Lifestyle Choices

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…)

One of the simplest and most effective ways of changing your appearance is to change the color of your hair. As we get older, the color of hair tends either to fade or to go darker, so that a once shimmery golden mane or deep mahogany tresses can become lackluster and dull. One of the best ways of remedying the situation is with a color boost. Hair coloring these days is effective and reasonably priced and can look even better than most natural hair—provided, of course, it is done correctly. Otherwise it can end up looking like a burnished haystack.

There are two categories of hair colorants: permanent colorants, which enter the cortex and cannot be washed out, and the temporary and the semipermanent, which can be used to highlight and intensify your own hair color but won’t alter the cortex.

The Temporary Colorants

These are the easiest to use. They coat the cuticle of the hair with color that washes away with the next shampoo. You can get temporary highlighting shampoos and color rinses in a great variety of colors that don’t disturb the cuticle imbrications. Most of them have a shine- promoting pH, too. But what you can do with them is limited, for while they will darken the hair—say from blond to red or to black—they are really designed for minor color changes only. If you try to go too many shades away from your natural color, they tend to streak and give uneven coverage. They also cannot make your hair lighter than it is, because they have no action on the cortex, where the melanin granules are —they merely coat the outside of the hair shaft. (more…)

The Products

Makeup products offer you two things: coverage, which to some extent will conceal minor flaws and blemishes in your skin, and most important, color. There are literally hundreds of different makeup products on the market. From the amount of advertising that accompanies the launch of each of them—the new wand-lipstick or foam cheek color or moisture- encapsulated powder—you would assume that to do a good job of making up her face a woman needs all of them. You don’t. In fact you need very few.

Neither do colors change a great deal from season to season, in spite of the fact that each cosmetic house brings out new autumn or spring collections. If you gather together a simple range of shades for eyes, cheeks, and lips that you know look good on you, there is no reason to replace half of them with each new season’s arrivals. Yes, there might be the new shade of fuchsia lipstick which you fancy or a new-formula foundation (foundations seem to get better and better each couple of years), but the quality of a makeup product is not dependent on its price, although the package—including the little compacts, mirrors, and applicators—is usually better the more you pay. (more…)

Many drugs have a depressant effect on the mind and body. Others have a stimulant effect, lack of which makes you feel depressed when you stop taking the drug.

Alcohol

Although alcohol relaxes the muscles, reduces anxiety and often removes social inhibitions, it can be a stimulant or a depressant—it tends to accentuate an existing mood. Sad people often become morose, especially when drinking alone. Whatever your mood at the time of drinking, afterwards, during the hangover, you may have a headache, feel lethargic and in low spirits.

Both alcoholism and depression are often mechanisms for avoiding feelings. Some genetic studies suggest that depression and alcoholism tend to go together in families, but that more men become alcoholic while more women become depressed. Depressives and alcoholics are the most likely to attempt or commit suicide. People who can cope while drinking regularly may get depressed when they stop drinking. (more…)

Mood is affected by many kinds of outer influence. Mostpeople are affected by the weather, by dampness dampeningthe spirit, by dreary grey days which correspond with dreary grey moods, and by sunshine which nurtures good feeling.

NEGATIVE IONS

Just before a thunderstorm the weather is usually sultry and heavy, which makes you feel h eavy and look forward to thethunder breaking. After the storm, the air feels fresh and youfeel better. Putting aside the symbolic imagery, some of the effect on mood may be due to the balance of negatively and positively charged particles in the atmosphere. Basically, negative ions make you feel positive and positive ions make you feel negative. An electrical storm produces a lot of negative ions as does the breaking of the water on the sea shore. An electronic ionizer creates a similar effect. (more…)

Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) is like banging a TV set when it does not work. However, the crudity of whamming a 100-volt electric shock through someone’s brain does not take away the fact that this technique has saved people’s lives when all else has failed. As with every new and seemingly successful physical treatment of mental ailments, such as tranquillizers and anti-depressants, ECT has a history of gross overuse. It has also been misused in some institutions as a form of control or punishment.

ECT produces a temporary epilepsy. It was started on the theory (later found to be untrue) that epilepsy and schizophrenia never co-exist. It was therefore used to treat schizophrenia but with no success beyond a significant placebo effect. However, the technique was also used on people in severe depressive states with incredible results. In a few weeks people who were expected to remain in hospital for months or even years were recovering from the blackest and whitest of depressions. (more…)

Drug interactions

Tricyclic anti-depressants potentiate the effects of the following drugs, which should therefore be taken with care:

Alcohol

l Barbiturates

• Other anti-depressants. Tricyclics must not be used within 14 days of using a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI)
• Local anaesthetics
• Some drugs used for high blood pressure, e.g. bethanidine
• Some drugs that dilate the bronchi of the lungs
• Drugs that dilate the pupils
• Drugs used for Parkinson’s disease
• Some drugs used to control vomiting.

If you are taking any of these drugs as well as tricyclics, ask your doctor if any dose adjustments are necessary. (more…)