Everyone thinks I’m in my 30s so they’re stunned when they learn my real age – I swear by a £6 beauty bargain
A WOMAN who is often mistaken for being decades younger than her age has revealed she doesn’t have a lengthy skincare routine.
Marie Mercurius was in her forties when she became interested in slowing the signs of ageing.
Marie, who shares lifestyle videos on YouTube, shocked her subscribers when she revealed that she’s 56.
Viewers said “You look late 30s or early 40s” as they commented on her now-viral video about maintaining a youthful appearance.
The Studio Administrator from Toronto told The Sun that throughout her twenties she didn’t care about the ingredients in her beauty products.
She would even go to sleep with her makeup on after a night out.
“It wasn’t till I was in my forties that I doubled down on the clean beauty thing,” Marie said.
“It was at the time when a lot of people were doing things to themselves, getting procedures done and spending exorbitant amounts of money on skincare products and stuff.
“I just thought, you know, I’m getting older, I want to start taking even better care of myself so I could maintain my youthful appearance.”
Marie said people have always told her that she looks younger than her age.
Genetics has been a factor but she swears that she looks younger than her mum did at the same age.
She revealed her skincare routine is relatively short and uses products from the brands BeautyCounter and Honest.
“I just started using a gua sha thing,” she said. “In the morning, I cleanse my face in the shower with a lightweight cleanser.
“I use a vitamin C serum for brightening and then a moisturiser because it’s getting colder.
“I use more of a heavier moisturiser than I would in the summer just so that my skin will stay nice and plump and moist.”
Honest Beauty Vitamin C Radiance Serum is priced at £35 on Look Fantastic, while Beauty Counter’s All Bright C Serum isn’t available in the UK.
A budget-friendly alternative is Boots Vitamin C PRO Brightening Booster Serum which costs just £6.
Marie removes dead skin cells and build-up from her face with an exfoliator two to three times a week.
Impurities are also brought out of her skin using a charcoal-activated mask.
Marie revealed there’s a step in her skincare routine that she’s been neglecting recently.
“I need to get back into steaming,” she said. “I would use my clothing steamer to steam my face to open up my pores and then do like a little facial.
“I use distilled or filtered water instead of tap water and make sure that it’s not too close to my face.”
How to reverse ageing in just 2 weeks, according to royal go-to nutritionist
LONDON -based Gabriela Peacock, who has helped the likes of Prince Harry and Princess Eugenie prepare for their weddings.
She told Fabulous: “The science is evident that we all have the power to make simple life changing alterations to better our future selves – no matter what genetic hand we might have been dealt with.
“The reality is, we all sometimes indulge in unhealthy eating habits like processed foods, smoking cigarettes, drinking too much alcohol, inhaling city pollutants, and even drinking water from plastic bottles – none of this is good for us.
“All this does is promote the ageing process, but we all have the potential to change this.”
It may be hard, but try to keep away from sugary carbohydrates, because they feed chronic inflammation, which is one of the worst enemies of reversing ageing.
Now only will you end up putting on weight if you consume them regularly, but your energy and hormonal levels will be affected and this will influence how you look and feel.
Whatever your age or state of health, it’s never too late to reverse how quickly you are ageing and embrace the energy and vigour of a younger you.
Antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C, and E, are essential in neutralising free radicals—the culprits behind premature ageing.
Integrating a spectrum of colourful fruits and vegetables into your diet provides a potent source of antioxidants.
Omega-3 fatty acids, abundant in fatty fish like salmon and flaxseeds, are vital for maintaining skin elasticity and hydration.
Omega-3s act as nourishment for your skin, locking in moisture and diminishing fine lines and wrinkles.
Collagen, a structural protein dwindling with age, can be replenished through collagen-rich foods like bone broth and lean protein sources.
She said it takes just 15 minutes to open pores and the process can be followed by either a scrub or mask then serum and a moisturiser.
She prefers to wear a hat and stay out of the sun rather than using sunscreen because of its long list of ingredients.
Having previously been scarred by a facialist, Marie said she’s hesitant to get extraction professionally done by beauticians who aren’t experienced with working on darker skin.
She believes that spending large sums of money on products and treatments doesn’t always mean the result will be better than budget-friendly options.
Avoiding toxins in the foods she eats is just as “important” as the products she applies for a youthful appearance.
“There’s a lot of processed foods that are full of toxins,” she said.
“They don’t do wonderful things for your hormones or your gut, and your gut microbiome plays a big part in the health of your skin and your overall wellbeing.
“I think people forget that our skin is our largest organ and we really need to take care of that by eating minimal processed foods, more fruits and vegetables, dark leafy greens.
Exercise is crucial because you lose muscle mass so quickly once you hit your thirties.
Marie Mercurius
“I will say I’m guilty of not drinking as much water as I probably should, but I still feel like I’m doing OK.
“ As far as supplements, I don’t take anything for skin but I take iron and vitamin D3 and K, two in one.
“Just because during the winter I don’t get enough sunlight and that really affected me last year.”
Marie said alcohol is “dehydrating” so she restricts herself to a maximum of two drinks when guests visit.
She can go a month without drinking, while “creature comforts” such as dark chocolate and chips she tries to avoid anything with more than three ingredients listed.
The only meat she eats is grass-fed beef from a butcher because it’s hard to know how chickens have been raised.
Microwaves are also off-limits in favour of cooking on the stove as she tries to avoid aluminium.
“I prefer to cook at home because at least I know what is going into [the food],” she said.
“When you go to restaurants, you’re not sure what kind of oils they’re cooking in.
“I’m really trying to get people to understand women, especially who are either coming up on menopause or somewhere on the menopause train that it’s the toxins in what you’re eating, what you’re putting on your skin, the clothes that you’re wearing, the things in your environment that accelerate the ageing process and can really destroy your hormones which cause you to have a horrible menopause experience.
“I stopped wearing conventional fragrances about three or four years ago because of the hormone or endocrine disruptors which affect your estrogen, thyroid, progesterone, all of that.
“I wear aluminium-free deodorant that’s the better way to go.”
Marie said getting at least seven hours of sleep nightly and focusing on strength training can help to stave off age-related conditions such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.
She teams her exercises with walking at least 40 minutes a day and regularly stretching.
“Exercise is crucial because you lose muscle mass so quickly once you hit your thirties,” she said.
“You’re not gonna bulk up because, at that point, you don’t have the same levels of hormones that you did back in your twenties.
“If you don’t want to work out, you should regardless.
“But also try to do things to distract yourself from the stresses of work, if you have a favourite book, read that, if it’s a comedy watch that.
“If it’s a one-person dance party in your living room do that, you need to get your mind off stress because really that is a big contributor to ageing and staying healthy.
“Stress is probably one of the biggest contributors aside from foods and toxic stuff in our environment.”
Many commenters on Marie’s YouTube channel said not having kids has contributed to her youthful appearance.
However, she believes it’s possible for mums to stay looking young if their children aren’t causing a lot of stress.
Making healthy lifestyle changes as soon as possible is beneficial to everyone.
“We are creatures of habit and it’s hard to make change, especially as we get older,” she said.
“But O don’t want people to be in that position of, if you would have done this earlier, you could have prevented this illness that now you can’t do anything about.”