Interview with Chizu Saeki

This is an interview with Japan’s top beauty expert and lifelong aesthetician Chizu Saeki as derived from Talking Makeup

Many women feel they need to spend a lot of money on expensive cosmetics. On the contrary, you encourage women not to spend a lot of money. What are some inexpensive but effective steps to maintaining beautiful skin?
1. Get to know your skin well.
2. Care about your skin.
3. Desire to be beautiful.
4. Put that feeling into your hands, and use those hands to touch and massage your face and warm up the skincare products you apply to it.
5. Thoroughly remove the makeup you’ve applied.
6. Frequently apply lotion masks.
7. Use serum.
8. Seal it off with cream.
9. Protect your skin year-round.
These points are always the same. Rather than buying a variety of products, I recommend practicing these basic steps, with feeling.

At what age should women begin to be concerned about aging? What basic steps should women take to protect themselves against the hands of time?
Nowadays our skin is at higher risk of sunburn due to global warming and destruction of the ozone layer. Growth generally stops at around age 25, and if you want to stay there, you need to take proper care. If you so wish, you can keep from looking a day older even into your thirties and forties. Different people live in different environments, eat different foods, and live different lifestyles, but my advice to everyone is to take preventative measures. Protect your skin from the elements regardless of age and, when you’ve reached a certain age, give it nutrients by feeding it serum. There’s really no set age at which you should start caring for your skin. Know your skin and incorporate what you feel you need. To young people, though, I’d like to warn against excessive use of skincare products. Your skin is still well balanced as it is, so don’t rely too much on cosmetics. Use lotion masks, protect your skin, and please do moisturize it.

Is there one beauty tool that every woman should have?
Your will and your hands. It’s your own hands and the desire to be beautiful that will do the magic. Don’t think that simply using cosmetics will make you beautiful; be responsible for your own face, and use your hands to the fullest. How much value you draw out of a product is really up to you.

Any quick and easy tips on how to defy age?
Well, always thinking “quick and easy” leaves everything half-baked. How you use your time is up to you, and it’s important to make skincare a part of your lifestyle. But when you only have so much time and can’t do everything, the most important thing is to eat-in a balanced manner. Your skin’s luster is dependent on your physical health. If your body isn’t well nourished, neither is your skin. Cosmetics help you take in from the surface what you can’t take in orally, but your beauty really comes from what you eat. Eating only what you feel like eating can give you a lopsided diet, and your body, never mind your skin, will be a wreck. There’s a lot of information out there nowadays on healthy eating. The key is to be conscious of what and how you eat, and to continue eating in a balanced way. I always make an effort to eat moderately. I have yogurt, tomato juice, and fruit every morning, and I make a point of eating things in season. Small efforts like these go a long way.

Why is it important to massage and tone muscles in the face?
Just as our bodies age internally over time, so does our skin-although of course there are factors other than age acting on the skin. The face is especially vulnerable because of all the muscles, as you can see from how wrinkles in the face run both vertically and horizontally. Massages help the muscles stay in shape, keeping your skin looking young and healthy.