WHEN it comes to growing old gracefully, few could argue that French women do it with a certain je ne sais quoi. So the latest anti-ageing beauty supplement from France has caused something of a stir. Inversion Femme is a supplement which claims to improve skin, hair, nails and figure. But does it work? We asked five writers to try a six-week course and report back.
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CLAUDIA CONNELL, 38, is single and lives in Balham, South-West London.
EVERY morning for the past six weeks I have been starting the day in much the same way: a gentle stretch, a bowl of cereal – oh, and 100mcg of something that includes shark cartilage. Cartilage de raquin (to give it the correct label) is one of the baffling list of ingredients contained in the Inversion Femme capsules which claims to improve your skin, hair and nails and, over time, lead to weight loss.
The inclusion of a bit of shark gristle didn’t put me off – like most women I’d eat barbed wire if I thought it would knock a few years and pounds off me. When it comes to handing over my hard- earned cash for ‘miracle’ products I am the biggest mug going. I once spent a small fortune on a mail order cellulite cream that claimed to contain a ‘patented, fat-eating enzyme’. It stuck to my thighs and buttocks like chewing gum and I spent two days trying to scrape it off with a spatula.
So, every day I washed down my two red and silver Inversion Femme capsules with a large glass of water and a healthy dose of cynicism.
As a committed sceptic I was almost disappointed when, after just two weeks, I had to admit that something was happening.
I’ve always had a clear complexion but it seemed to take on a youthful glow that has been missing for most of my 30s.
Several people told me I looked well and a couple asked if I had been away. One friend even accused me of having Botox.
By coincidence, I had my highlights redone the day I started to take the capsules. As I am naturally fair and my hair grows slowly I usually leave it about ten weeks before having my roots retouched.
But after six weeks of taking the pills I had an inch and a half of regrowth and had to book another appointment. My hair, which I usually cut only twice a year, has been growing like a weed.
However, the most noticeable change has been in my new ‘Footballers’ Wives’ nails, which appear to have become diamond hard and unbreakable.
When I am not typing on my laptop I am usually scrubbing and cleaning and, consequently, my nails usually reach optimum length and break every two weeks. But for the first time in living memory I am having to cut them because they are getting too long.
The makers claim that after two months on the pills many women start to notice they have a slimmer silhouette.
Well, so far my weight and shape remain unchanged but should the pounds start dropping off then I really will be writing to the Vatican and insisting they officially declare Inversion Femme a modern-day miracle.
ANNA PASTERNAK, 37, lives in Oxfordshire with her fiance, Martin, a chartered surveyor, and their 18-month-old daughter, Daisy.
FOR me, the Holy Grail of beauty is flawless skin. My complexion quest has seen me boiling Chinese bark and drinking the foul residue or washing my face in May dew.
There is no fad, no miracle cure I don’t buy into. So when I was offered a course of Inversion Femme, I was as elated as if I had been given a phial of the elixir of life.
Pills that would put a spring in my step, inject some natural vitality into my skin, strengthen my nails and hair, while smoothing my wrinkles and my waistline, sounded – almost – too good to be true. Call me gullible, but I couldn’t wait to fling these best- selling Gallic capsules down my throat.
For the first few days, I took the morning queasiness, the low- lying headache and the never-ending need to go to the loo, as a welcome price to pay for youthful zest.
When I had a terrible outbreak of spots, I put it down to the detoxing effects and looked on the bright side hey, at least I had the skin of a teenager, even if I didn’t feel like one yet.
Two spotty weeks and an overdose of Evian later, the joke was over. I had envisaged a dewy glow, not an adolescent spot-fest. I wish I could tell you that at least my sausage roll of postbaby tummy flab was shrinking or that I couldn’t believe my soaring energy levels, but I can’t.
By week four, my hair, nails and figure looked exactly the same and in spite of immune-boosting borage oil and cholesterol-lowering chromium in my daily doses of goodness, I felt and looked the same; washed-out as ever.
Usually a blind believer who could take a placebo and convince myself of the benefits, I became suspicious. So I did a controlled experiment and stopped taking the pills for a few days. I swear I felt better. My spots subsided and I felt more my old, if tired, self.
Back on the pills, my skin rebelled again. Disappointed, I ditched Inversion Femme and shirked the last two weeks of my journalistic responsibilities. At least I have woken up to one fact: beauty really does come from within; not from a packet of supplements which, as far as I’m concerned, were a con and which, finally, turned me into a cynic.
LOWRI TURNER, 40, is single and lives in North London with her two sons, Griffin, four, and Merlin, two.
WE’RE used to being sold the notion of youth in a jar, but youth in a pill? Just like those incredibly expensive lotions and potions that promise to take ten years off you – just so long as you massage them in on the hour, every hour, in small circular motions standing on your head with the wind in an easterly direction.
So the claims made by Inversion Femme were ones I took with a handful of salt. Isn’t this just another way to get silly women to part with hard-earned cash, I thought.
However, I decided to put my cynicism aside and give them a try. I could certainly do with some help. I suffer from dry skin and occasional eczema, conditions that have become more marked since I had children.
I know I should be dabbing myself with organic tea tree oil and putting muslin bags (home-made, of course) full of oats under a running tap in the bath. I am well aware that I should be munching on sprouted seeds and sipping aloe vera juice, but who has the time? Only Bridget Jones types can manage things such as daily body brushing. The only brushing I do is with a dustpan, trying to scrape up corn flakes off the carpet.
So, a pill seemed ideal. Quick and easy. I will admit I didn’t always remember to take it, or rather them.
You are supposed to swallow three a day, two red ones in the morning and a silver one at night.
Plus, they are rather large, not quite horse pill-sized, but slightly daunting to swallow. On the occasions I did forget, I would have to shovel a handful down in one go to try to catch up, which I know isn’t quite the recommended method.
But, hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
After six weeks on the pills, the results were cautiously positive. I won’t say that I have developed the body of a sylph, but I do think my complexion has improved. It seems smoother and more even-toned.
As for my hair, I don’t see any change. It has yet to turn into the sort of lustrous mane you see on shampoo ads, but then maybe that’s asking a bit much.
My coiffure is so bleached, without half a ton of conditioner Ainsley Harriott could scour pans with it.
We’re talking a handful of pills here, girls, not a magic lamp and genie.
DIANA APPLEYARD, 43, is married to television journalist Ross, 43, and the couple have two children, Beth, 17, and Charlotte, 11.
The family live in Oxfordshire.
AGE has crept up on me in my 40s in all kinds of sneaky, underhand ways.
No longer can I starve myself for a week and drop half a stone. The fat that used to fall away when I stopped eating biscuits and chocolate is somehow a lot less moveable – it is determined to cling on.
Those lines around my eyes which seemed barely noticeable in my 30s have suddenly become far more pronounced. My skin is dry and flaky in patches. My nails have started to develop calcium spots, and are far more brittle than they were.
In short, I appear to have begun the long, slow process of drying up and crumbling away. At this rate, I may soon resemble a walnut.
When I started taking the pills my two lovely daughters said: ‘Please, not more useless pills that will make no difference whatsoever.’ I have a shelf full of things such as red clover pills, which I take with great enthusiasm for a week and then get bored and stop. If I’m not Claudia Schiffer by week two, then they’re useless. But I was determined to stick with Inversion Femme.
The first thing I noticed was that within two weeks my nails were noticeably stronger. The white patches had disappeared, and they were less inclined to break. My hair, always rather straw-like, appeared to be more glossy and thick. My skin seemed less dry, and the lines under my eyes definitely less pronounced.
Eye bags, which are the bane of my life, seemed less puffy. I decided to combine taking the pills with a radical improvement in my diet – ie, less chocolate, white bread and ice cream, fewer biscuits – and I stepped up my exercise programme.
I have lost about half a stone in weight, but I don’t know if that is the pills or the fact that I am not pigging out on organic shortbread with every coffee break. I have noticed that I have more energy – the pills contain Vitamin B which is supposed to be good for energy release.
I feel generally more ‘zingy’ and like any normal woman I have celebrated this new ‘feelgood’ factor by rushing out and buying new clothes.
It may be spring, it may be lack of sugar, it may be red and grey pills which look more like suppositories but I definitely feel younger. As long as I don’t stand too close to my 17-year-old daughter, of course.
BEL MOONEY, 58, is the author of more than 25 books and the mother of two grownup children.
She lives in Bath.
IT FEELS rather unfair that I have reached the point of reviewing the Inversion Femme supplement when I am recovering from a rotten cold and feel significantly under par.
But then, the manufacturers don’t promise health, just a ‘beauty insurance’ for skin, hair, nails and waistline.
The idea of beauty in a tablet is less appealing to me than in a pot, simply because I always forget to take supplements, although this time my record was better than usual. And I detest swallowing fat pills, whereas stroking an unguent on your face is a pleasure.
I can’t honestly say I’ve noticed a huge difference in my appearance, though I’m aware that exercise would help. The trouble is that my idea of exertion is to take a dog around the block. Not good.
But, to take each of the claims in turn, I take very good care of my skin each day, and so wouldn’t expect to notice much difference.
Like most women I resist the encroachments of age, but am too sensible to think wrinkles can be got rid of by swallowing a pile of trace elements.
Coming to the claims for hair and nails I think there is a slight difference.
Like many women my age who once rejoiced in ‘big hair’, I’m plagued by its gradual loss, and just lately it has been looking a lot thicker. But that could be because I was put on to the latest cutting-edge products by a nice lady in Space NK.
In fairness, it will probably be a combination of the two. Similarly my horrible, stubby, flaking nails seem somewhat stronger so that they even merit a coat of colourless varnish.
But my waistline is the same.
I will say this – off and on for years now I have tried to make myself take a pile of supplements, and always end up with a basket of bottles rapidly approaching their sell-by dates, simply because I get bored.
So to pop three pills a day, though a hard habit for me to get into, isn’t that bad, and I’m willing to believe it does good. After all, what harm can it do?
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