Lifestyle Choices

The Cause

These so-called liver spots are changes in pigmentation in the skin as a result of the aging process coupled with exposure to the sun’s rays. Their proper name is lentigines. They usually mar hands and faces most, and in truth they have little to do with the liver, from which they have borrowed their name. Women deficient in some B vitamins—particularly folic acid and niacin—or women who have a particularly high personal requirement for them thanks to their genetic inheritance or their taking of oral contraceptives, are particularly prone to developing liver spots in areas of the body that are regularly exposed to the sun’s light or artificial ultraviolet rays from a sun lamp. (more…)

Blackheads—the Cause

A blackhead—in medical terms, an open comedo—consists of a solid plug of oil that clogs the pore and then blackens due to oxidation on exposure to the air. If it is left alone it will simply stay there in the skin. Blackheads do not cure themselves.

Prevention and Cure

Blackheads on oily areas of the face (such as around the nose and chin) that are not inflamed can be removed easily by steaming the skin first or by applying hot compresses using flannel dipped in hot water and wrung out—hot water to which bicarbonate of soda has been added at a ratio of 1. tablespoon to each pint. This opens the pores and loosens the oily material. Then gently, with scrupulously clean hands and the tips of your fingers wrapped in facial tissue, you can ease out the plugs. Never use your nails. Finish off the treatment with the application of an antiseptic cream. (more…)

EYES

This exercise is excellent for the eye area, which usually goes slack faster than any other part of the face. It is particularly designed to prevent or eliminate crow’s-feet. It is in two parts.

Part one Looking into a mirror, lower your chin to your chest and open your eyes looking straight ahead. Then, slowly and in eight definite steps, close your eyes by bringing the lower lids up to the upper, all the while looking into the mirror until the very last moment. Hold this position with your eyes tightly shut for four counts, then release in the same eight definite steps. Repeat four times. Once you can control these movements in definite steps, you are ready to go on to the toughy that really does the work. (more…)