The Counterculture is Coming to ShopNBC with a BOOM!

Even if the name Cindy Joseph doesn’t immediately ring a bell, you know her face. Since breaking into the modeling business at the tender age of 49—no, that’s not a typo!—Cindy and her trademark silver hair have been photographed in ad campaigns for Olay, Elizabeth Arden and Aveda. She’s also modeled for Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, and J. Crew, and graced the covers and pages of Oprah, Glamour, and Mademoiselle magazines. And she did this all while being two inches too short and three decades too late to ever be a fashion model.

After 25 years as a makeup artist working behind the scenes, Cindy was ready to retire and get out of the beauty business altogether. She had even decided to quit dying her hair, instead opting to proudly go gray. The day she cut off the last of her dyed hair was the day that she was approached on the street by a casting agent to model for Dolce & Gabbana. After that, Ford Modeling Agency quickly snapped her up and Cindy has been working as a model who proudly embraces her age ever since.

Now Cindy wants to help all women have the courage to accept and love their skin and their age.

Cindy worked to develop a line of simple, healthy, and pro-age cosmetics called BOOM! Her products don’t claim to or even try to reduce wrinkles, hide age spots, or make you look younger. In a sea of anti-aging beauty products bombarding you with the message that you must look young to be beautiful, Cindy wants you to know that it’s the character and wisdom in your face that truly make you beautiful and that all you need to do is enhance the beauty that’s already there—not cover it up with a mask.

I had the opportunity to talk with Cindy about her new BOOM! line of cosmetics. I loved her story and her refreshing approach to beauty, but I wasn’t exactly sure how she would fit into the home shopping landscape.

Cindy spoke passionately about how women of all ages just want to be valued, noticed, flirted with. “We’re bombarded with the message that a woman’s value in society goes down as she gets older.” And while she certainly sympathizes with women who struggle to fight the battle against time, Cindy really wants women to change the way they perceive what is beautiful.

“Women shouldn’t hide the texture, lines, and wrinkles on their faces. It’s what gives us character. We look good when we are healthy and when we are happy. Your face radiates when it’s flushed from exercise, laughter, crying, or romance. You can make a 90-year-old woman blush!”

Cindy keeps her skin healthy the old-fashioned way with “sleep, fresh air, sunshine, exercise, fruits and vegetables, psychological and emotional health. You are dealt a hand. You can’t change your skin. You only have control over what you do with it.”

When’s the last time you heard that touted by a beauty vendor?