My Friend Marie!

When I lived in Berkeley I worked for a great company called Elephant Pharmacy. I had the honor of being their very first esthetician hired and the second was a wonderful woman named Marie. She is a brilliant spitfire of a woman with a golden halo of hair. She is a chemist and fellow esthetician and I always loved having her around to help me answer more technical questions and just so I could pick her brain. I love chemistry and Marie made me even more interested in it.
I was the buyer and once we were meeting with a woman who had her own skincare line and she made all kinds of wild and dubious claims about her product. I asked her what specifically in her line ingredient-wise could do what she was claiming her product did. She told us that she went into the lab and 'spirits' told her what to put in her products and she couldn't explain how they could FULLY BLOCK THE SUN without the use of zinc, titanium dioxide or any chemical sunscreen agents. Marie asked her a few technical questions that she should have known the answers to but didn't. Well, let's just say we didn't end up carrying the product and the woman left in tears. Her husband came in and yelled at Marie. We were both stunned and later amused. We did not intend to be cruel or unfair to this woman but really, she had no business selling skincare.
Marie also has her own line of skincare called Marie-Veronique Skin Therapy and she's written a book called The Yoga Facelift.
I can't tell you how excited I am for her. She has so much knowledge and integrity and it's so great that she's helping so many people with her products and skincare philosophy. I've seen some of her Yoga for the Face classes and they really do produce results. Marie herself has the skin of a fifteen year old. (minus the acne)
When we were at Elephant together she had a huge following/fan base. I could tell a "Marie client" a mile away. We had the best time working side by side doing mini-facials and makeovers and since we had our own 'type' of customer we always complemented each other beautifully. I was teaching fun classes on how to make your own spa products at home and doing wedding makeup and Marie was teaching her fellow baby-boomers how to age with grace and style. "Alternative Aging" was how she referred to it, which is so much more realistic and attainable than "Anti-Aging." Really, who has found a way to truly stop the clock? That would be nobody and even if it were possible, would you really want to? I wouldn't.