Ta-da! Another year is ending. We are another year older. Living in the Northwest can mean a few things to our faces. One group of people yearns for warm weather while bundled up indoors with the heat on, which zaps moisture from the skin, deleting elasticity and leaving them as dry as lizards. Another embraces the cold and is out in it constantly — sledding, walking to the store, snowboarding, building snowmen, etc. Cold and wind are not friends to the visage. And then when summer comes, everyone is outside till it’s dark. “Sunscreen? What? I live in Washington. It’s barely 70 degrees out.” I’ve heard this many a time. Bottom line is our weather — freezing, warm or balmy — is slowly carving lines in our faces that both women and men dread and making us look older than need be. To keep your face from being a canvas for the elements, invest in some preventative and restorative self-care.



For those with fat wallets or credit cards they haven’t maxed out yet, Club Biella Spa & Salon (formerly Biella by Ruth Michelle) offers a variety of ways to hook your face up. From firsthand experience, I can report that when Club Biella says “Impressive, not aggressive; clinical but never cruel,” it really means it. Utilizing the power of Vitamin C, a collagen facial that includes eye, hand and décolleté renewal treatment, this is a good step toward improving skin texture, reducing discoloration and wrinkles, boosting natural collagen production and perking up overall general skin appearance ($140).



On the more affordable side, Embellish Multispace Salon sells an incredible lotion. Made by Italian company Davines, it’s a hand cream with anti-aging properties agreeable to all skin types. I use it on my face as well without breakouts. It rubs in smoothly, is non-greasy and absorbs quickly, leaving skin silky and visibly refreshed. The aromatherapy qualities of the tomato, olive, walnut, and almond scent of the lotion have made it a favorite, and a little goes a long way ($16). You still need to wear sunscreen, but this is a lotion that you’ll hoard, reapply greedily and tell all your girlfriends about.



[Club Biella, 1506 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253.682.2005, www.biellaspa.com]

[Embellish Multispace Salon, 1121 Court D, Tacoma, 253.752.8144, www.embellishtacoma.com]