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…)

Proper cleansing can be the most important part of your skincare routine! Not only is it absolutely necessary to get your face clean without irritating your skin (often a delicate balance), but you can also treat your skin by the way you wash and the soap or cleanser you use. Your bath or shower can be your best friend, your greatest indulgence and your most important key to excellent health and a great, young appearance.

Getting the product right!

Your skin is by nature slightly acidic (with a pH of about 5.5). Until recently, most soaps and cleansers were the opposite — slightly alkaline. The result was dry skin! With advances in cosmetic chemistry, no longer do you have to choose from only harsh, alkaline products. (more…)

Final. Dos and Don’ts

Don’t use the wrong shampoo and conditioner just because they’re the products you have always used. Even the products that once left your hair soft and silky may now be doing a less-than-perfect job. Why? Seasonal changes, environmental, chemical, and emotional factors all have their share of the responsibility. Do have your stylist analyze the current condition of your hair and prescribe products accordingly. Use products that are right for you now, and that come from the same line they’re formulated to work best together.

Don’t shampoo too harshly. Piling up layers of hair on your head or vigorously scrubbing your scalp can result in snarls and damage. Do be gentle when you wash your hair; save your strenth for washing the family car or helping Mom with the pots and pans! (more…)

They do exist, particularly among women who have been on the weight seesaw for many years through crash dieting. Sensitivities to specific foods such as milk and milk products or grains (the two most common culprits) can make reducing almost an impossibility, for in the allergy- prone woman, the foods to which she is sensitive are invariably those that she craves and also those that, when she eats them, increase her appetite and lure her into giving up her weight loss program. For instance, I knew one woman who was allergic to wheat (although she wasn’t aware of it at the time). She would go on a reducing diet and stick to it conscientiously until the third day, when the diet called for a piece of toast. (more…)

There is a common misconception that body odor comes from perspiration. It doesn’t. Perspiration or sweat consists of nothing more than almost odorless water plus a few mineral salts that are responsible for that slightly salty smell many find has an almost aphrodisiac appeal to it. The unpleasant smell often thought to be the result of perspiration or sweat is in fact caused by waste products from the bacteria on the skin. The smell only occurs when more water is given off from perspiration than can be easily evaporated into the air and/or when clothing—particularly clothing made from synthetic materials, which hinder evaporation—interferes with this drying out process. (more…)

It may surprise you to see such a common thing as air listed among the important treatments for external use on skin, but in many ways it may be the most valuable of all. It is also often the most neglected by women who tend to cover their skin day and night with heavy creams.

Although most of the oxygen your skin needs comes by way of the bloodstream, the skin also helps itself to as much as 2 1/2 percent of the body’s total oxygen from the air by direct absorption. Skin also directly eliminates almost 3 percent of the body’s carbon dioxide waste. Generally, this direct oxygen intake is used only by the epidermis, where it helps to break down nutrients for cell use at the basal layer and to eliminate wastes. (more…)

BEGIN BY STAYING OUT OF THE SUN

To preserve your skin from premature aging, in addition to the constant use of a sunscreen on your face as part of your everyday skin care, you should understand the art of sunbathing—that is if you want to tan at all. Ideally, of course, you would be far better off pale.

As we’ve already said, the sun is your skin’s worst “ager.” It has been proved that exposure to ultraviolet light brings about permanent fundamental alterations in the genetic material of skin cells and encourages the process of cross-linking. These changes are cumulative and irreversible. Even when sun-exposed skin from an arm is grafted onto a protected area such as the abdomen and left there for years, it still remains older- looking and darker than the skin surrounding it. (more…)

THE METALLIC DYES

These you have no doubt heard about—they are supposed to be the magical cure for graying hair and are often called color restorers. They deposit metallic dyes and salts of various metals such as manganese, cobalt, silver, and copper on your hair shaft, which gradually darkens the hair. But hair dyed this way does not permanent-wave well, nor is itscondition very good, as this kind of dye tends to make the hair look a dull, flat color. Metallic dyes have to be removed completely, with the use of a special preparation, several days before waving or tinting with a permanent colorant. Because of their many disadvantages, I think they are best avoided.

BLEACHING

Hair bleaching is done with hydrogen peroxide, which affects the hair shaft both physically and chemically. Combined with an alkaline compound such as ammonia, it opens the imbrications of the cuticle so that it can penetrate the hair shaft, and then inside the cortex it chemically oxidizes the melanin pigments, fading their color, thus bleaching out the hair in the process. There are products on the market that are simple bleachers—they are called lighteners, and they consist of peroxide together with ammonia. Sometimes a “drabber” is added in order to remove the red highlights that come from bleaching darker hair. Bleaching forms an important part of the other permanent tints, which also rely on oxidation processes to work. (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…)

Dry skin

If you have naturally dry skin then the more soap and water you use the drier it will become. You may find that the milder soaps produced as ‘baby soaps‘ leave your skin feeling more comfortable because these products contain added amounts of grease which is left behind on the skin. Superfatted soaps are also designed with this effect in mind. It may be more sensible just to use less soap or use it less frequently than to search for particular products for dry skin. You should always use a moisturising cream immediately after washing so that additional drying does not take place. You could even use the moisturiser as a cleanser and this will clean the skin and leave it looking smooth and feeling soft. All these preparations hydrate the outer layer of skin and prevent further water loss by covering it with a thin layer of grease. (more…)

Seeking and Complying with Medical Advice

Some people purposely avoid seeking the advice of a physician because they fear that something may be wrong. This occurs in spite of the evidence that delay in treatment greatly increases the risk of death for many diseases that can be cured or controlled. In addition to medical readiness exams for those beginning exercise (see Concept 4), regular preventive medical exams are important. After age forty, a yearly preventive exam is recommended for all people. Young adults probably need a regular medical examination less often, but a regular examination is important for all people to help in the early diagnosis of problems. Regular self- examination for breast (females) and testicular (males) cancer are recommended, as are periodic mammograms and PAP tests for females (especially after age forty), and a prostate test for males. Other important behaviors that should be considered are listed as follows:

• Be familiar with the symptoms of the most common medical problems in our culture.
• If symptoms are present, seek medical help. Many deaths could be prevented if the early warning signs of medical problems were heeded.

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Like fingerprints, everyone has a complexion that is uniquely their own. Some people have facial skin that’s oily, others have skin that tends to be dry. And some people have skin that is dry in some places and oily in others. Your age, family history, and environment can all influence your skin type.

Knowing your skin type, and learning about the best products to cleanse, tone, and moisturize is important to having your skin look its very best. Products that make one type of skin look great can do nothing at all for another type of skin.

What’s your skin type? Check these profiles to find out:

Your skin type is oily if…

1. your skin frequently looks shiny
2. you have blackheads or blemishes frequently
3. you have few visible lines

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Nobody has perfect skin, not even models and movie stars. Nearly everyone has an occasional blemish. How do you take care of minor skin problems before they become major skin problems?

Zapping Zits and Blemishes

Blackheads are pores that have become clogged with oil or dirt. The “plug” that forms in the pore is called a comedo. When the comedo is exposed to air, it turns dark or black, causing a blackhead. If the plug is under the surface of the skin, and not exposed to air, a whitehead (pimple or “zit”) forms. (more…)

The following is a list of ingredients that have come under question in the last few years. From being carcinogenic, DNA damaging, hormone disrupting or known irritants, many of these ingredients are under further investigation in various countries. It may be interesting to check your beauty and personal care products and see how many of them contain these ingredients:

Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (or Laureth)

This has its origins in natural sources. It is produced by the sulphation of commonly available lauryl alcohol, which comes from coconut oil. You will often see on the label ‘coconut derived’, and this can be a bit misleading as it sounds very natural, when in fact it goes through a lot of chemical processes to become the final product. Sodium Lauryl Sulphate may damage the outer layers of the skin, causing dermatitis, dryness and blackheads. It may also enhance the absorption of other chemicals. It should only be used in cosmetics that are quickly rinsed off the skin. It is widely used in shampoos, bubble baths, face and body cleansers, toothpaste and most household detergents. The US National Toxicology Program (NTP) classifies it as a skin and eye irritant. In fact, when dermatologists want to test the calming effect of an ingredient, they use Sodium Lauryl Sulphate as the irritant! (more…)

If you were to ask the person behind the cosmetic counter, ‘What is the toxicity and cellular response to this cream?’ they would look at you as if you were speaking a different language. In fact, you would be speaking another language to them, but maybe it is a language they should know. We feel that in order to make informed decisions about skincare, we need to know how the ingredients work on our skin. We have to look beyond all the e marketing material and examine each individual ingredient and its properties. Then we need to look at the combined effect of these ingredients together. The exciting news is that now some companies are doing just that and educating their users along the way. (more…)

While we are more and more aware about what is in our food - whether it is low in fat or sugar, whether it is GM free or organic - often we don’t spare a second thought to what is in our skincare or personal care products. According to research, women expose themselves to over 200 chemicals a day through skin and health-care products and make-up. This is a scary thought when you start to investigate what those ingredients are. We put on creams and lotions thinking we are doing our best to keep the skin healthy and hopefully slow down the aging process, yet often we are completely unaware of the product’s ingredients or the effect they may have on our health.

Over the last few years more and more information and research into the effects cosmetics are having on our health has become available. There is quite a debate taking place as companies defend their ingredients and the reasons why they are included in their products. The information can be quite confusing. We believe the only way you can really get to the bottom of this is to start investigating yourself, taking responsibility for your own health. Learn what the different ingredients are and what they do. Make informed decisions about whether you use them or not, and don’t be fooled by clever advertising campaigns. (more…)

In researching ingredients used in skin and beauty products, we were confronted with many questions. Why are so many ingredients that are questioned for their safety used in the cosmetic industry? What are the ingredients that are questionable and are there good alternatives? (more…)

We know today that skin absorbs a lot more than was once thought. In orthodox medicine some drugs are even delivered through the skin in patches and creams. Studies are finding the skin a highly effective way of delivering these substances directly into your bloodstream. Your skin is your body’s largest organ and it is not a uniform barrier. There are lots of holes in your skin like hair follicles, sebaceous glands and sweat glands that absorb and excrete. If a clove of garlic is rubbed on the sole of your foot, the odour can be detected on your breath within 10-20 minutes.

Many things can affect the absorption of an ingredient: your skin’s condition, your health and the molecular structure of the ingredient itself. Some substances and chemicals with large molecules were always thought to be unable to penetrate the skin; however, studies are showing now that it may be the base these substances are mixed in that causes a change in their structure, allowing them to be more easily absorbed. (more…)

You may well be aware of the benefits of massage. Massage increases circulation, promotes sleep, reduces stress levels, increases muscle tone, promotes elimination of toxins and waste, supports weight loss, increases skin pliability and enhances well-being - to name but a few. Imagine if you could do this every day. Well, you can, and it only takes a few minutes every morning to do it.

How would you feel if we told you we both have a full body massage every day? Well, it’s true, and we have been having these massages every day for the past 14 years - not once have we missed a day! It is the ultimate skin treatment. We love it and cannot imagine life without it. Having a daily full body rub or massage is a great insurance policy for your overall health. The important thing to remember is to ensure the products you massage your body with are natural and full of essential vitamins and minerals. Also, it is important to make sure this is a good body rub, not some airy-fairy tickle! You want your body to wake up, feel alive and be ready to get into your day. You may have guessed by now that your daily body massage is performed by YOU!

A little note: how do you feel when you stand naked in front of a mirror? Are you horrified, pleased, shocked or rapt? If for some reason you cannot stand in front of the mirror every morning and say: ‘Wow - I look and feel great: then you definitely need to take on the daily body massage routine! (more…)

There are different types of tofu, primarily distinguished from one another by their texture. Silken tofu, or Japanese-style tofu, ranges from the softest to medium-soft. Chinese-style, or hard-pressed tofu, is medium-firm to dense-firm.

The medium-firm tofu is good for slicing, freezing, and cubing. The softer form may be used the same way but it has to be drained and squeezed dry, and it does not hold its shape as well. It is best in recipes that require blending, such as mayonnaise and cheesecake. You can make tofu firmer by placing paper towels on the top and bottom of the tofu and placing a heavy chopping board on it for fifteen minutes or longer. (more…)