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What I Know About Beauty: Advice From Canadian Model Dayle Haddon

Dayle Haddon: What I Know About Beauty At Age 63
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Ever seen a gorgeous older woman walking down the street and thought, ‘Wow, I want to look like that when I’m 60. What’s her secret?’ It’s something a lot of people wonder when they meet Dayle Haddon.

The Montreal-born beauty was a Canadian supermodel in the 70s and 80s, and the star of beauty campaigns for L’Oreal, Max Factor, Estee Lauder and Revlon. Now at 63, she’s an ambassador for Unicef and Free the Children [http://www.freethechildren.com/] and the founder of WomenONE, a non-profit that helps African girls get an education.

HuffPost Canada Style spoke with Haddon about the beauty tips she’s learned over the years, her advice on keeping skin youthful and her secret ingredients to aging beautifully:

On her beauty routine:

I moisturize, because I have dry skin. I’m very big on sunblock, a high SPF even in the winter. I usually have an SPF in a foundation during the winter because you don’t need so much, and then I’ll switch to moisturizer and sunblock and maybe a little foundation in the summer.

Look as great as Haddon by following her beauty tips below. Full story continues below slideshow.

Dayle Haddon's Beauty Routine

Dayle Haddon: Beauty Advice From a Gorgeous Older Woman

Early on as a model, I did a lot of beauty contracts and makeup does not look so good on suntanned skin. So I had to be very pale to keep my job and that was sort of my look -- it was black hair, white skin and red lips. So early on, it was like, ‘Stay out of the sun.’

Now I do a lot of trips with Unicef -- Darfur, Haiti – and that’s a very hot sun. So I have to be very adamant and careful about wearing sunblock and keeping in the shade and wearing a hat just because my skin would be just destroyed with those trips I do.

On how taking care of what’s inside benefits what’s outside:

I’m careful about what I put in my body. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, except for a little wine. I have to watch very carefully about fatigue because I travel so much, and I find when you’re tired and you haven’t had enough sleep, your diet is the first thing to go. Then how you feel about yourself is the second thing to go. If you feel you are taking care of your body, your self-esteem really shoots up. I know myself well enough to know that I don’t feel good if I let myself completely go.

On maintaining a healthy diet:

I try to do little things, like I have chlorophyll with water in the morning and that makes me feel really good. And I do vitamins. It’s hard to stick with it every day, but I find when I do it I feel better because, whether it’s a placebo or not, I feel I’m on a regime and that makes me feel good.

A big tip that I’ve incorporated is juicing. And it has to be good juicing, like Norwalk Press. Sometimes I’ll do it myself, but if I don’t have time I’ll have them delivered or pick them up. And I will just do juicing as a meal replacement. When I find that I don’t have time because I’m working, but I can’t go without food, I’ll just sip a juice hat has every vegetable in it.

On exercising as you age:

I have dogs, so I walk them every day. And I work out with a trainer three times a week. As you get older it gets a little bit harder, but we’ve got it geared so that it’s perfect for me. Not too heavy weights, very light weights, I don’t run flat out, I run-walk-run-walk. I modify. And then I do yoga. Yoga’s very important for me. I need the stretching, I think as you get older you really need to open up the body, if I’m on a plane or there’s a lot of stress, I need the blood to flow through my body.

On the advice she would give young women about keeping skin youthful:

I would definitely try to speak about sun damage and smoking and what it does to the skin. You can get away with murder in your 20s, but when you get up to 35 and that area, you start seeing the first wrinkle the first white hair and you’re asking, ‘What do I do?’ And it’s too bad to wait that long, you want to avoid any sun damage.

I’ve had young people say to me, ‘It doesn’t really matter because by the time I need that, I’m going to do all the procedures [like chemical peels and laser treatments]. And I try to talk to them about that -- not all the procedures will fix everything, and there’s a downside to some of those procedures. Getting peels will thin your skin and then you can’t go into the sun at all. I can go in the sun, I don’t have those kind of procedures, so I’m not going to be so sun-sensitive.

On wrinkles and the natural effects of aging:

As you get older, we have to encourage each other and understand that every age has a gift to give us. It’s up to us to embrace our age, because if it’s just about a battle of a wrinkle, you’re going to lose that battle. Some of those wrinkles you earn and you want to have those on your face. You don’t want crazy stuff that’s just wear and tear and unnecessary from drinking, smoking, not moisturizing or excessive sun damage. But regular living -- I don’t want to erase that from my face, and I want to see that in somebody else. I want to be the best I can be at my age.

On how to look beautiful at any age:

It’s how you feel about yourself that makes you truly beautiful. And it’s linked to what you do, your contribution, whether you feel you are creating value in the world, either in your family, in your home, in your community. When you feel you’re creating value, you feel like a beautiful person. And it’s extremely potent and powerful. Because you can put on the most incredible makeup, the best creams, if you don’t feel beautiful, you won’t look beautiful, especially as you get older.

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