Why is it that all of us cannot keep the skin we were born with. Well
I’ve still got my skin but it has changed and, according to my mother,
it has changed a lot. It would also need to have stretched a bit, well
in my case stretched a lot. As we get older, things happen to our skin,
like wrinkles. I have them but I am a man so I can get away with it.
Unfortunately, ladies find it harder to get away with having a few
wrinkles. As a man, I am not too bothered by a few wrinkles and as long
as I keep my skin clean, I do not bother with it much and no one really
notices. What we do notice though is skin on women, and because many
men are somehow genetically programmed to be uncaring and insensitive
about your skin, you spend a great deal of time and effort to make your
skin look good.
Why is it then that men can get away with wrinkles but women cannot? Is
there anything you can do about it? If you adopt a skin care program
then this should help to affect how your skin looks and more importantly
it will affect how you feel as well, and that is very important. You
have to remember that the skin is the largest organ in your body and so
by adopting a skincare program you are looking after yourself.
So what can you do about it? Well to start with after every shower even
after you have dried yourself your skin is still damp and by applying
moisturizer you are trapping moisture into your skin which is a great
plus factor. Another one is to drink water and this hydration helps your
skin as well. However, if you notice that even after this your skin is
always dry and sometimes a little flakey, just visit your doctor to
check things out. One other reason you should quickly visit is if there
is a major change such as dark, (or lighter), skin patches and any
changes or growth to moles you may have. Get these checked out just to
make sure you have no problems.
One thing to watch out for is the effect the sun has on your skin. The
sun is at its fiercest when it is highest, which is generally at midday,
so just take care. Applying a good sunscreen helps, and another thing
to take into consideration is that elastin, which is a substance in your
skin, breaks down under strong sunlight. This can cause the skin to sag
so just be careful. It is a pity about the effects of sunlight on skin
as most of us feel much happier when exposed to sunlight.
Rather than buy every skincare product on the market there is a lot you
can do to help your skin by developing your own personal skincare
program.
Healthy skin is helped by a healthy diet, and a healthy diet is usually a
balanced diet containing fresh vegetables and fruit. Both of these have
been found to contain antioxidants which can help your skin protect
itself from day to day living. To get the best values from fruit and veg
though it must be fresh or only lightly cooked.
Another important factor in skincare is skin hydration and this is
helped by drinking a sensibly amount of water. I have seen it suggested
that 4 to 8 cups a day is sensible but if you are drinking bottled
mineral water check the chemical makeup of the water as some are high in
sodium which means high salt levels. Do not fall into the trap that
drinking 4 to 8 cups of coffee a day, (which is mainly water after all),
is as good for you. Coffee contains plenty of caffeine which helps the
body to dispose of water. I had a great idea that I would drink beer
instead of coffee as that is mainly water, but drinks containing
alcohol, (including wine,) do not class as water either. It does not
have to be bottled water either; tap water is fine as long as it is pure
and clean. Not at bedtime though as drinking late at night means your
body may retain this water causing your skin to stretch a little which
is not something you want to happen.
Your skin also stretches when you become overweight and after a diet,
and loosing weight, you will need to exercise to tone your skin into
shape again. A younger person has more flexible skin but when you are
older your skin is not as flexible and it becomes harder to tone your
skin after loosing weight. The answer is not to try and put on weight in
the first place but that is not always easy especially as we get older.
However please try to keep weight gain off your skin care program as
the two do not go together.
Whatever you decide to do, subscribe to my mail list to reciev the best edvices from me(Emm Barker) :) good luck.
Today’s lifestyle leaves us open to a daily chemical assault, from the
air we breathe to the water we drink, and the skincare and haircare
products we use on a daily basis. It is not known what the long-term
effects of these chemicals will be, but one thing’s for sure, it can’t
be good.
Some people are unaware of the huge amounts of additives in their food,
water and personal care products. Some are too busy to care, and others
have the attitude ‘ Yes I know, it’s awful, but what can you do?’
The informed, wise people out there though, are taking a different view.
Any species that fails to live in harmony with it’s natural environment
will eventually make itself extinct. Fact. It’s nature. If human beings
carry on the way they are going, they will indeed end up extinct..
For instance, 100 years ago, cancer affected approximately 1 in every 50
people. Now it strikes 1 in 3. It won’t be long before it is striking
half the population. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that our
lifestyle is the biggest factor influencing this increase.
Diet especially, is of paramount importance when it comes to maintaining
good health, but so many people ignore this fact and fill their bodies (
and their kids ) with low-nutrient , chemical and additive filled junk.
When people eat meat, they are consuming the same chemicals and hormones
that the animal ate. Obesity is on the sharp increase, and it’s not
surprising considering that the majority of obese people are
meat-eaters. They eat the meat, the meat is full of growth hormones and
chemicals, the growth hormones are absorbed into the human body, so the
person gets fatter. Want my advise – if your are overweight and
seriously want to lose weight – go on a low fat vegetarian diet.
If your body had a choice, it would ask for lots of fresh organic fruit
and vegetables, preferably raw. Your body would choose clean , fresh
water ( I mean pure bottled spring water, not the stuff that comes out
of your tap at home). Think about how much fresh water you consume in a
day, and by that I mean water thats not mixed with squash, tea , coffee
or anything else. I bet it’s not much. Do your body a favour, next
time you reach for the fizzy drink, reach for the mineral water instead.
Tap water is just another way that we are being poisoned on a daily
basis. It contains chemicals, hormones and in a lot of areas it also
contains flouride. Yes, sodium flouride , that old favourite. The stuff
they put in toothpaste is the same stuff they use to make rat-poison !
Surprised. What people get confused about is calcium flouride, which is
the stuff naturally found in water which helps keep our teeth and bones
strong. People think this is what goes into toothpaste and the water
supply, wrong.
Sodium flouride is a by-product of aluminium smelting and other
industries. It’s nothing more than toxic waste. For years it was very
expensive to dispose of, until someone decided to make up some rubbish
about it being good for our teeth, so they could get away with disposing
of it in our water supply. This of course was done without public
agreement. Nice, thanks for that, I’ll stick to the bottled stuff.
Sodium flouride builds up in the body over time, and it can cause
cancer. It makes bones softer so they fracture more easily, and it
doesn’t protect your teeth, in fact it has the opposite effect. Sodium
flouride is a main ingredient in anesthetic, hypnotic, and psychiatric
drugs as well as military nerve gas.
Sodium flouride promotes mental disturbances. The Nazi’s added it to the
water supply at the concentration camps during the war, to help
sterilize the prisoners and force them to be calm and submissive.
Sodium Flouride has a poisonous and narcotic effect on a certain area of
the brain, which makes the person submissive and less able to resist
those who wish to control him. It’s a way of controlling of the masses.
Hmmm, makes you wonder what the government have in mind for us today……
When we look at the skincare and haircare products we use daily, most
contain sodium laurel ( or laureth ) sulfate. This is a foaming agent
which is so harsh that it was first used as engine degreaser! Fancy
that, washing your skin and hair in something harsh enough to strip oil
off a garage floor. No wonder we’re all spending a fortune on
moisturisers! Hmmm, am I just paranoid or do you think there could be
some method in their madness……
So they put this SLS in your shampoo,shower gel, bath foam, toothpaste
etc, and then add moisturising ingredients to the same products to
counteract the drying effects of the SLS. Why not just buy products
without SLS? That’s what the smart people are doing. That’s what I do.
Since I stopped using commercial shampoos and skincare products, and
switched to all natural, herbal skin care products, and natural hair
care products, my skin and hair are gorgeous. My hair that was once
frizzy and dry is now curly and shiny.
Since I began using organic, aromatherapy based skin care, my skin that
was once so shiny from all the grease and additives from my previous
moisturiser, is now so soft , much younger looking, and I don’t need
powder or foundation because my skin is great!
I use non-flouride toothpaste, and I take vitamin and mineral
supplements every day. I always eat fresh, organic fruit and vegetables,
and I always drink bottled, pure water. I am vegetarian so I eat a very
natural , low fat diet, that’s full of nutrients. I have never felt so
healthy.
If you value your body, your health and your life, as well as your
children and other loved ones, you owe it to yourself to change your
lifestyle right now and start living more naturally.
The number of people with skin problems has been increasing in recent
years. Moreover, there is a notable increase in people who admit to
having sensitive and dry skin. There is a bit of difficulty finding a
scientific definition for “sensitive skin” as there are many differing,
measurable criteria for its definition. However, normal skin can develop
a higher sensitivity when exposed to the following stimuli : sunburn;
heavy skin-peeling; occupationally-related above normal exposure to
water, alkalis and solvents, internal illnesses such as the increased
skin dryness seen in age-related diabetes or the general itching that
can accompany kidney diseases and psychological factors like stress.
Dry skin is especially common in children under 10 and older people over
60. Between 10 to 50 years of age, the number of women with dry skin is
markedly more than in the case of men. The common characteristic of dry
skin are light scaling, tightness and sometimes, itching. Basically,
there are two types of dry skin – normal dry skin and extreme dry skin.
In both types, the cause is essentially a deficit of natural
moisturizing factors. A rarer form is atopic dry skin, in which a
disturbed fatty acid metabolism of the skin contribute a major role.
Cleaning and Care of Dry Skin
To restore your dry skin to its normal physiological condition, pay extra close attention to your cleansing and skincare routine. In choosing cleansing products for dry skin, here are few pointers to bear in mind :
* Make sure the cleansing preparations are made up of mild cleansing
complexes with re-oiling agents that remove fat-soluble (lipophilic)
dirt particles.
* The cleansing substances’ supply of lipids should promote and ensure an intensive replenishing of skin oils.
* The fatty-acid constituents of the re-oiling agents should also be
similar to the skin’s natural oils to blend especially well into the
horny skin layer, thereby restoring the protective lipid film during
washing and helping to maintain your skin’s natural pH balance.
Choosing Skin Care Products
It is important to choose skincare
products that contain various active ingredients that reinforce the
skin’s own protective functions. Here are pointers and ingredients to
watch our for :
* For example, skincare
products that contain the antioxidant Vitamin E are effective in
preventing, or at the very least, delaying skin aging. Vitamin E is a
fat soluble vitamin that hinders the oxidation of poly-unsaturated fatty
acids, thus helping to firm up the cell membrane and delay cell-aging.
* Choose skincare
products that protect the skin from damaging environmental influences
such as dryness and colds. Where the skin condition has been disturbed,
choose skincare products
that contain moisturizing agents and substance that will help normalize
the skin, heal it and prevent diseases. For example, as a Vitamin B
derivative, Dexpanthenol is said to enhance wound healing and
cell-formation. Vitamin C in citric acid form is also a popular skincare substance that is used mainly because it helps in wound-healing and cell regenerations.
* Those with especially sensitive-skin or skin affected by neurodermatitis should choose skincare products suitable for deodorant-intolerant skin.
* The skincare products’ efficacy should have been objectively and comprehensively evaluated and the confirmed in clinical studies.
Healthy skin, for the most part, results from a balance of moisture and
oils and the physiological pH-value (acid mantle of the skin around 4.5 –
5.75) of the skin’s surface. Always remember to choose cleansing and skincare products that are quickly absorbed into the skin and activate the various regenerating metabolic processes of the skin cells.
Causes of Dry Skin :
* Biological skin ageing
* Chemical and medicinal influences
* Climate and environment
* Genetic disposition
* Hormonal influences
* Illness
* Light-induced skin ageing
Are you feeling lost when it comes to picking your new spring style?
Three of the most important things to consider when thinking about
changing to a new hair color are 1.) the color genre you want to be in,
2.) multi-dimensional or 2-dimensional, and 3.) how those decisions will
influence your haircut. The problem with that is, most people don’t
know how to make those decisions — and most stylists don’t want to sway
you away from what hair color you think you want. Chances are, even if
they did, by the time you are sitting in their chair your mind has
already been made up. Luckily, that’s where we come in. We’re going to
give a super simple, easy to understand how-to guide to help makeover
your makeover decisions!
1.) One of the biggest complaints a stylist will hear from a
new customer about their old stylist color work: “It’s a little too
red,” or “It’s a little too gold,” etc. Our solution to this?
Aside from actually knowing exactly what color you want, education and
prevention is key! Because red is a dominant pigment in most hair color,
it’s so important to know in advance what color you want as your end
result. Find tons of pictures of the color you’re looking to achieve
then analyze them. Determine if you want it to be cool (with not a lot
of red in natural light) or if you would like red or strawberry hue to
peak through. Once you’ve made that decision, print your pictures and
head on over to the salon to CONSULT with your stylist. This is your
opportunity to ask questions — make sure you will be leaving with
exactly what you want. This is the stylist’s time that you are paying
for. So, for example, let’s say you want to be a medium brown hair color
but you do not like any peekaboo red color, or you know that your hair
naturally pulls a little red, you need to educate yourself on the
underlying pigment of hair color. Sounds complicated — but rest assured,
it can be broken down very easily by our good friend, Roy G. Biv. The
color wheel! Learn this, or carry one around with you to every hair
color appointment, because it is about to become your best friend. If
you don’t want red — look across the color wheel to your opposing
primary color and the secondary color correlating. So, across from when
you find blue, blue-green, blue-violet, etc. Any of those cool colors
will cancel our the red, gold, or yellow tones you are trying to avoid.
Ask you stylist what the underlying pigment in the color swatch that you
picked is, if it’s any of those cool undertones, go for it. If not, you
may need to pick a new color — or a new stylist if they’re unable to
answer that question.
2.) Picking the right color effect for your style and budget is important.
It’s important to consider the maintenance and budget when thinking
bout overall changing your look. If you’re looking for something simple
just to cover gray, a single process color would be perfect for you and
it’s super affordable. If you’re looking for a dimensional or sun kissed
look, highlights, lowlights or ombre are the way to go. Ombre, although
it is growing relatively expensive, is perfect for someone who wants to
add dimension to their hair color but is on a budget because ombre has a
gradual, more natural look as it grows out — like you’ve been sitting
in the sun. Highlights and lowlights are great for anyone who wants a
dimensional look with one or more different colors added to your base
color, but they require just a bit more upkeep. Although, you can
stretch this service by getting a full foil followed by one or two
partial foils before you have to pay for full foil pricing again.
3.) How the color your picked may influence your haircut.If
you’re someone who loves lots of different lengths of layers and
texture, Ombre may not be the best hair color for you. It would end up
making the hair look two-toned instead of a soft, gradual look. Love
tapering the back of your hair? A full highlight will end up looking
like a checker board where the hair is tapered. This doesn’t mean you
can’t get highlights, it only limits you to a partial (which in my
opinion, gives the hair more dimension and makes it look MUCH fuller.)
Like long layers? Your in luck! Any of these dimensional looks would
work for you!
Low-fat dairy
such as plain yoghurt is a good source of vitamin A, which your skin
needs to mature correctly. Retinol used in many anti-wrinkle creams is
actually a compound of vitamin A. Low-fat dairy is also high in calcium
that the body requires to maintain healthy bones, hair and teeth.
Green tea
has been found to prevent skin damage. It contains antioxidants and
anti-inflammatory properties that protect the skin against damaging
ultraviolet rays. Green tea can also help you lose weight, filling you
up and speeding up calorie and fat burn.
Tuna
contains a rich variety of nutrients including selenium. Not only does
the mineral help prevent cell damage it also boosts elastin, a protein
that keeps your skin soft, tight and elastic. Tuna can also help improve
brain function and keep your heart health.
