lead more fulfilling lives.

Confidence has nothing to do with income or beauty or perceived success. After nearly 30 years as a makeup artist working with actors and models I can tell you that behind closed doors the exquisitely beautiful, body perfect, wealthy people that we think have it all are often wracked with self doubt and totally lacking in self confidence.

Giovanna Battaglia, fabulous with a Fendi Baguette

Wherever you are in life, no matter what you think you are lacking, you can learn to project confidence, develop the habits, and after exercising these habits everyday become someone who without even thinking about it, just exudes confidence.

How To look And Feel Confident

Posture

Walking with your head down, your shoulders slumped, with your body language reading threatened, defeated, humbled, tired or overwhelmed is synonymous with a lack of confidence.

Confident people stand tall.

They square their shoulders and their hips, and instead of letting their chin drop, they hold it parallel to the ground.

When they sit down, they don't slump over (in the position of the defeated) they maintain great posture, leaning back but sitting tall.

Take notice of your own posture, and get into the habit of adjusting it and mimicking the posture of a confident person.

Eyes Up

Rather than dropping their gaze, which again is a symptom of the humbled or the defeated, and can be seen as a mark of deference to those you consider to be above you, confident people keep their eyes up, looking forward at the world as if everything is going as expected, projecting a sense of knowing where they are going - both in terms of the street they are walking along, and where they are going in life.

Make an effort to look straight ahead instead of looking down. If your shoulders are squared and you are making an effort to keep your chin up, it's pretty easy to keep your gaze up and forward.

Walk With Purpose

image via Stockholm-Streetstyle.com

You don't realize how much you shuffle around and walk indecisively until you start making a concerted effort to walk with purpose. Even if you're lost, or walking into a meeting with an irate boss, or into a situation you are uncertain of, square your shoulders, keep your eyes and chin up, and walk as if you are going exactly where you are planning to go.

Walking with purpose makes you look like a leader, makes you look like you are in charge of your own being, and of course, makes you look confident.

Develop A Firm Handshake.

Whether you are a guy or a girl an insipid, flimsy handshake makes you look like a pushover. It speaks to timidity, wishy washy character, indecisiveness and lack of mental strength.

A bone crushing handshake makes you look arrogant and like a bully.

But a good, firm handshake says that you know who you are, you know your abilities and have full faith in them, you are completely comfortable in your own skin and are not even remotely intimidated.

Subliminally a firm handshake paired with winning posture, raised eyes and a purposeful gait tells people you are at least an equal, if not someone to be deferred to. It also implies honesty and strength of character.

Make Eye Contact.

Confident people look everyone in the eye. People who divert their gaze or look down or away appear either dishonest, disinterested or intimidated. You don't want to develop some kind of blink-free serial killer stare, but learn to look everyone in the eye when you are speaking to them.

It implies that you are fully engaged in the conversation, you are listening, paying attention, attaching relevance to the conversation, and it also makes you incredibly likeable. If you start paying attention to eye contact in the conversations you are having you will be surprised at how few people actually concentrate on you when they are speaking to you. They are always looking here, there and everywhere.

Resting Happy Face.

We all are familiar with resting b*%ch face, where someone looks anywhere from dissatisfied to angry while in repose, when in all likelihood they are actually probably relatively happy underneath that sour expression.

Confident people have mastered the art of maintaining a resting happy face. Not some dopey, giddy grin, but a resting facial expression that resonates a feeling that they are content with life.
Again it takes some work to develop this trait, but it is well worth doing on many levels. Yes, obviously you will look confident, but also you will find that it becomes increasingly difficult to be feeling discontent, irritation, boredom, anger, confused, jealous - any negative emotion, when your face is looking happy. You become a happier person. 
Win/win.

The images in this story are of Italian style icon and fashion editor Giovanna Battaglia.
The first image has been on a mood board of mine for a couple of years because I was coveting her Fendi Baguette, but after a while I started noticing how much confidence and self awareness just oozes out of the very essence of her being, so now I keep the picture there as a constant reminder of how to carry myself.
Career and fabulous wardrobe not withstanding, Giovanna Battaglia is the perfect example of a confident woman, embodying each of the traits in this post.

Skin Care Antioxidants - How To Get The Most Out Of Them

Last week I wrote about different antioxidants in skin care products, and how to decode them.
Today we are going to look at how to get the most out of the antioxidants in your skin care, in 5 simple steps.

1. Read The Ingredient List.
If the antioxidants in your lotions and potions are at the bottom of the ingredient list they have probably been added as preservatives, and are unlikely to be active ingredients. As such you get no benefit from them.

2. Use A Gel Or A Serum    

Kate Sommerville Antioxidant Serum

Gels and serums are easier mediums to stabilize the antioxidants in, and typically you will use a serum underneath your moisturizer, which makes it more effective. The heavy hitting ingredients that do the big jobs should ideally be as close to the skin as possible, in the first products you apply.

3. Mix Up A Blend
Antioxidants work synergisticly together and target different free radicals, so the more you have on, the better.
Some skin care products contain blends, but if your don't then layer them.

4. Time It Right
If you pile all your products on top of each other you will have a skincare soup on the surface of the skin, diluting the efficacy of the specialty ingredients. So cleanse your skin, then apply your serum and give it a few minutes to penetrate and soak in. Then apply your moisturizer, again giving it a few minutes (pour yourself a cup of coffee or lay out your clothes etc) then once your moisturizer has absorbed apply your facial SPF.

Fashion Editor Giovanna Battaglia (Bat Gio) in NYC with Fendi Baguette

5. Know When You Need Them
Antioxidants are a barrier and pacman like combatants to environmental pollutants, so you need to use them at the right time.
For most of us that means applying them in the morning before going out to face the day.
However, if you are going to spend the evening in a smoky bar or be out in the city in the evening its a good idea to have your antioxidant serums on then. 
They are somewhat wasted if you just apply them before bed.

The Fendi Baguette

I am somewhat (majorly) obsessing over the

iconic Fendi Baguette these days.

Fendi baguette

The Fendi Baguette handbag is a petite, simple design

meant to be casually tucked under your arm 

like, well, a baguette.

Except I never tuck baguettes under my arm, but go figure.

This is a handbag for the lady who sees a handbag as a work of art.

Each bag requires a long production time, and is exclusively handmade.

Initially launched in 1997, the baguette has made a huge resurgence

in recent years. To the extent that there is even a book about them.

These bags are incredibly special, and come in many colors and fabrics,  pythons, leathers - you name it.

Giovanna Battaglia in NYC with a Fendi Baguette

Giovanna Battaglia (editor Vogue Uomo, freelance stylist, contributing editor W Magazine)

seen here in  NYC with one of her Fendi Baguettes

The beaded Fendi's are super special. 

They only make one or two designs in a year,

and are very labor intensive, making them a collectors item.

beaded Fendi Baguette

The Fendi Baguette has become the epitome of chic world wide.

yellow Fendi Baguette

pink Fendi Baguette