Perfect Skin Probably isn’t Possible; Take Tips for Prettier Skin

I have been doing some very frequent research on simple things every day, regular women can do to help keep skin looking healthy and happy. I know as much as anyone out there who has ever scoffed at a commercial or advertisement from some beauty product or another claiming to give you flawless skin that perfect skin is probably not possible, especially when you don’t have an exuberant amount of money to toss at beauty experts. So I have come across a few tips that may help all of my fellow women out there who do all they can to keep themselves together every day and know that while we can’t strive and expect perfection in the way we look, we can aim for skin that looks healthy and keeps us happy.

I am told that I have to drink more water very frequently. With my skin that is very prone to eczema breakouts and my bouts with adult acne, every time someone feels the need to comment on any of this, they always tell me that I need to drink more water. Low and behold, the first rule of getting healthier skin is to drink two to three liters of water a day.

Yoga is already known to help stress, trauma and illnesses that affect the body and mind, but yoga can aid the skin in many different ways and it has been said that some beauty courses even use yoga exercises. While some experts will say that exercise helps acne, a lot of people found that this claim cannot be further from the truth for them because exercise obviously produces sweat and sweat often irritates the skin, which causes acne to become inflamed and makes it look even worse. Yoga, on the other hand, keeps you relaxed, fit, healthy and healthy looking and gives the people who perform yoga a glowing complexion, very much like that “after sex glow” we women (hopefully) know so well.

Switching from product to product is incredibly dangerous to your skin and when you’re trying to find that perfect product, the worst place to take that gamble is on your face. Once you get into a stable routine, from what you apply to your face after washing and before going to bed at night and what you apply to protect your skin throughout the day, you shouldn’t have surprise breakouts or bad reactions to products out of the blue. It’s best to apply a gentle face wash and moisturizing cream every morning and night and if you don’t know what products are best for you, try the greatly-rated Olay Gentle Foaming Face Wash ($4.86) or consult a dermatologist.

Frequent pimples, sudden breakouts and premature aging can all be attributed to one thing in a lot of cases–not removing your makeup every night. It is so simple to fall asleep at night after a very long day without removing your makeup, especially your eye makeup that can take a little while to get off completely. There are a ton of eye makeup removers on the market, including a formula developed by Lancome ($19.99).

What causes acne in the first place? Waste and toxins built up in your system. Your bowels and kidneys are the primary ways to get that waste out of your body, so the best way to make sure your kidneys and bowels are working the best they can is to maintain a diet high in fiber. Foods with the highest amount of fiber are apples, bananas, oranges, raspberries, strawberries, broccoli, brussel sprouts, spinach, parsnips and potatoes. If you cannot keep these foods in your diet daily, it’s also important to take fiber supplements, like Benefiber.

Who has the money and the time to get a professional facial? Yeah, not many people in the least, but facial masks do wonders for your skin and a lot of women with some pretty awesome skin have long relied on weekly DIY facial masks to suck out impurities and refresh the skin. One of the best ingredients used in a facial mask is clay–try the Lather White Clay Mask ($22).

Have 2010 Oscars Predictions? Get the New Vanity Fair Hollywood iPhone App

The Oscars are coming up in March and nearly everyone is abuzz with their predictions for this year’s winning people and films. Vanity Fair wants to know who you think will be taking home an award this year and have launched the Vanity Fair Hollywood iPhone app.

The app, said to be developed in order to engage the Vanity Fair readership with technology and social media, is sponsored by L’Oréal Paris, whose products can be found in the Gift Bag section of the app, including itmes such as the True Match Roller Foundation, Double Extend Lash Boosting Mascara (which we actually reviewed here–see week 1 and week 3,) Studio Secrets Professional Crystal Shadow Duos, Telescopic Explosion Mascara, Go 360° Clean Deep Facial Cleanser, and many others.

For those of you out there, like myself, who don’t have an iPhone or iPhone Touch, the Vanity Fair Hollywood app is also available as a web-based application. So get those predictions and votes in and tune in on March 7th for the Oscars to see if you were right!

Switch to the More Natural Scoop

As a child, I was horribly allergic to a number of laundry detergents. Every laundry detergent my parents would switch to would end up causing the same reaction with my skin–I would break out in horrendous rashes that would itch like crazy so I’d of course scratch, being a child who didn’t know better, which would then result in more irritation and even bleeding and scarring. It was not a pretty picture in the least. Coming from a family who all have their own skin issues, it wasn’t really a surprise to find out that I had (and still have) very sensitive skin and cannot come into contact with most conventional laundry detergents.

Back in the day, you couldn’t find eco detergents; they just weren’t readily available, but luckily, enough people have hopped on the green wagon for companies to pay attention and to start offering more eco detergent options.

Every year in the US alone, more than 25,000 children have accidents involving chlorine bleach and the fragrances and ammonia in conventional detergents trigger allergies, asthma and severely irritate sensitive skin, just like mine! Eco detergents, of course, also help out our environments. Typical laundry detergents contain phosphates and they usually end up in our rives and lakes, causing harm to aquatic life which is really sad and unnecessary.

Try These Eco Detergents:

Method Baby Laundry Detergent: Coconut oil-based, biodegradable soap; triple concentrate means you need less. — $12.99/32 loads

Maggie’s Soap Nuts: Made from dried fruit nuts of the Chinese Soapberry tree; biodegradable, hypoallergenic; natural fabric softener. — $9.99/36 loads

Seventh Generation 2x Liquid Laundry Detergent: Concentrated and biodegradable liquid; Kosher certified; not tested on animals; available in Blue Eucalyptus & Lavender, White Flower & Bergamot Citrus and Free & Clear (unscented). — $30/pack of two 50oz bottles

Mrs. Meyers’ Clean Day Baby Blossom Dryer Sheets: Vegetable-based softener, biodegradable paper sheets — $12/80 sheets

Try This Eco Laundry Tip:

Instead of fabric softener, use half a cup of baking soda or white vinegar in the rinse cycle. You can also use a half a cup of baking soda (plus detergent) in the wash to brighten and whiten your clothes; works especially well for all those really old and ratty t-shirts and night shirts you refuse to throw away; this way you can give them some new life.

Acne Treatment

Most people go through that awkward acne stage; most people also go through the agonizing experience of trying every face wash, exfoliant, moisturizer, cleansing wipes and creams that will get rid of their acne. When it comes to acne treatment, it can really start to feel like you are grasping at straws trying to find a solution. I went through my own awkward acne stage along with a frustrating experience trying to find an acne treatment that would work for me.

It is hard to pinpoint the causes of acne, but in most people, they find that the one thing that is always there is stress. Whether it is stress from school, work, or even from breaking out, acne can easily turn into something you just can’t seem to get rid of. A great way to reduce the amount of breakouts you have is to simply relax. Relaxation and exercise can do wonders for your skin and can also even turn into a skin care regime; keeping your body and mind healthy helps keep your complexion healthy and looking great. However, no matter how healthy you are, you may end up with a case of acne if someone in your family, especially a parent, had acne or still experiences adult acne; genetics is a big determining factor.

There are countless products on the market today to help ease, get rid of and treat acne for good but when it comes to acne treatment, there are so many options to the point where there are too many and while you may feel like you’re in the dark when trying to pick a few to try, it is best to start reading reviews and see what has worked for the most amount of people.

An effective treatment for chronic acne that is completely natural and is said to work better than a run of the mill acne cream is Acnezine. Acnezine is a dual cream and pill that work together to completely rejuvenate your skin from the inside out.

Acenzine not only sounds like a miracle formula, but it has been tested and reviewed and is considered to be the most effective product on the market today.

Emerita Knows Women’s Skin Care

I have spent the last few years of my life fighting with my fickle skin. The slightest things can make my skin turn from the pure complexion I had all through my adolescence into a horrifying Halloween mask-like state that leaves me adopting an “Oh well, I’m just not leaving the house–Ever, if need be!” philosophy. I have tried a downright impressive amount of over-the-counter skin care products and even some infomercial “miracle” collections that left my face incredibly dry and did not help clear acne, but aided in the process of making more! Sadly, me and my complexion had given up, especially since most of the skin care products I had tried made my complexion far worse than it was when I had started using them.

After giving up on skin care products that seemed to work for whoever this company was testing to prove their product worked, as well as for the models and actresses who already had perfect complexions to begin with, my skin was in an absolutely horrific state. My acne stayed, my skin was incredibly dry and it felt as if my face itself just was not fitting into my skin and I had also developed a problem with blackheads that never wanted to go away, no matter what face scrub I massaged into my face. Then it hit me; these companies were interested in one thing–Money. Most companies will say and do anything to pull one over on consumers and as long as they are making their millions, they really don’t care about women at all or if their product had even helped someone.

I recently had the opportunity to give skin care another go–With Emerita. Emerita is a woman-owned business, which of course gets a thumbs up in my book. I am all about supporting any business owned and run by women, especially since most products made for women are made by men, and obviously, men know very little about how women work. Emerita started as a family business and has been helping women over 40 with their extensive line of personal health and beauty products since the 1970s. While Emerita may target women over 40, they are not only for women of that age group since they helped the complexion of a 21 year old woman and most likely many other younger women who refused to accept that there were no skin care products that would work for them.

The Emerita microdermabrasion face scrub is made with all organic and botanical ingredients. It exfoliates your skin, leaving it the smoothest my face has ever been. It is a smooth exfoliate unlike any other I had tried before; it doesn’t hurt when massaged into your skin and it leaves your skin feeling warm and refreshed. The scrub is unscented and contains no artificial colorings, which is great because what most companies don’t realize is that it doesn’t take a fruity smell and a pretty color to make women continue to buy their products, it takes the product to actually work–And Emerita does!

If you are interested in Emerita, but don’t want to spend your money on products that you don’t know for sure will work for you, they also offer two different sample packages of five different skin care products for just $2.00 and they also ship for free!

I have personally found that the balancing toner used after the microdermabrasion scrub and combined with the night cream works famously. It works so great, in fact, that I saw results with using their skin care products in just a 24-hour period, which if you’ve used most other products, you know is astounding!

I would most definitely tell any women looking to clear their complexion and be left with a warm, glowing and refreshed face to check out the products that Emerita offers; they are great quality and above all else, they work.

Do You Know What’s in Your Cosmetics?

Very few people actually read the list of ingredients on the box of a cosmetic item. If you’re animal-friendly, you may check to see if there is a line that reads “not tested on animals,” which is most of the time at the bottom of the box, but besides that not too many people read through the list printed on their beauty products. In the same respect, what do all those grossly large and confusing words mean anyway?

If the word squalene [or squalane] seems familiar to you, it probably is. Squalene is a very common emollient used in beauty products such as lotions, creams and glosses and is used by big name companies such as L’Oréal Paris. However, squalene is being phased out of cosmetic products as of late due to the vast decline in numbers of deep-sea sharks.

Squalene, which has been an in demand ingredient for beauty products is found in large quantities in the livers of deep-sea sharks and due to the sharks being caught and killed purely for this ingredient, cosmetic companies are seeking the aid of olive extracts to replace the deep-sea shark liver oil. However, if all companies switch to olive extracts, simple supply and demand may be in trouble, as there are only so many olives to go around to big companies.

In 2006, L’Oréal eliminated squalene from their skin care products replacing it with a plant-based substitute and plan to eliminate the ingredient from 12 other lipsticks that they produce. Asian-based cosmetic companies may not be going the same route, though, as shark squalene still remains in very high demand.

So the next time you’re picking up your favorite skin care item, lipstick or gloss and you see squalene listed in the ingredients you can now say you not only know what it means, but know that the company has decided to continue to use deep-sea shark oil in their product and have not opted for either olive extracts or plant-based substitutes. Help eliminate the cause for concern over the dwindling numbers of deep-sea sharks.