Beauty in balance: how do top players in the beauty business look and feel their best and stay in shape, both physically and emotionally? Four women share their healthy-living secrets

Shape, Sept, 2003 by Sally Wadyka

Whether we like to admit it or not, the world is appearance-oriented. We're constantly bombarded with images of unrealistically beautiful models and celebrities. For women whose jobs require that they deal with beauty on a daily basis, the pressure can be especially intense. But what makes the four women we've profiled here (all top players in the beauty biz) so successful is that they've found ways to cope with the stresses we all contend with--in particular a packed schedule and the pressure to look good--to emerge with a strong, healthy self-esteem.

Leslie Blodgett

CEO of MD Formulations and Bare Escentuals

Being in the spotlight brings lots of attention--not all of it desirable. "When I meet someone who's seen me on TV, they always say something about my appearance," Leslie Blodgett says. That kind of scrutiny can be tough to handle. To help get on track, Blodgett attended one of Shape's Body Positive workshops back in September 1999.

At the time, she was an extremely fit size 4, but the San Francisco-based Blodgett knew that her attitude was unhealthy. "1 realized that my pattern was to get really obsessive about diet and exercise and then to fall off the wagon," she says. "A few months after that seminar I went through a stressful phase at work and my dad passed away, and I put on 22 pounds in two years."

Getting off the diet-and-exercise roller coaster took a fundamental shift in the way Blodgett looked at her body. "I'm in the appearance business, and people do pass judgment on the way I look," she admits. But she came to realize that torturing herself with obsessive exercise and gorging on food in search of comfort couldn't help her look her best. "I'm at my goal weight, but more important, I'm healthy," she says. "At this stage of my life [she turned 41 in August], I want how I look to be a result of how healthy I am."

Maureen Kelly founder and president of tarte Cosmetics

Life is short--do what makes you happy. That was the advice Maureen Kelly's husband, Mark, gave her when she was contemplating quitting her Ph.D. program in psychology and starting her own beauty company. And those are words that have kept her going during the two years since she lost Mark in the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. "If I'm having a bad day, I remind myself of his encouraging words," says the New York City-based Kelly. "Similarly, every time I accomplish something that is slightly out of reach, it's extra special because I know he would have been so proud of me."

Other words that still ring true in Kelly's mind are those of her mother: Beauty is as beauty does. "Mom hit the nail on the head, because I think a woman's smile and laughter are her most valuable beauty assets," she says. "Of course, it doesn't hurt if she's wearing great lip gloss!" The other beauty secret that helps Kelly, 30, stay both physically and emotionally fit is exercise, every day, whether it's a walk around the block or a kayak trip up the coast of Hawaii's Kauai. "Being physically active helps me think more clearly," she says, "and, most of all, keeps me happy and well-balanced."

Laurie Polis, M.D., dermatologist/founder, SoHo Integrative Health

Be careful what you wish for. That could describe the feeling Laurie Polls had when she realized her dream of opening a medical center and spa in New York City in 2000. The facility was unlike anything that existed at the time--a one-stop health-and-wellness shop housing, among others, two dermatologists (including Polls), an OB/GYN (Polls' husband), an internist, psychologist and nutritionist, as well as a full-service spa with laser hair removal, facials, massage and more. But seeing it to completion took its toll on Polls: "I had accomplished everything on my to-do list: get married, have kids [Polls has twin girls] and build a successful practice, but I realized there was no room left on the plate for me."

Add to that the fact that during this period she had ballooned to an unhealthy 290 pounds. "As a doctor, I knew I had to get healthy and that meant losing weight," she recalls. Surprisingly, for a dermatologist known for an A-list patient roster of models and celebrities, her self-esteem hadn't suffered a setback. "My appearance never hurt my career," says the 46year-old Polls. "It wasn't the vanity aspect that motivated me to lose weight, it was my health and wanting to be a good role model for my daughters."

Even after she had planned and built her beautiful medi-spa, it never occurred to her to use its services herself. "I looked at my patients, who are all incredibly busy, successful women too, but they still took a little time for themselves once a month or so," Polls says. "And I realized that it's not self-indulgent to do something for yourself, it's self-care." So for every 10 pounds she lost, she'd celebrate with a treatment at her spa. But the real change wasn't just in her body, it was in her attitude. "Now I give myself permission to meditate, to take a nap, to do what feels good."