Some Instant Ways to Turn Back the Clock for a Younger Looking Face

There is no need to hide at your first signs of aging.  You just need to work it to your advantage!

Though we hate to admit it, we all age.  Some are more fortunate to maintain their youthful visage longer than others, but sooner or later seeing changes in the mirror is unavoidable.  You don’t need to panic when you see your first crease or gray hair.  Instead, I have some great tips that can quickly erase some years from your face.

You might want to start with your skin.  Exfoliation is critical for both the face and body to remove dead cells that dull the complexion in order to stimulate a fresh rebirth of collagen production.  My only advice is not to get carried away and overdo with scrubs, anti-aging creams or peels because you can damage the skin. The skin needs time to recover.  Once or twice a week for scrubs and a peel is more than enough.

As to the subject of facial peels, these are wonderful for deep cleaning all the accumulated makeup that may still be sitting in your pores.  Ingredients like silicones (sand-based) may give a foundation, primer, moisturizer, or serum added softness and smoothness with the extra moisture in the product’s texture, but there is also a downside because this type of ingredient is not the easiest to remove with just soap and water or a cleanser.  Silicones can stay trapped within the pores along with dirt and build up more after every use if you don’t take steps to remove it.  

Lips are another area that you might be concerned with. Besides keeping them perpetually smooth with regular exfoliation and moisturizing, they tend to thin more over time.  A lip plumping product with peptides or grape seed polyphenols may help build your lips more.  

As we age, our hair follicles don’t manufacture as much melanin, the pigment for keeping the color, as it once did. Therefore, a haircoloring is a must to refresh your beauty.  

You may notice that your hair is not as lush and thick as earlier.  Hair color also will help add volume as it coats the hair shaft from expansion of the cuticle layer.  Adding a bit more hair to your style also helps give a face more youthful vigor.

Even if you don’t want or need to color your hair, keeping your hair glossy and riveting with a shine will chop off some years from your face as well.  After all, the younger that you are, the shinier the hair will naturally be.  

Exercise of any kind should be on your anti-aging to do list.  We all know it’s wonderful for reshaping the body and its health benefits, but if done regularly it increases circulation as it builds up your metabolic rate to speed up collagen and elastin production.  

For those cringing at the thought of all that physical exertion a workout may put you through, yoga is another way to go.  Yoga positions like bending the head forward or doing a headstand, which also increases blood flow to skin tissues, can help stimulate collagen development also so this might suit you more.

One last piece of advice, smile more.  Don't just smile with your lips, but do it with your eyes because a genuine sparkle surfaces once you do.  Letting your inner warmth show through can light up a face and heart so you look younger and more approachable.  

I encourage you to read two of my earlier posts with some great makeup tricks for looking younger and more anti-aging beauty secrets from keeping your face from revealing your age.  Hopefully, what you learned here will help your beauty flourish!

How to Inexpensively Create and Customize Your Own Luminous, Scented Body Lotion!

You'll love how easy it is to customize your own luminous, scented body lotion once you the secret!

Lavishing ourselves with a luxurious, scented body lotion serves many purposes to help us feel beautiful. The right body lotion can soothe dry skin with ample drops of rich moisture to keep us soft as well as dress us in whatever enticing fragrance we chose to wear. As a result, our moods lift and our confidence increases with velvet-smooth skin while a sheer trail of scent follows us like an enchanted admirer as we move.  At the same time, those favorite fragrances that make us feel this way can be costly. However, I am going to show you how to save money and customize your own luminous body lotion using your favorite scent.

Facial Mask Shopping Secrets You Need to Know for the Best Complexion Results!

Flawless skin this beauty has didn’t just happen by chance–but is achieved through proper maintenance.

Whether you choose to make you own or buy a ready-made product, a facial mask is something everyone can benefit from for normalizing, nourishing, or helping heal a problem complexion.  In my sidebar, look under the label of homemade skin care recipes and you will find some of my favorite facial masks that I’ve used on my changing skin over the years.  For those that don't like to fuss in the kitchen creating your own mask and prefer buying a commercial product, then there are some important things that you should look for before making that purchase.

Why Your Protein Choices Matter If You Want to See a Rebirth of Your Complexion!

Beautiful skin starts within so learn how to best feed your complexion instead of starving it with this helpful post. 

Diet is very important in relationship to the health of your skin.  Changing what you put into your body is the first step to seeing a significant transformation in how your complexion will look.  Even though you think that you may be eating right, you may find altering some of your food choices with the suggestions that I’m sharing will pay off for far more beautiful skin than you ever thought possible.

If you want to repair and rebuild the skin, hair, nails, muscles, bones, and organs, then you need protein. After all, protein is the source of amino acids L-lysine and L-proline that are necessary for stimulating collagen to grow new, younger cells. Without the eight essential amino acids that your body can’t manufacture on its own, your complexion and overall body will suffer, aging more rapidly than it has too as well as negatively affect your health.

A Better Alternative for Thinning Aging Nail Polish!

You'll love that this method preserves the integrity of your nail polishes and get more time out of that old polish.

Thinning nail polishes that have thickened over time with plain nail polish remover may appear to help in the beginning, but this is deceptive.  Though it may seem to solve the issue, what you are really doing is slowly altering the formula.  In the days ahead that tampered with polish is already in the process of breaking down. Instead, let me show you a better way to tackle this common problem. 

A Great Skin Care Tip to Remember for Smoothing Extra Dry, Rough Hands to Get Even More Benefits Out of Your Hand Cream!

The colder the weather becomes, the more our hands usually suffer with extra dryness and flakiness.  As a result, we are constantly slathering on hand creams and lotions to help repair the damage.  However, if you want to do more to speed up that awful cycle for smoothing away the dryness, I have a tip you need to try.

This simple tip helps give you even better results from your favorite hand creams. 

To make those healing hand products perform to the max, I suggest gently exfoliating your hands first to get rid of the dead skin that could be blocking the complete absorption of your chosen skin care just as you would do for your face.  After all, that dry skin is not doing you any good.  Instead, it is holding you from total healing and smoothness.

You don’t need anything fancy to exfoliate your hands.  What I use is a little sugar to olive oil mix to rub over the skin.  A teaspoon of sugar to another teaspoon of the olive oil works wonderfully for this purpose.   

After you initially rub that oil and sugar over that rough skin of your hands, you don’t want to immediately rinse the mix off.  You want to keep this mix on your hands for at least 10 minutes-15 minutes before washing it off. This will give the olive oil enough time to properly moisturize as well as aid to plump up the skin with its antioxidants.

I hope that on those occasions when your hands are extra rough that you try this simple fix of mine because it does help smooth the skin so much more this way.

Why You May Want to Give Your Complexion a Break When Using Alpha Hydroxy or Beta Hydroxy Acids

This beauty knows the secret of safeguarding her flawless complexion--and so will you once you read this.

Though we can’t control the aging process, we can do something about those visible signs of aging through healthy living, diet and our skin care.  Unlike years ago, newer skin care products have come a long way for making real improvements due to the advances in technology and active ingredients.  

Besides, the wonders of exfoliating ingredients like retinol, other organic exfoliators such as alpha hydroxy acids like glycolic acid, lactic acid, citric acid or a fat-soluble beta hydroxy acid like salicylic acid is also commonly used for encouraging collagen growth.  

However, your complexion can run into trouble if you rely too heavily on skin care that has exfoliating ingredients without giving your complexion a break.  Just remember, any exfoliant like the alpha hydroxy acids are meant to help shed old skin and stimulate fresh cells.  

Therefore, you don’t want to overdo.  Read the packaging because it is there for a good reason.  If that anti-aging product specifies to apply once a day, by all means, this is all you need to keep your skin healthy. Otherwise, you risk irritating the skin if you use nothing but day moisturizes, brighteners, night creams that all have exfoliating acids even if they are organic in origin.  

Instead, you might be better off with looking for a plain day moisturizer with sunscreen and alternating with an anti-aging AHA night cream.  Another suggestion is rotating one day with your AHA products and then alternate the next with your non AHA skin care. 

Trying to hurry your skin’s repair process is not going to end well.  If you want to save your face that extra redness and possible damage, then be patient because improvement comes in time since all skin heals to renew itself at a different rate.  

Why the Time You Apply Night Cream Matters to Get the Most Benefits Out of it!

What you learn in this little post could explain why your complexion wasn't responding as you had hoped.  

Every woman’s goal is to have a beautiful complexion that we can be proud of.  The reality, however,  is most have one skin issue or another to address before that is always possible.  Though we might use different skin care products based on our individual needs, each of us benefits from night creams. Yet, how many of us give any thought as to the best time to use it?

According to some skin care experts, we should apply our night cream about 20-30 minutes before retiring or we could be shortchanging ourselves from the benefits the product offers. This amount of time allows the product sufficient opportunity to penetrate and thoroughly absorb into the deeper layers of our skin instead of our pillowcase! 

For more information on how to the most out of your night cream, I hope you read my earlier post on the subject.

If Your Complexion Isn’t Responding to Your Night Cream the Way You Had Hoped–Your Application May Be the Reason!

As important as ingredients are, it is just as vital to a beautiful complexion knowing the right amount needed to properly nourish the skin.

Most of us don’t bother thinking how much night cream that we apply.  All we do is to stick our finger in that jar or pump out some in our hand and blindly pat and work the product into our skin.  Yet, what we are doing could be harming our skin more than it could be helping our complexion–-that is, if we are using too much.

You may believe more night cream is better, but you would be wrong.  Instead of feeding your skin with the nourishment it needs from those expensive ingredients what you are actually doing is stuffing the pores with so much that the products ends up sitting on the surface only to clog or irritate pores.  

The best course of action is understanding the correct amount, which is one-fourth of a teaspoon.  If you’re not sure of what one-fourth teaspoon would look like then an easy solution is to go into your spoon drawer and pull out your measuring spoons.  Once you fill that one-fourth spoon with your night cream, you’ll become more acquainted with what the amount of cream should look like.

After applying that recommended amount, you should have enough night cream to cover your entire face and even your neck.  However, if you run out before finishing, then you are piling the product in too heavily.   The next time, you might want to try dabbing a few well- placed dots over the areas first before working the cream in.  You will get better and more even distribution.

For those that might be using a richer cream for the neck area as I suggested earlier since the skin is more fragile, you need to make an adjustment and use one-eight of a teaspoon of night cream when doing your face and another one-eight teaspoon of neck cream.

Do your skin this small favor and wait to see how much more beautiful your complexion will look.  Just as beautiful is the money that you will also save by needing to buy that expensive jar or bottle not as often as before.

How to Add Beautiful Highlights to Hair Without Chemicals!

Look at the gorgeous variety of tones in this beauty's hair.

Hair that has flattering highlights can do so much for a face.  Whether your complexion is fair, medium, or dark, those interwoven tones of varying shades of hair color can amazingly bring out your features in such a stunning way that it also helps make you look younger.

Of course, you can go to the salon and have professionals put those highlights in or you might try to do it at home without resorting to chemicals.  All you need are a few ingredients that you just may have on hand or can buy easily enough in your grocery store to use on your hair.

If your natural hair color is blonde, you probably heard about the lighting power that fresh lemon juice has due to its citric acid.  What you do is to squeeze enough lemon into a spray bottle that already has one-fourth cup of warm water and one teaspoon of olive oil.  

Give your unwashed hair a thorough spraying and then head outside to lounge in the sun for at least thirty minutes or so. You can keep this on longer and reapply the spray every half hour for further lightening. However, this method works the best for those with the lightest natural blonde color.  Darker blondes may not find the lemon treatment as kind to their hair since they can find it can turn their hair a brassy, orange yellow shade.

The better alternative for blonde is brewing some chamomile tea to use instead.  Boil up some water for your ceramic teapot or glass carafe from your coffee maker, only make it stronger and add two bags of chamomile tea.  Avoid using a metal pot with chamomile since a chemical reaction occurs that weakens the tea’s effectiveness for this purpose.  Let it cool and then go wash your hair. 

By the time that you finish shampooing, the tea should be ready and comfortable enough to either rinse your hair with before sitting out in the sun or to add to another spray bottle to take with you outside to spray select sections you would like highlighted. Enjoy the sun for a while to give your hair some processing time.

Beer also makes a great final rinse to bring out some fabulous highlights for blonde hair.  Take a bottle outside and just pour some over freshly washed hair before relaxing in the sun.  

Brown hair can take advantage of several others ways to add different color tones.  The first is making a cinnamon mask to use in your hair overnight.  This will give you gorgeous red tones shining through your hair.

Mix one and a half tablespoons of cinnamon, two tablespoons of honey for help activating the coloring like a chemical developer and one-half teaspoon of olive oil together to form a thick, reddish paste that you will need to thin with some hair conditioner.  Use about a teaspoon or so to get the right consistency.  

Let the mixture rest for about twenty to thirty minutes to gain a better texture as those ingredients combine.   If this is too thick, just add a bit of water. Remember, you need it to be a creamy paste.

Before you begin, you need your hair to be damp.  Wash it and let it partially dry before sectioning off or just spray your hair with some water so the mixture can take hold.  Once your hair is treated, you need to thoroughly rub that sticky mixture in as best as you can, making sure it is well distributed.  Try pushing your hair up and then covering the goo with enough plastic wrap or a shower cap and wrap in a towel because you will keep this mask on your head overnight. In the morning, you wash this mixture out.  In its place, you will find a new striking shade of brown.

If you grow herbs, you might want to experiment with sage or rosemary rinses for pouring over brunette hair that has gotten too brassy.  Use about one-fourth cup of fresh sage or rosemary leaves and brew in about a cup of water.  Let this mixture seep, strain, and then apply as a final rinse to darken.

You can also brew up a few a strong pot of darkening tea with two bags of black tea to one cup of water. Seep this mixture and apply to freshly washed hair as a final rinse.

Those redheads among us might try the power of beet juice.  Pour about a half cup over damp hair and relax in the sun with it on for about a half hour or so.  

Another thing that can enhance the red is following the same procedure, only substituting carrot juice. 

Then again, you can be adventurous and combine both along with a teaspoon of olive oil or a tablespoon of a hair conditioner for some vibrant degrees of red.

All of these suggestions will gradually change the color.  You may need to repeat whatever method you chose to get the exact change that you are looking for.  

Do try because you won’t be subjecting yourself to any chemical procedure and save some money while adding some beautiful highlights to your hair!

Better Hair Styling Results Guaranteed If You Avoid These Blow-Drying Mistakes!

You can make every day a good hair day just with a little know-how and these few tricks.

Did you ever wonder why some days you can blow-dry your hair and use the same products that made it sensational the day before only to find it refuses to do what you want the next?  If this has happened to you more than you would like, then listen up because my stylist has shown me some great blow-drying tricks that really make all the difference when it comes to good hair days.

Instead of just grabbing your round brush and working with your blow-dryer, it is important to section your hair first.  I’m not just talking about parting it, but actually using butterfly clips or bobby pins and dividing your hair into four sections–the top of the scalp around the crown, in the back of head, and one for each side. The reason for this pinning is because it keeps you from working on the same pieces of hair over and over again, saving from dehydrating them in the process.   

I don’t know about you, but I’m right-handed.   Being the case, I always have held my blow-dryer in my right hand and my brush in my left.  However, I learned that if you switch hands and use your dominant hand instead to hold the brush that you gain more dexterity  to manipulate it for twisting and pulling as you need. At first, it felt strange, but I got to admit you get a lot more control this way.

Another thing she warned me about was over twisting the brush as you dry.  Instead of wrapping the brush too tightly, you need to just to start at the base of a section and give it a quarter-turn to grab the hair only enough to achieve some tension.  Now that it is initially secured, you want to smooth the section by tugging the brush away from the head to the place in the middle of your hair’s length. This is when you can begin making additional quarter turns as you go without running into problems of your brush getting stuck in the hair.

Also, don’t pull the brush down with a firm hold as you dry toward the crown to get the hair straight because this robs the hair of lift.  The ideal way to get more height in this area is to pull the hair up straighter with that round brush over the top and long layers that would make up the top of a side bang portion or those layers circling the crown area.  

Despite putting on a thermal protective spray, it is better for the health of your hair to put a safe distance between that hot appliance and those strands.  You can make the problem worse if you allow that blow-dryer to touch the hair while holding the brush in place to style, especially if you don’t attach the plastic nozzle. The best distance to keep is about one to two inches between your hair and that blast of heat.

Just as critical to hair drying success is remembering to keep your blow-dryer moving.  Concentrating the heat too long in one spot is damaging.  You don’t have to swing the blow-dryer back and forth, but just move your hand holding it slightly back and forth is enough. 

If you are constantly battling frizz, then you need to dry your hair completely before walking away from that blow-dryer because even the tiniest bit of moisture remaining is detrimental enough to cause frizz or curl within a few hours.

Something else that needs thought is how you hold your blow-dryer.  Unless you aim the nozzle parallel alongside a section of hair, you are only creating flyways instead of smoothing it.

One last piece of advice, don’t rush blow-drying just to save time.  You can partially dry to remove the excess water at first, but taking more care through sectioning and correct technique with the blow-dryer and brush helps considerably for more of a polished, stepped out of the salon finish.

Review: Rodan + Fields Redefine Anti-Aging Regimen

Disclaimer: This post is based on a free product provided by a company as a press sample so that I may offer my own opinion, which may be the same or differ from yours.

Nature and aging are hard on our skin.  However, I found a good way to help fight back with the new skin care products that I have been testing for the past seven weeks.  Let me introduce you to Redefine Regimen from Rodan + Fields, the company behind Proactiv Solution.

Rodan + Fields Redefine Regimen

Once again, Dr. Katie Rodan and Dr. Kathy Fields share their skin care knowledge through this four-step anti-aging system that combines cosmetic and OTC ingredients to cleanse, hydrate as well as tone, and protect the complexion as it deserves for younger-looking skin.

How this regime is intended to work is cleansing with (Step 1) the Daily Cleansing Mask, which is a combination of two products in one–a mask and cleanser.  The product has a thick creamy consistency due to kaolin clay beside small exfoliating beads from dimethicone among its ingredients, including a beautifully appealing scent.  Don’t expect it to foam up with lots of sudsy bubbles.

This is my before photo without makeup.  

What I did was to wet my fingertips first and applied a small squeeze of the product to my dry face, allowing about two minutes for it to harden. Then, I moistened my hands only enough to gently massage this cleanser into the skin using circular motions before finally rinsing.  You might be tempted to over exfoliate because there is no harsh abrasive feeling, but tread carefully because this does remove dead skin very well and leave it very soft.

At the beginning, I tried cleansing twice a day with this product as recommended.  However, my complexion is too sensitive from all the skin care experimentation that I do as a beauty blogger that I needed to limit exfoliating only once a day. Your skin is probably different since you don’t constantly test one batch of skin care products after the next.

After each cleansing, I always made sure to follow with the Pore Minimizer Toner (Step 2).  This is alcohol-free and a great thing to do to catch every last bit of makeup and grime that the cleanser might have missed. Still, I must admit the Daily Cleansing Mask left my skin comfortable and clean because I only found traces of grime.

I did learn something interesting that you should keep in mind when using any toner.  The company recommended using gauze over a cotton pad or ball.  I didn’t think it would matter all that much until I compared the gauze to the cotton loaded with that toner.  You definitely will use less toner with the gauze than your cotton ball or square.  Also, this slightly bumpy texture of the gauze manages to dip better into the crevices of pores to even find more leftover grime.  

Now that my skin was properly prepped, it was time for (Step 3), the Triple Defense Treatment Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Sunscreen for daytime.   This is a rich silicone-based cream that feels so pampering against the skin as it moisturizes and protects, which is extremely important especially when you’re doing so much exfoliating to safeguard against the sun. This provided a smooth enough surface to my face that I didn’t need to bother with makeup primer.

In the evening, I replaced the day cream with (Step 4), the Overnight Restorative Cream.  This luxurious cream indulges your complexion with skin renewing ingredients like retinyl (retinol palmitate), ninacinamde, antioxidants, glycerin, squalene, and sodium hyaluronate (the salt form of hyaluronic acid) in this silicone-based formula.  Using this product does give the skin a velvet-like feel and help with plumping up any fine lines and wrinkles.  You will notice how less visible those lines will look with over time due to the effect of the silicone.  

In summary, the four-step Redefine Regime will give you a lovelier complexion.  It will improve and even out the texture, brighten, and help with the look of a younger appearance with regular use.  On the down side, the cost is $193 to maintain the results about $47 per product, which is reasonable compared to more drastic measures like surgery or botox.  The choice is up to you, but do visit Rodan + Fields, Independent Consultant, Leslie Ozer’s website and browse.

This is my after picture using Redefine by Rodan + Fields.  I just have lipstick on.  I do like how this stuff plumped up those laugh lines to make less of my "bad boys,"

If you want further information, there is even a registered nurse available to answer any questions or concern you have about any of Rodan + Fields products there or here with RF Connection.  You can also contact Leslie through email at leslieozer@yahoo.com.  

*Disclaimer: Free product was provided to facilitate this review--not my opinion.* 

How to Tame Unruly Brows With Two Simple Beauty Fixes!

Beautiful, tamed brows 

For unruly brows, you turn to brow gels.  However, you might want to try two simple fixes that can also do a wonderful job of taming wild brows.

Get a toothbrush or you save an old mascara wand that you thoroughly cleaned and sanitized before lightly spraying with hair spray.  Brush over your brows and you will regain control.  

Another great substitute for brow gels is applying a little hair gel to keep them in place.  Combing this through with your toothbrush or old mascara wand works nicely for more even distribution, but you also dab some hair gel on with finger and spread.  

I hope you try both of these tricks because they can save the day to keep your brows well groomed when you run out of brow gel!

My Monthly Complexion Revival Facial Mask Deep Cleans and Encourages Cell Renewal

Honey has amazing properties when it comes to skin.

This facial mask is one I use monthly for a thorough deep cleaning to unclog what still may remain trapped in my pores from makeup and products as well as providing a healthy renewal to the complexion with all the protein, a storehouse of B vitamins, and minerals from brewer’s yeast and plain yogurt. At the same time, it heals and gently moisturizes the skin in a beautiful way from honey.  It will not take your wrinkles away, but it does brighten and give the face somewhat of a lift.

As you know, I have shared my other homemade skin care recipes with you because I believe firmly in the power of natural ingredients when it comes to seeing complexion results.  This is another recipe that is simple but quite effective for improving the look of your skin.  I do hope you try it because it does not disappoint!

Look in my right sidebar in the labels section and scroll down to homemade skin care recipes.  There you will find other wonderful recipes that I have tried that have done nice things for my skin–and they will do the same for you, too.

My Monthly Complexion Revival Facial Mask

1-1/2 teaspoons of powdered brewer’s yeast
1 tablespoon of plain yogurt
½ teaspoon of honey


Mix the three ingredients together and apply to your clean face and neck.  

You will want to go stretch out and get comfortable on your bed because you want to keep this mask on for about 25-30 minutes.  After all, you deserve a break and some “me” time to energize.

When the time is up, rinse the mask off with tepid and then cool water before drying.

This mask will not only make your face bloom with new vitality but also make you smile because your skin will look amazing.                     

Are You Properly Caring for the Skin of Your Eye Area Or Unknowingly Causing Damage?

The eye area is prone to premature aging so the earlier you to protect it, the younger you will look.

Since our eyes are one of the first places others gravitate to, we need to take extra precautions on delaying that advancement of time as much as we can.  Otherwise, we could be making the aging problem much worse unless making a few simple changes to properly care for that delicate area.  

Considering how thin the skin of the eye area is at approximately 1/32 inch in thickness, you need to remember how easily that skin can be stretched.  Therefore, you need to minimize the amount of accumulative damage that results every time you tug or rub that area from how you apply eye cosmetics to allergies. 

Instead, you might want to rethink your tube concealer and replace with a smoother liquid or cream.  Patting this product or any eye cream lightly in with your ringer finger will use less pressure than forcing a heavier formulation.  

Allergies can come from practically anything, but if you suddenly developed symptoms that coincide with any new shampoo, conditioner, face cream, or eye cream, then try putting it aside for a few days to see if your condition improves.  

Natural skin care creams and eye products may be missing complicated chemical ingredients but may use plant extracts that also may trigger allergies in sensitive individuals.  Keep this in mind.

Switching to a different product could be all you need to stop any eye irritation and keep your hands away. You can always try over the counter antihistamines to help with itching  and watery eyes from allergies as well.

Limiting that excess stretching of the skin is very important, but so is the type of eye cream you use.  Instead of a heavy, rich formula of eye gel or eye cream that you may think will work more effectively for anti-aging, you should look for a lightweight lotion that won’t end up trapped under the eye.  

Daily applications of these heavy eye creams are unable to break down and build up deposits.  Once set, those deposits can add to the look of bagging under the eyes. What you might not be aware of is that a majority of women wanting “eye lifts” or blepharoplasty operations result because of heavyweight eye creams over the years. 

You’ll LOVE This Dermatologist Recommended Way to Gently Exfoliate But Deep Clean!

Baking soda can make a beautiful difference in how you exfoliate.

Longwearing foundations and skin care products with silicone-based ingredients can take a toll on our complexion if not properly removed.  They can embed themselves so deeply into your pores even after cleansing.  Therefore, if you don’t want those ingredients to linger and eventually break down a bit of your own skin’s collagen, then you need to exfoliate weekly.    

In fact, you definitely need to try this simple fix.  Mix one half teaspoon of baking soda and one half teaspoon of a water-based cleanser as well as a little warm water together to clean your face with. 

Facial peels are also very helpful when used with care.  Just remember, it is important not to let yourself get carried away and overdo.

How to Prepare for a Facial to Get Better Complexion Results

This post will make your facial work harder.

You may believe washing your face first with a mild soap or a gentle cleanser is enough to get your skin ready for a facial, but it is just the first step. If you intend to harvest the most beauty power out of that treatment, you need to do a bit more first to prepare the skin. Afterwards, you will be surprised at the difference in your complexion in how your skin responds to those beneficial ingredients.

Just as important to that initial cleansing, you have to follow up with an astringent or your toner. This will additionally clean any remaining soap, cleansing residue, or dead skin that had lingered.

Now is the time that your skin is ready to receive the nourishment from your facial mask.  Depending on your complexion issues, there are a variety of wonderful facial masks among my homemade skin care recipes that you may want to try or select the commercial product of your choice.

After you apply the mask, you need to relax with it on for about a half hour.  This bit of “me time” can help smooth the lines caused by tense muscles and revive the face along with the wonders of the ingredients.  

The water temperature of how you rinse your facial mask off is also crucial.  Be sure to use tepid water only because you want to keep your pores open.  Hot water will strip the skin of too much of your remaining natural oil while cold will close the pores.  Keep this in mind.

At this stage, your clean face is ready to receive even deeper cleaning of your pores with steam.  You don’t need any fancy equipment.  All it takes for this home treatment is a pot with boiling water, a towel to tent over that pot, and the right herb to help what your complexion needs.  For example, rosemary is wonderful to steam a dry face with.  On the other hand, chamomile is better for those with normal skin.  Those with oily skin might find peppermint useful.

Other than seeking out the services of a professional, your pores are as clean as you can get them at home.  However, you need to close them the proper way.  Start by rinsing your face with warm water (not hot) and gradually change over to splashing with cold water.  

The final step is remembering to moisturize and allowing the product time to soak in. 

Afterwards, you will see a great complexion and feel better about your appearance than before.

The Most Flattering Nail Look for Aging Hands

This is my attempt at the "squoval" shape.

No one likes to think about aging, but it does happen to all of us sooner or later.  Not only do we have different facial concerns, but also the condition of our nails can change.  They may tend toward weakness, peeling, gain ridges, and discolor to require a strengthening treatment.

If this describes you, then you might be better off trying to work around the issue to best suit your needs instead of trying to follow the pack.  The outcome may pleasantly surprise you with how much younger your hands may look.

Instead of the square-shaped nail, I suggest altering it into a “squoval” shape.  By this, I mean that shape is not entirely square or purely oval but in between.  The look is more classic and chic.

Another recommendation is rethinking the length of your nails.  You may have kept them long just a few years earlier, but you should consider adapting to a shorter length beyond your fingertips.  This will further help protect them from breaking but also give your nails a timeless, graceful look.

Just as important to aging hands is the color you paint your nails.  Though wild, shocking colors of nail polish can be fun, you might want to save those shades for your toes and switch to pale, sheerer shades such as light pink or beige.  The reason is light colors seem to lengthen the look of the nail compared to bright shades that can make the nails appear shorter.

How to Keep Your Hands From Those Visible Signs of Aging!

Youthful looking hands only add to your beauty.  

We all want to keep our hands as youthful as possible.  After all, we don’t want them to betray our age. Therefore, here are some simple tips to protect that thin and extremely delicate skin on the back of your hands.  Incorporating all or even of few of these things will help your hands look better, longer.

You might want to start by caring for your hands with sunscreen just as you do your face every morning. Keep a tube or bottle of at least one with an SPF 30 in your handbag or at work and remember to reapply it through your day before going outdoors.

If you already have some brown age spots, then there is no time to waste.  Sunscreen is a must because that hyperpigmentation will only become darker without it.  Apply the product every two hours when you find yourself in direct sun can save your hands considerably more damage.

You can also try fading those brown sunspots with fresh lemon juice, leaving it on for about two or three minutes before rinsing. The best time to do this lightening is at night because the citrus contains a substance that can cause darkening when in contact with sunlight.  A glycolic acid or some form of scrub that will help exfoliate some of that darkness in the skin can also help the area.

Every time your hands come in contact with water, do moisturize them with your favorite hand lotion or cream.  Your well-hydrated skin will look less wrinkly because the fresh application of lotion or cream lubricates and also plumps the skin.

Wearing rubber, vinyl, or latex free gloves when you need to put your hands in dishwater also will help.  If you do have sensitivity to rubber gloves and find it irritates your hands as it does mine and so many others, it could be due to latex.  You might want to try the vinyl or the latex free variety.

Another thing that ages hands is the condition of our nails.  Try keeping the bottle of cuticle oil out in plain view on your vanity or dressing table and remember to use it twice a day.  

Our nails can become weaker as we age.  Stop using them as a handy “tool” to open boxes, peel off stickers, letters or for other household tasks that can cause them to break or split.  Instead, use a real “tool” like a  letter opener or improvise with another-–just not your nails to do that job.

If you like to get a professional manicure, I suggest taking your own tools with you.  This will save the nails from risk of any possible infection.  

Likely Ingredients That May Trigger Skin Eruptions Especially for Those With Oily Skin!

Anyone can break out from countless ingredients in products, but those with oily skin need to be extra cautious.  Therefore, I am going to share some common pore-clogging ingredients that could backfire on your attempts to stay clear and yet still be moisturized, especially if you see them near the top of the list of ingredients of any product.  

Oily complexions should avoid cocoa butter, lanolin, petrolatum, mineral oil, shea butter, sunflower oil, evening primrose oil, coconut oil, cottonseed oil, and wheat germ oils.   You need also to watch out for sulfates particularly, sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate, which often are active ingredients in cleansers, shampoos and conditioners.  

Other typical ingredients that can also make your problem worse and trigger breakouts include isopropyl isostearate, isopropyl myristate, myristyl myristate, laureth-4 and -23, cetearyl alcohol, D&C red #30, oleth-3, and isopropyl palmitate among others.  

Remember that the amount of any ingredient when reading a product label goes from most to the least. After making that determination, if you find one of those problem ingredients among the first seven ingredients on that package, bottle, or jar, then do yourself a favor and look for another one.  Your skin will be grateful.

You should even rethink the type of sunscreen you use.  Mineral sunscreen that can physically block the sun such as one with zinc oxide might be a safer option for your skin type than chemical sunscreens. Ingredients such as octy or oxybenzone, methoxycinnamate and cinoxate that aggravate your skin and bring on skin eruptions.

Read my earlier post on the most helpful ingredients to look for to get your best skin ever!