When Dale got sent out on his last deployment…I had a complete breakdown.

How could the love of my life, my dream man that I just recently married, look at me with such a lack of emotion? What had I done to deserve this?

I met with my close friend Desiree, another military wife, and told her everything that had happened. I told her how the shift in how Dale looked at me and showed me affection had started to affect my confidence and mood.

Desiree was never one to hold back, so she gave it to me bluntly, “Ok so you say he’s been treating you differently since you’ve been married. Have you been doing anything differently since then?”

I reflected on how much my lifestyle had changed and started to give her a list of the changes: I had moved, I had changed jobs, I had stopped working out regularly, I had stopped getting beauty treatments.

“Girl you need to stop right there,” Des told me matter-of-factly.

“How do you expect your man to treat you like a Queen when you don’t treat yourself like one?”

I thought about what she said long and hard and realized she was right.

My husband fell in love with me because I was a warm, bubbly, confident woman that was fun to be around.

The result of all this new stress and aging skin was me feeling lonely, ugly, and it was reflecting in my attitude. If you don’t find yourself sexy and attractive, no one will.

And I had never felt less sexy than since we’d gotten married.

Desiree gave me her parting thoughts, “If you want to get your man to treat you like he did before you were married, you need to become that person again.”

With Dale on a 6-month deployment I had one mission in mind: to save my marriage by re-discovering my true self.

I signed up for those yoga and pilates classes again. I made new friends that I could hang out and socialize with, making me feel fun and interesting again. My inner confidence was growing…

However my skin was still dull, dry & making me look FAR older than I actually was… I still needed help feeling beautiful on the outside.

When I mentioned to one of my new friends Joan about my recent crows feet, she asked me about my skincare routine.

When I told her I didn’t have one she gave me a stern look, then laughed and said “Mel, it’s time you get with the program – I’m going to give you my skincare secret and we’re going to have you looking fine as hell again in no time.”