Words matter. These are the best Mary Helen Bowers Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Nail polish is like the icing on the beauty cake.
I train a lot of celebrities, including a lot of women who work for Victoria’s Secret as Angels.
I want my workouts to feel like a luxury, a way to pamper yourself and add a beautiful dimension to your everyday life.
I’ve been so fortunate to have had such a healthy, easy pregnancy and have been incredibly active the entire way through. My favorite part is feeling the baby move – but the entire process is such a miracle.
My approach in general is to take really great care of my skin, but I try not to overdo it and not use too many crazy products.
Stretching before and after every workout keeps muscles supple and helps elongate the lines of a ballerina’s limbs.
For a ballerina, the worst thing imaginable is big thighs.
I like to customize my tights by cutting them myself to create a stirrup or convert the look into a capri.
I sometimes wash my face at night with Cetaphil, which I like because it’s a really gentle face wash.
Ballet Beautiful is about finding balance and making fitness a part of your life in a happy, healthy, rewarding way where you get to feel pretty and look beautiful. It’s not about beating yourself up in the gym and locking yourself in a dark room with blasting music.
It’s not about having a perfectly sculpted figure; it’s about feeling healthy, fit, and confident.
I adore the tapestries at the Musee de Cluny in Paris!
Keep it simple. Layer your leotard with high waisted skinny jeans, legwarmers, and heels or high boots.
Most of the time, even if I’m at home in my sweatpants, I probably have a pair of slippers on.
Ballet can be hard on your joints, and when you’re on a movie set doing take after take, it can become really repetitive.
To look and feel your best, it’s essential to work out, eat well, and make sure that you are also drinking plenty of water and getting enough sleep.
I live in my Ballet Beautiful street shoes.
Ballet Beautiful has made my pregnancy a joy. I’ve avoided back pain and swelling by keeping my core strong and body moving.
A leotard is more versatile than you might think!
For ballet dancers, style is about melding personal expression with physical form.
A few times a week, I’ll put on La Roche-Posay’s Active C Facial Moisturizer. That’s probably my favorite cream. It clears up my skin a bit and provides more of an anti-wrinkle element.
The changes that your body goes through during pregnancy are so radical, I’ve really tried to embrace and celebrate my new body, and hopefully I can encourage other women to do the same.
My style is a little ’70s and classic old Hollywood. I incorporate a lot of vintage, bohemian blouses paired with a good wedge.
For the hair, a few French hairpins and a tortoiseshell clip will dress up any bun!
Pregnancy is magical, I’ve never felt more connected to my body.
Designing and creating dance clothes has taken my love for dancewear to a whole other level, melding the creative process with my daily fashion and allowing me to bring my most dreamed-about ballet styles to life.
A calming place, where you can go to escape it all and just focus on your body, is so wonderful to have.
When you dance, you engage your abs in every step.
For a ballerina, the center of balance is everything – creating a strong center of balance begins with building strong abdominal muscles.
I’m very sensitive to salt. I always see and feel a big difference in my body when I eat it, so I try to consume salt in moderation.
I’ll buy a special occasion dress even if I don’t know when or where I’ll wear it.
When you work out a lot, it’s so important to eat the right foods.
On weekends, I do brunch at home: whole grain bagels, lox, avocado, eggs, and organic bacon.
By continuing to work out and dance while pregnant, I feel a double reward from maintaining my normal routine but all the while knowing that baby is sharing in my day.
If you don’t have the time or money to get to the gym, work out at home. It saves tons of time and makes life more efficient.
I love berries, greens, and salmon.
Have something that you enjoy, that satisfies you. For me, that is dark chocolate, red wine, and cheese. But make room in your life for vegetables and whole grains to nourish your body.
I became completely obsessed with body oils while pregnant.
When you’re not experiencing your food, that’s when it’s harder to pay attention to when you’re full, and that’s what being satisfied really means.
All of the vintage photos of Ballets Russes are so inspiring.
It’s not realistic to say never eat sugar, but I try to limit my sugar as much as I can to buckwheat honey and dark chocolate, which I love.
A lot of fitness is about contractions – you’re doing squats, or you’re on a bike and your knees are bending but never stretching all the way, so your muscles get strengthened but look short and thick.
Ballet targets smaller muscles that you don’t often use – instead of working your quads, it works the inside and the back of your leg.
I find that the thing that makes every body look the best is great toning, and really, really targeting the muscles, and low cardio, where you’re sculpting and getting your heart rate up but not beating yourself up.
A lot of people think the body is just about genetics, but the right approach can change its shape.
A simple scoop-neck leotard highlights a ballerina’s swanlike neck and elegant posture, both rooted in a powerful core.
In yoga, you hold the positions, whereas in dance, you’re constantly moving, extending, reaching through the legs and arms, which helps build long, lean muscles as opposed to shorter, tighter ones.
Audrey Hepburn was always so chic, simple, and beautiful.
Could you physically lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks? Maybe. But there’s no way you could do that in a healthy way or that you could maintain it.
There’s no feeling like performing. It’s magical, it’s so rewarding, and it just feeds this special little part of your soul.
It’s important to remember that life is hectic and unpredictable.
Working out should be empowering! It should make you look and feel strong, elegant, healthy – the best possible version of you.
I think most people don’t need as much cardio as they think they do.
I like to think that when you take care of yourself, when you do nice things for yourself, it has a nice ripple effect on the rest of the world.
You won’t find me in a sports bra and low-slung leggings.
I love how chic yet simple ballet style is for everyday dressing.
I try and get as much sleep as I possibly can, although it’s harder with a baby.
My body needs a lot of protein because I exercise so much. I eat dairy, meat, and gluten, but I stay away from white flour, sugar, and processed foods.
Because I dieted so much in the past, I just can’t diet again. It’s something I don’t want to do and I don’t even know if I am capable of. I think it’s a much healthier and happier way to live.
Making fitness a priority will energize you, make you look and feel better, and help diffuse stress.
Generally, I snack on lots of fresh fruit and raw nuts, such as almonds.
Ballet was just something that I always wanted to do.
I think being in the right mindset is a huge challenge for women, who often take an all-or-nothing approach to working out or eating well.
Ballet Beautiful is a workout that transforms the body without overtaxing the system or joints.
I don’t let my wardrobe dictate my diet.
I love nuts and popcorn with olive oil and sea salt.
