Wetting Your Foundation Sponge for that Dewy, Sheer Look

One of my favorite aquired tricks when I apply my foundation in the morning is to wet the foundation sponge a little bit with cold water. It seems like something you wouldn’t want to do, after all, why would you want to keep wetting something that you store every day, possibly encouraging mildew growth? Well, I make sure that I dry it out by squeezing it in the dry hand towel that sits right by my medicine cabinet after I’m done using it.

This just helps to ensure that you won’t get mildew growth on the sponge if you decide you really like this makeup application technique. Of course, you also want to regularly wash your sponges as well, I like to hand wash them with some soap and let them air dry, this also help discourage bacteria and mold growth, and ensure that you are rubbing a safe sponge on your face every day.

So, what does wetting your foundation sponge do for you? Well, it makes you foundation look much more sheer, instead of cakey, and it tends to give a more natural, dewy look to your skin. Why? Because 1.) It helps to ensure that you are not putting too much foundation on your face by diluting it. The water soaks up the sponge a bit, so the sponge is not as porous and cannot over-absorb the foundation, so you end up with less spackle on your face and 2.) The water dilutes the foundation and imparts a more natural, sheer look instead of the opaque or matte look that is really out today. Today, makeup is all about sheer, natural, dewy and fresh looking, not procelain and matted looking, which was in back in the eighties and nineties.

If you use this technique for applying your foundation with a sponge, then you really are going to make it look the most sheer, natural and becoming color and tone that you can. I tend to like foundations that are anti aging and anti wrinkle in nature, and they can tend to look a bit heavy if they are not diluted. Not only that, your face won’t feel bogged down by too much foundation, and you will find that it blends much more readily, reducing the likelihood of the splotched or smeared look if it dries too quickly and doesn’t go on evenly.

I’ve seen this on my own face when I forgot to use the water, and it’s hard to re-blend it correctly so it looks natural again. The water is a great, cheap way to get your foundation on, looking the best it can.

Lulum Energy Treatment : What Is It and How Much Does it Cost?

I was in our break room at work the other day, and someone always brings in the newspaper and leaves it in there, and I noticed a flyer/insert that was sitting out about a new technique to help reduce wrinkles, reduce the appearance of cellulite, and overall just rejuvenate the tissues with increased collagen production and smoothing, called the Lulum technique, or the Lulum energy treatment for body rejuvenation.

The before and after pics were pretty impressive on there, which is what made me take notice. The place that offered it out here in Ohio was in Avon called Stags Family Chiropractic/Wellness, and it was a chiropractic clinic, which it appears is the only offices that offer it so far, as the only other place I found was in Texas and it too was chiropractic practice.

They had one of a woman’s mouth before and after, it was less lined and her lips appeared a tad fuller, one of a woman’s neckline, which was more taught and smooth after, and one of a woman’s thigh with dimpled cellulite allover it before and very smooth “after first treatment”. The process is non surgical, non invasive, and there is no downtime at all, so I thought, wow, if I were rich, I’d be signing up for this! I couldn’t find the cost for the Lulum energy treatment anywhere online though. In fact, I could find very little on the treatment at all, it must be so new.

My guess is it might be kind of like microdermabrasion or most other cellulite treatments for body, maybe a hundred bucks a pop, although I don’t know how many treatments you need to maintain or even achieve results. If any practitioners read this, please leave comments with this information and your office info for interested people, that would be great.

I was able to find out how the Lulum energy treatment works though. It is a device that uses several different types of electrical currents, color therapy, and heating therapy, to deeply stimulate the tissues, which probably explains how it rejuvenates collagen production. This is probablyl also how it breaks up cellulite formation and is useful as a cellulite treatment as well. Oh, there was also a pretty amazing before and after picture of a woman with crows feet who looked very smoothed out after treatment.

This treatment, like most other rejuvenating aesthetic treatments for anti aging and body sculpting, probably requires ongoing maintenance to maintain any achieved results, but hey, if you get great results, it may be something you choose to use in your anti aging and wrinkled reduction arsenal, and also your body shaping and cellulite treatment regimen. Anyone who has experience or knowledge of the Lulum energy treatment, please comment and share. Thanks!

Is There Such a Thing as a Safe Tan? FDA Says Probably Not

After the World Health Organization announced last year that it was definitively saying that the use of tanning beds significantly increases the likelihood of deadly skin cancers like melanoma, and the less dangerous but still attention-needing squamous and basal cell carcinomas, there has been increased scrutiny on the indoor tanning industry and the warnings that are displayed within them, warnings that they particularly want younger people to notice.

Why? Because in our teens it’s the cool thing to get a tan, but you’re not necessarily thinking that this can ruin your health, you’re more so thinking about how good you’re gonna look on the beach, and they want to get the point across to teens and people in their twenties that this is potentially life threatening, since there are more and more cases of early diagnosed melanomas.

You are hearing a lot of stories about girls in their twenties and teens being diagnosed with melanoma, which quite frankly should scare the hell out of regular tanners. The FDA is mulling ideas now to impose tougher restrictions on how they need to display warning signs. Right now, the warning signs are fairly evident, but they may require them to be larger, or to have stronger, more explicit wording that would be more likely to scare people off or to at least make sure they are not over using these beds to get tan.

Here’s the shock too, apparently a study was done that showed most people can get the same tan by going to a tanning salon just once a week that they get when they go three days a week, sparking further worries that people are unnecessarily overdoing it in these beds because they are addicted to them.

I for one, do believe that a little bit of UV light is actually healthy, since it produces vitamin D naturally, but you cross the line when you burn the skin or you expose yourself too much to sunlight. Experts say that even getting a light tan though is triggering the process that causes cancers to form, so even getting a tan is not supposedly safe.

You are especially at a higher risk for melanoma skin cancer if you burned a lot when you were younger, but tanning bed users risk increases by about 75% from the non-tanning population, so these statistics are quite convincing that UV exposure is bad for the skin. Stick to the self tanner, and you’ll be alright!

Heidi Montag’s Excessive Plastic Surgery: A Cautionary Tale

One of the stars of “The Hills”, the hit reality show with other reality stars – if that’s what you can call them – Spencer Pratt, her irritating husband, Lauren Conrad and Audrina Patridge, has really gone overboard on getting plastic surgery procedures to meet what she thinks is the beauty ideal that is forced on women in the Hollywood entertainment industry.

Do I smell the next Joan Rivers on the front? She’d better be careful, or she may end up looking like some alien version of herself like other plastic surgery addicts in the business such as the “Cat Lady” who literally looks like a cat now and other victims of bad plastic surgery or simply overdoing it, Priscilla Presley, whose formerly gorgeous face has been marred by a botched filler job, and Joan Van Arc, whose waxen, frozen appearance leaves one feeling sorry for her rather than astounded by her newfound youthful look.

I feel really bad for women, or men, who go overboard in this area, because it almost seems like they really don’t like themselves and are trying to alter their very existence into something that is completely different than what they were born with. The results are often devastating and can have serious mental health implications. Heidi Montag seems to be headed down this path, and I don’t know if she’s considered this, but excessive nipping and tucking never lead anyone to a successful career, but likability and perseverence have.

At least Ms. Montag, or shall I say Pratt, is willing to talk about her obsession with the knife and has admitted to it, and her before and after pictures aren’t horrendous, but I can’t help but wonder when she will morph into something that is totally unnatural looking, since you know that’s what happens to women who are addicted to procedures. I’ve never seen any of them stop doing it, and eventually, they just start to look bad. Hopefully she doesn’t go down that path, but from what it sounds like, she isn’t planning on stopping these procedures any time soon.

Heidi’s story is one of caution to those of us that start to pick on every little thing about our appearance. You have to, at a certain point, embrace your features. Sure, there are a few things we all want to change about our appearance, but going under the knife to correct it all will leave you not only bankrupt, but with a void you can never seem to fill, and unhappiness.

How Important is Drinking Water to Your Skin?

If I had to say what some of the most important things are, I feel, to keep your skin smooth and supple and hydrated, I would say that there are 3 – my top three at least, of course everyone you talk to will tell you something different because everyone has different experiences with what seems to keep their skin in tip top shape.

My first one is that I try to shield my face at least from any sun exposure whatsoevere. I always wear a high grade SPF on my face so that even when I’m in my car or out on a cloudy day when it seems like I’m not getting a lot of sun, I’m still protected, even if the UV ray concentration isn’t all that high that day. It goes to show how important minimizing sun exposure is when I looked at pictures of twins that had the same DNA (they were identical) and the one looked ten years older than the other.

The only differences were that one lived in Florida and was a sun worshipper and also happened to smoke, and the other one did neither.
I’ve seen the ravages of years of sun damage and what it does to the skin, so I just make sure the only way my face ever gets a tan is with a self tanner – no other rays are touching my face!

The second thing I feel that has been most important is moisturizing the outside of my skin with high quality, skin quenching and therapeutic products. Frequent and thorough moisturization of the face is important because it helps your skin maintain the all important elasticity and suppleness that tends to go away as we age. Of course, it matter what ingredients are in those anti aging and wrinkle reducing moisturizers, creams and serums as well, and I make sure that mine are chock full of antioxidants and skin exfoliating agents like retinols and natural acids.

The third thing to I do to keep my skin looking good is I constantly am drinking water. Keep in mind, I’m naturally a very thirsty person, and I naturally gravitate toward water, which is the most thirst quenching beverage in my opinion. I’m literally always sipping water, and I find that if I’m without it for even an hour, my skin tend to look more drawn in, less smooth and filled out .

I remember a good demonstration of this effect on my was when I took a vacation to Costa Rica. Not only did I sweat buckets there and was constantly dehydrated because I didn’t always have water with me, but my skin really showed it. The hollows in my eyes showed more, and even my lips seemed to thin out. I definitely looked more “haggard” without my water, which is why I believe it is one fo the keys to good skin.

Smooth Out Skin Tone with Peels

I love doing chemical and natural facial peels on my face. There is nothing that works better to make my skin glow with that natural sheen that healthy, renewed and rejuvenated skin tends to lend to your face like a peel. What peels do, is they literally sheer off layers and layers of skin cells that otherwise would take weeks to shed from the skin as we grow older, since with age, our skin cells tend to renew and turn over at a much slower rate.

Because of this slower turnover, it’s helpful to either produce the same effect of accelerated cell turnover with either a home microdermabrasion type of system or a chemical peel, to literally mechanically force the skin cells to renew themselves, and to reveal fresher, clearer skin. Another huge benefit of chemical peels that I notice is a much improved smoothness.

One thing that I have noticed throughout the years is that my earlier battles with acne left my skin rough looking in certain areas, especially on my chin, where acne lesions were their worst. Since I used to have such bad acne, over the years, my skin’s texture in these areas is noticeably rougher, and when I am regularly doing these chemical peels at home, and my home microdermabrasion kits, I notice that these areas smooth out noticeably.

You see, one of the things that causes skin to look rough in certain areas is a build up of old skin cells that need to be sloughed off by force. This is why younger skin looks much smoother. When you are younger, your skin cells are basically programmed to turn over at a much faster pace, making for more youthful looking skin underneath, and part of the reason we notice our skin is not as smooth or supple when we grow older is because smooth skin is obscured by old, dead skin cells that not only hamper the texture of our skin, but also tend to make the skin look less “alive” and less colored, thereby making us look older than we are.

Chemical peels can also help to reduce the appearance of your pores, so that your pores appear much smaller. This is key to great skin, since large pores tend to make our skin appear less smoothed out. They also reduce the appearance of the fine lines and wrinkles that come with aging, which is a huge benefit .The only drawback to doing peels is that your skin really looks terrible after you do them, I’d say for about a day or two, it looks ruddy and more irritated, but if you’re patient and you perform these on your skin over six weeks, every week, once a week, with breaks in between these cycles, you will enjoy smoother, more wrinkle free skin for years to come.

Buf Puf : Still Great After All These Years

So I purchased something that I never thought I’d even see again after it boomed in the eighties and nineties as an excellent exfoliating agent for the face, the Buf Puf. However, there I was on Amazon (which I’m slightly addicted to, it’s ridiculous), and I saw that many women were commenting on it and how much they missed being able to pick what used to be considered a beauty staple up in any drug store or department store, and raving about the product and how inexpensive it was, and simple, and how it still did the job for their skin.

The Buf Puf is simply an exfoliating pad that resembles a rough sponge. You use it to wash your face, or like me, you can use it after you wash your face, without suds, and just use it to exfoliate dry skin away from the pores while the face it wet, which is the best time to get the dead skin cells off since they are easily moved off the face with minimum trauma to the skin and minimum effort.

It’s a very durable pad too. It only costs about five bucks, and the shipping is hardly anything since the product is so light to ship anyways. You can definitely feel the exfoliating power when you sweep it over your face, and it leaves your skin with a nice, youthful, pink glow afterwards. I’m using it in place of my exfoliating scrub for a while to see if it does the same job, which it’s doing pretty flawlessly right now. I guess that our mothers were right – simple is better, and you can’t get much simpler of a facial skin care product than the Buf Puf.

Too bad it’s going the way of other cool, useful beauty products just because bigger companies are tantalizing women with products that are more expensive and seem to be more high tech. I’d encourage you to try the Buf Puf if you need an exfoliating part to your skin care program. You just need to be careful not to over scrub, that’s the only drawback, but you will know when to stop, there should be no pain or irritation, just pleasant sloughing off of dry skin and the revelation of new, healthy skin cells.

I think it’s great for aging skin, as well as for acne scarred skin, since it successfully sloughs away a lot of dead skin cells and a lot of old scarred tissue in the process, evening the skin tone and helping smooth out acne and other scars.

Secrets to Beautiful Curls

Ones of the biggest secrets to healthy looking, shiny and bouncy hair, I’m convinced, is to get it trimmed at least once every eight weeks. Since your hair grows at an average of about 1/2 inch every month, if you are trying to grow your hair out, then you can just opt to get it “tipped” and get the dead ends removed so that the length is left largely intact.

But make sure you tell you stylist you are trying to grow it out, or kiss your length goodbye every time you go to get a trim. When most stylists see any sort of dead end, they go for the jugular, and usually remove more than they need to unless you make it known that you are growing your locks out longer.

I think that one of the biggest secrets to keeping beautiful, frizz free curls in your hair is that same, that is, getting trims often. Because you are constantly having the dead ends removed, and this is the primary reason that the cuticle of the hair shaft looks so roughed up and frizzy all the time if you go too long in between hair cuts, getting these frequent mini maintenance trims is key to really maintaining the health, integrity, bounce and shine of your head of hair. It will also make your curls more intense since you don’t have the dead ends weighing them down.

You may want to look into a protein based heat protective spray to spray on you curls every time you blow your hair dry, or if you are going to use some sort of heated styling tool on your hair. I just watched a video of a stylist who advised that most people (including me) don’t know it, but every time you blow your hair dry or use hot styling instruments on it, it actually loses some of it’s protein fibers.

A good heat protectant that contains these proteins will help to not only ward off any heat related styling damage, but also will help to replenish those lost proteins as well. Once in a while, you may want to try a vinegar rinse on the hair, to remove any styling product buildup and to help restore shine.

The natural acids in apple cider vinegar help to not only cleanse away dull and drying deposits from hair styling products, but they also help to increase the surface reflections, which hence increases the shine factor, which as any of you with curls know, is the main attraction of curls – that and separation and bounce!

Rusk Designer Series : Priming and Softwear

I just LOVE when I find great beauty deals at TJ Maxx or any other markdown store that offer markdowns on famous name brands. TJ Maxx has really upped the ante when it comes to putting out beauty products that are the retail rejects, so to speak. I’ve found some of my greatest discoveries there, not the least of which is the Virtual Laser moisturizing, light bending day cream that helsp make your skin look brighter and less lined.

Yes, I’m very bummed that I couldn’t find this product any more at TJ Maxx, it looks like my luck may have run out with that one, but oh well, I may have to pay retail for it again. Well, in it’s place, I found one of the Rusk hair care products, which I must say are appearing with startling frequency on the shelves of TJ Maxx. I hope the line is not in danger of going down, because this may not be a good sign for the brand in general, but then again they may have some sort of exclusive agreement with TJ Maxx that I don’t know about.

Rusk is a good, quality hair care line that is reasonably priced, but not really “cheap” per se. It wouldn’t be marketed as a budget hair care product, but it certainly isn’t as pricey as some of the other high end hari care products, and it’s just as good. Enough on Rusk in general though. Let me tell you about my ridiculously cheap find at TJ Maxx.

I found two Rusk products packaged together at TJ Maxx on clearance for eight bucks. Yes, eight bucks, and I get two products for that too! That’s like drugstore cheapo product prices! One of the products was the Rusk Priming cream, which is a shine boosting, strength boosting cream that helps to mend and repair and make the hair sleaker. It is meant to help smooth the cuticle in preparation for the application of any other products, like the next one I’m going to talk about, which is the one that came with it in the package incidentally, the Softwear serum.

Rusk Softwear serum is a velvety, clear serum that is reminiscent of the biosilk shine drops that so many people have used, but it seems a bit more weighty and heavy than that. It is probably made of silicone polymers, but it’s goal is to provide weightless, bouncy shine. You apply it when you are ready to blow your hair dry, or after you apply the Priming cream.

I liked these hair products. One thing I noticed is that it gave me a sort of ropey, texturized type of look. These are awesome products if you want that texturized, sort of Gisele Bundchen, beachy body wave look. If you were just going for a sleek, straight and shiny look, you should probably just go for the the Softwear serum though.

Clarisonic or Buf Puf : I Ended Up with a Buf Puf

Remember the eighties, and how those little spongy, scratchy exfoliating pads called Buf Pufs were all the rage for scrubbing your complexion? Well, they still exist, although by and large you can only find them readily online, and for a good price at that with cheap or free shipping since they have almost no weight to them and are easy to ship in a simple bubble package, no boxes required. Yep, these little things are still available, as I found online when I was shopping for other skin care products for anti aging and came upon something that I thought I had to have until I read a certain few reviews on it.

The product that I thought I had to have was called a Clarisonic facial cleansing tool. It’s catch was that it had a rotating exfoliating and cleansing head that rotates at sonic speed, so that it cleanses and polishes and exfoliates the skin several times deeper than you can get with just your hands or any other normal cleansing tool, so they said.

I was intrigued, so I kept reading all the reviews. It is also an Oprah endorsed product as it was one of her have to have things on one of her lists. I’m not an Oprah follower, but as I understand it, when Oprah recommends or talks about something, it creates a virtual firestorm of demand for said product. That might be where a lot of the hype for the Clarisonic cleansing tool came in, because it did have mixed reviews.

Although some people said it did an excellent job at cleansing and that they were receiving complements left and right on their skin, there were also some who said you can get comparable results from other cleansing and exfoliating tools, like the Buf Puf, which I ended up with instead of the $200 Clarisonic tool after talking some sense into myself that I didn’t need it, did just as good a job, and for hundreds of dollars less, literally.

The Clarisonic may very well be an excellent tool, but I do wonder how much is marketing and hype, since there are a lot of other products that can probably do the same job for less, I may of course eat my words if I try this tool some day, which I still may do, but for now I’ll give my Buf Puf a try and let you know how that works!