I’m 76 but look decades younger – the £3.50 trick I use to keep wrinkles away & why you should never wear red or orange
GETTING older is often seen as a negative thing, but one woman is changing the narrative one video at a time.
Candace Cima is 76 and regularly shares clips about her lifestyle, including her top tips on skincare and fashion.
Wearing everything from sexy bikinis to dresses with thigh-high splits, she’s not afraid to show off what she’s got and is on a mission to make sure others feel they can do the same too.
Now, Candace has given The Sun’s Fabulous magazine an exclusive look into how she keeps her youthful looks as an ex-model.
Candace started modelling at the very young age of four, when her mum put her in a few adverts. Her next taste of the limelight happened in high school, doing “local stuff for people”.
It wasn’t until she was married and in Detroit that she finally signed to an agency and started doing jobs like the Detroit Auto Show.
“I was never tall enough for runway modelling,” she explained. “I always ended up doing either live or print modelling.”
Despite doing it for fun for quite a few years, she hasn’t done modelling professionally since the 90s.
But this hasn’t stopped Candace from showing off her incredible physique and fashion sense. Instead of the live shows, brochures and magazines (including Redbook), she now struts her stuff on her TikTok and Instagram accounts, where she has a combined following of 235,800 followers.
Candace spends three months of the year in Florida, while the rest of her time is spent in Ithaca, New York.
It was during one of her stints in the Southeastern state of Florida that she decided to go on her online journey.
“I was laying around reading and I happened to come across an article in Vogue,” she explained. “It was about influencers. Until that moment, I had never heard of the term influencer, I had no idea what it was.
“I thought, ‘I wonder if there are any older influencers…’ because he was talking about all these young people.”
My philosophy has always been: the less you do to your skin, the better
Candace Cima
At the time, she couldn’t find anyone who represented someone of her own age and decided: “I could put some of my thoughts up about fashion and staying in style as you get older.”
“So that’s what I did,” she added.
Candace explained that ageing has always fascinated her and she’s never understood why it has a negative connotation.
The beauty said it really bothered her that women over a certain age “disappear into society”, but this feeling lit the fire to create her own content and “change the dialogue”.
Candace then shared her beauty and fashion secrets…
Skincare
While people might suspect her of having cosmetic work done, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
“I don’t believe in it at all,” she told us. “I don’t want to spend 76 years getting to this point in my life and not know what I really look like when I look in the mirror. I want to know what I’m going to look like at 85.
“I’ve never had laser treatment, Botox or anything. My philosophy has always been: the less you do to your skin, the better.”
Candace explained that she uses a £3.50 Dove soap bar to wash her face before applying a moisturiser every day.
She uses a £225 Augustinus Bader face moisturiser. However, if she ever uses a budget option, she said it’s always goes for Cerave, which is just £13 from Boots.
“I just use the cream at night after I wash my face. And then in the morning, I put the cream on then sunscreen under my make-up. That’s it.”
Exercise
Candace explained that she works out every single day without fail. Besides the obvious reason to stay healthy, she said it makes her a happier person.
“I have worked out every single day since I was probably 35,” she shared. “I think when I was in my 30s, I got really serious and thought, ‘This is really important’.”
While she used to work out two hours a day, five years ago she went down to one hour and 20 minutes a day.
She alternates between lifting weights and doing yoga, ensuring she has a good balance throughout the week.
“There are some things I’m trying to achieve, too, like by the time I’m 80 I want to do a perfect split,” she said.
Diet
Candace doesn’t eat red meat or drink alcohol, that’s the first thing you should know about her diet. Instead, she has a healthy serving of vegetables with fish or poultry.
“Most people use vegetables as a side dish… Vegetables are my main course,” she said. “And a side dish for me might be a piece of fish or poultry.
“It’s pretty standard for me every night to have a plate of three or four different vegetables. I’ll have broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. I just love vegetables.”
While she might have a very clean diet, this doesn’t mean she doesn’t treat herself to a treat.
“I love chocolate,” she said. “I think it falls all the way back to when I was a kid, I always had a kind of dessert before I went to bed.
“So here I am, 76 years later, still have my milk and cookies when I go to bed at night.”
Fashion
While Candace’s skincare, exercise and diet are all important, there’s one more side to the equation when it comes to her youthful looks: fashion.
And the former model knows exactly how to style herself.
“I would say for me, simplicity can be extremely elegant,” she said. “You can also make a bold statement.
“I’m more of a classic Chanel type of person. I wear way too much black and white and I’m trying to add more colour to my wardrobe.
“I don’t like a lot of ruffles or bows. I don’t like loud prints. I like classic, simple, elegant and well put together clothes.”
There are a few things she finds tacky too, including patterned trousers. But she mainly avoids colours and prints that clash with her body shape and skin tone.
“I don’t wear orange and I rarely wear red. I think it’s because I have a lot of red in my skin. I always felt like that accentuated it.”
Candace’s ultimate mission is to get the message out to women that just because they’re older doesn’t mean they don’t have a purpose.
“They spent years learning things and giving up themselves to other people and everything that they are now is such an accumulation of a whole life’s work,” she said. “This is when they should be enjoying it. This is when they should realise their value.
“Women just don’t feel that way. I want them to feel that way.”