Lifestyle Choices

Hands are very important and, if they are not taken care of, can give away the age of a person even more than the face and neck. We use our hands for so many daily chores that, if we are not careful to protect and nourish them, they can soon take on a very poor condition. (more…)

You have a general idea of how each part of your body has a corresponding reflex located in the hands and fingers. In explaining how to work the various reflex points and their coinciding areas in the body.

We will start with the top of the thumb and fingers, and work the reflexes corresponding to the head. Then we will progress to the rest of the hands, explaining the reflexes and body areas as we go. (more…)

Actinic keratoses(AKs) are flat or slightly raised, sometimes red, scaly patches which appear on the background of sun-damaged skin — especially on the face, the scalps of balding men, the backs of the hands, arms, chest and back. Since they are rough to the touch, AKs are often more easily diagnosed by feel than by observation. They are especially prevalent on fair-skinned people who continue to develop AKs even long after discontinuing sun exposure. AKs are pre-malignant skin growths that can develop into squameous cell carcinomas. They must therefore be treated straightaway, either by cryosurgery or chemotherapy using Effudex (5-fluorouracil) or Actinex (masoproco) cream. These creams cause the skin to become markedly inflamed for at least one week, but there is also some decrease in wrinkles as a bonus! (more…)

Almost everything can cause an allergy in someone, somewhere! The medical literature is full of reports of strange skin allergies: clarinet players with lip blisters from an allergy to the bamboo reed; drivers with allergic reactions to steering wheels; chefs with allergies to pineapple juice, corn and other moist foods. (more…)

Facial Hair

I know, life isn’t fair. Some of us are darker and fuzzier in places we wish we weren’t, and during our period a female ‘moustache’ can become darker and more noticeable.

If you have noticeable hairs on your face you have three options:

• Bleaching them monthly. This is fine if the hairs aren’t coarse or too long. Apply a special facial hair bleach to lighten the hair. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Always test a patch of hair on your arm first. Some women’s hair turns red, which can be worse than the natural shade.

(more…)

I like to hang out at night bar with my girlfriends. I have some creative styles for your nail painting needs.

Choose a nail varnish color that complements the dress you are going to wear. If your dress color is flat, pick a shade of nail varnish, a little less than the dress color to emphasize the hue. (more…)

When you take the time to ask “Why?” science will always answer “How”. In the case of wrinkles, as you learn why they appear, you can also learn how to prevent or postpone their appearance, plus how to eliminate many of the wrinkles you already have. It’s never too late to care for your skin, to prevent more wrinkles from appearing, and to soften those already present. It’s never too late to look and feel younger! (more…)

“Skin Bleaching” Medical Surgery Basic Procedure

Before a chemical peel, the doctor may recommend that the face be “pre-treated” with a special exfoliating cleanser, with retinoic acid, or with alpha-hydroxy acids so that the peel procedure can be performed on a more even skin surface. Just before the peel, the doctor may ask the patient to wash his or her face thoroughly. Then he or she will clean the patient’s face extensively with alcohol oracetone, rubbing the superficial oil from the skin. (more…)

Acne usually starts as a few blackheads on the nose and forehead and a few inflamed papules also appear often on a greasy skin. Often the spots come in crops so that there are times in between without any spots. Many girls have a bout of acne around the time of their period.

Cosmetics

Very greasy or oily cosmetics are best avoided because they can block up the follicles and make acne worse. This may happen under a fringe when the hair may prevent the grease escaping. Disagreement about the best advice partly stems from the fact that in America they used to have a lot of trouble with greasy make-up causing acne. In Britain most doctors are happy to allow the use of noncomedogenic foundation, moisturizers etc. Some people gain much confidence if they can hide their spots. (more…)

It is difficult to understand why one person may have bad acne covering most of the back or chest but none on the face whilst another individual may have severe facial acne but little elsewhere. We presume that it is only the sebaceous glands and follicles in the affected areas that are responding to the hormone changes in the blood. Whichever area is affected, the changes are of larger papules and pustules which last longer and some of them may leave small scars. Blackheads will almost certainly be seen as well and they can be very extensive. When a flare-up occurs it may be very uncomfortable and an occasional cyst may appear. (more…)

Pigment

The pigment in our skin is called melanin and this same substance gives color to our hair and eyes. Fair -skinned people have only a little melanin while those with dark skins have a lot. The main function of melanin is to protect the skin from ultraviolet in the sun’s rays.

Vitiligo

Intensive research, around the world, has so far failed to reveal the trigger for vitiligo or the mechanism. We know that antibodies against the melanocyte are found in the blood, that antibodies against the thyroid gland are also present but that they seem to do no harm. (more…)

Birthmarks

It would be logical if all birthmarks were present at birth. This is not always the case. Some marks appear in the first few days of life but others can be delayed by months or years. In these cases it is thought that the fault resides in the skin from birth but only reveals itself when some other factor acts as a trigger. An example of this is the unusual problem called Becker’s nevus. It has the appearance, usually on the shoulder, of a large light brown patch, often with some coarse dark hair in it. It is first seen at puberty and is triggered by rising hormone levels. Salmon patches or stork bites derive their name from the old fable about babies being delivered down the chimney by a friendly stork whose beak has clasped the human bundle by the nape of the neck. These marks are seen in about a quarter of the population. Sometimes they are thought to have appeared in adult life but it is only that some new hair style or hair disease has revealed a patch that has really been present since birth. (more…)

Treatment of skin lumps

Cryotherapy

The destruction of skin tumors by bringing the temperature well below freezing point is called cryosurgery. Liquid nitrogen is the most popular refrigerant (temperature in the flask -196°C). It is applied to the skin either on a cotton swab or as a spray through a nozzle from a flask. The use of liquid nitrogen for the treatment of warts is described elsewhere. Other uses are treating seborrheic warts, actinic keratoses (see under sun-induced skin changes) and occasionally small basal cell cancers. (more…)

Skin cancers

Skin cancer is already a common disease but we are seeing it more and more. There may be several reasons for this but an important one is that more fair-skinned people are being exposed to sunlight, either on holiday or having emigrated to a hot country. The problem is so great in subtropical Australia that almost every adult has at least one skin cancer in their life. Much more will be said about the damaging effect of sunlight on skin but it is such an important subject that there is no harm in mentioning it twice. (more…)

The Aniline or Oxidation Hair Colorants

The most permanent (and the most successful), these dyes are included in a number of products for colouring hair such as tinting shampoos, highlighting shampoos, and the single-step and double-step permanent colourants you can buy in packages at the chemist. They are permanent dyes, because the artificial pigment is made to penetrate into the cortex of the hair shaft. There it stays. How this happens is most interesting. (more…)

There are three kinds of permanent hair colourants: vegetable dyes such as henna, metallic dyes such as those used to gradually cover grey hair, and the aniline dyes or oxidation tints, which include most of the colourants used professionally in salons.

The Vegetable Dyes

Henna is the best-known, since its use dates back thousands of years. Taken from the Lawsonia plant, which is indigenous to Africa and Asia, henna varies in colour depending on which country it comes from. It can be strong orange in colour, as Moroccan henna, or a deep red, as the henna that comes from Iran — the most sought-after in the world. The plant is harvested, dried in the sun, and then crushed into a greenish powder, which is what one puts on the hair. It coats the hair shaft’s cuticle a reddish colour. (more…)

Fungi

Several fungi can infect human skin, nails and hair. Those fungi which normally live in the soil or on animals tend to produce inflammation as well as scaling but those which are specifically human fungi give rise to little reaction on the skin. The term ringworm is used because many fungal infections produce a circular rash.

Ringworm

Ringworm on the foot is also called athlete’s foot and it is the most widespread form of fungal infection. It is easily spread from one person to another and swimming baths and changing rooms are likely sources of infection. The usual changes are redness, scaling and maceration in the space between fourth and fifth toes, and it may be accompanied by small blisters. It may remain like this for years causing no discomfort, however, it may itch and spread to the other web spaces or other body sites. (more…)

Viruses

Viruses are even smaller than bacteria and fungi and they are not usually found on normal skin. Many viruses can cause a rash - e.g. measles and glandular fever - but these diseases are not dealt with here. This section describes some virus infections in which either the only signs or the commonest signs of the disease are on the skin.

Warts

It is now known that there are several strains of wart virus and each tends to produce its own type of wart. Some cause the ordinary wart on the hands, others painful warts on the feet; and still others warts on the face or genitals. Warts are caught from other people. This happens easily in children who have not had time to develop immunity to the virus but adults are more resistant. Even when the virus has gained access to the skin it may lie dormant for weeks or months before the wart itself appears. (more…)

Types of psoriasis

The commonest form of this disease is plaque psoriasis and most sufferers have this type alone on and off for much of their lives. A few individuals will develop other varieties but this is usually a temporary occurrence which will then revert back to the plaque type.

Plaque (common psoriasis)

About one million people in Britain have psoriasis and the majority have the plaque form. The appearances are quite characteristic and there can be any number of patches, pink or pink-red, stuck onto the skin. They are clearly separated from the normal surrounding skin and come in almost every shape and size but tend not to have rounded edges. The surface is scaly and, on the legs, markedly so. The scale is silvery and is quite easily scraped off with a fingernail: however, new patches, those on the upper body and face, and those undergoing treatment may have little or no scale. (more…)

Finger nails take three to six months to grow and toe nails twelve to twenty-four months. Nail is made of keratin in much the same way as skin and hair. The visible part is quite inert and not much happens to it at that stage. The growing section lies mainly under the skin and the only part that can be seen is the half moon. Any disease which affects the matrix, as the growing area is called, may produce a variety of changes.

Nails may alter as a result of an internal disease. Iron deficiency, for example, leads to flat nails and liver disease may produce white nails. Some medications produce discoloration. Pits, like those on a thimble, sometimes occur in psoriasis and ridges and depressions may be a feature of eczema. (more…)