My Beauty Space : Product Reviews, Tips and Experiences

Today is my first day wearing the Bare Minerals by Bare Escentuals makeup, and so far I think I’m liking it.

Everyone is talking about how beautiful Anna Nicole is again, especially after she became the Trimspa spokeswoman, took control of her life, and got herself whipped back into fighting shape and gorgeous as can be again. 

Anna Nicole has always been a curvy, sexy blonde, but her weightloss really added a lot of definition and beauty to her face, revealing what was always a pretty face, it was just that bad eating and probably unhappiness hid it. 

With the recent loss of her son, I hope Anna can look at her little girl and gain new hope from her (from what I understand they named her hope), and keep modeling as an inspiration to women who have lost a lot of weight and gotten their health back, until she’s well past 40. 

Anna started her career as the busty, lusty model for guess jeans, when Guess was all about the cleavage and big, puffy lips and smoldering sex appeal (what happened to Guess now?). 

She then became one of Hugh Hefner’s favorite playmates in Playboy, and then kind of fell into obscurity when a reality tv show cast her in her real life, with her attorney, Howard K Stern (whom we now know is the father of her girl) chasing after her and waiting on her hand and foot prett y much.  It’s good to see her now, not having to rely on some sort of reality show showing her as a parody of herself. 

I believe she is about 38 or 39 now, and unless she’s had some sort of plastic surgery, her skin and face are aging very well!

This is another grisly reminder that plastic surgery is just that - a surgery, with all the same risks as any other surgery, if not safer in some instances depending on the degree of invasiveness. 

A North Carolina woman died back in 2001 under the care of a plastic surgeon whose license was suspended and then reinstated after careful review and only with the toughest of restrictions. 

Just recently the nurse who was tending to the female patient after her cosmetic surgery was implicated in the death, officials saying they believe the nurse administered a lethal dosage of a powerful painkiller on purpose, although they would not release the suspected motive. 

The nurse reportedly went to high school with the patient.  Suspicions grew and were focused on the nurse in the woman’s plastic surgery death when staff advised she repeatedly told people not to summon the physician, and refused help from other staffers when the woman went in to respiratory distress. 

It appears supermodel Heidi Klum has high aspirations to become one of these so called “triple threats” who can do it all - model, act, have her own clothing line, perfumes and everything. 

The only thing she hasn’t said she’d like to try, or hasn’t tried already is singing!  And it’s actually refreshing to see someone like her, who seems genuinely nice and down to earth, “unaffected” by all the typical trappings of Hollywood and the fashion world, do so well.  Heidi is also a great example for looking great even when pregnant. 

She shows off her curves from pregnancy, and really pulls off the more curvy, sensual look that she has had for quite some time now, being pregnant a few times in a row!  Not to mention, she keeps bouncing back fabulously.  I think most supermodels that are in her shoes probably all think they need to pick up other skills and interests besides strictly modeling. 

Branding yourself may be the better way to go, because as Naomi Campbell is doing and I’m sure not liking it, you can’t keep modeling until you’re forty.  At some point, unfortunately, the modeling industry will chew you up and spit you out in favor of the latest “hot young thing” who’s cheaper to hire and also communicates better to a younger audience, which is many time the target market for fashion and beauty.

A lot of talk has been bantied about the use of shea butter to prevent stretch marks - especially during pregnancy, but also during a big weight gain or weight loss, when stretch marks are most likely to form due to a stretching of the skin.

With melanoma skin cancers being a fast growing concern, there is pending research on an exciting new breakthrough in self tanning cream. 

The catch to this special self tanner though, is that it may actually prevent skin cancer, while also turning the skin into a deep bronze color and preventing cell and DNA damage in the process.  It could literally be both a health and cosmetic product, all rolled into one, as long as research proves promising on humans. 

Self tanners have become a popular alternative to basking in the sun or purchasing tanning bed sessions, both for their quick results and fashionable look, as well as a successful way for women and men who do not tan at all to achieve a tan skin color without subjecting themselves to the damaging rays of the sun. 

There are still a few drawbacks to the self tanners of today though, although they have come a long way from the streaky orange outcome of self tanning products of yesterday.  The first drawback of course is that they do not protect you in any way from sunburn or skin cancer.  Although they do appear to pigment your skin a darker color where they’ve been applied, this is not a true change in pigmentation, only a slight chemical interaction on the very surface of the skin. 

Another drawback of current self tanners, and one that is not a health concern but is still bothersome for most users, is the unpleasant smell they produce when they start to “tan” the skin.  Like I said, this is not a health issue, but can be unpleasant.  They also may stain the clothes, and sometime can turn the skin an orangey color, depending on how it interacts with the user’s skin. 

Although most self tanners now do produce a nice, natural and tan color, there are still some people who have trouble achieving any darkness, or even a natural looking color with them. 

This newer self tanning lotion may produce a fool proof color, because it is actually activating your skin’s real “tanning mechanism”, and producing the same color your skin would if you were of a nationality of skin type that tanned more easily and naturally had a darker complexion. 

The primary reason for the development of this new “self tanner” really was not for cosmetic purposes though.  It is primarily an effort to help curb the increasing amounts of melanoma skin cancers in those that do not tan and are at higher risk of developing abnormal cell growth and DNA damage from exposure to the harsh sun. 

Might it still be a technology that the cosmetics companies will get ahold of and exploit (hopefully) for the sake of safe sunless tanning?  Well, we can all cross our fingers that this will be the self tanner we’ve all been dreaming of, as well as a boon to our continued health and longevity!

One of the trickiest parts of you body to “self tan”, besides your face, is your hands. And why is that? Well, because you wash your hands a few times a day, after you go to the bathroom, and it’s hard to wash your hands without washing off the self tanner before it has dried, isn’t it? I can’t tell you how many times I end up with a half-tanned hand that looks ridiculous!

I bought a small, 2.5 oz. bottle of the notorious, if not dubiously coined “wrinkle miracle treatment“, about one and a half weeks ago in hopes of helping to erase some of the ever growing crows feet on the sides of my eyes and underneath my eyes. You see, I’m about to turn 32 years old this Friday, and it’s just hit me that I’ve really gotta kick my anti aging skin care routine into high gear if I hope to beat aging at its own game!

In an unusual, and unprecedented move for the weight conscious pressures of the fashion industry, a Spain’s top fashion show has rejected fashion models to model their new fall lines on the basis that their BMI, Body fat mass indexes, were too low. In other words, these female models didn’t have ENOUGH fat on their body to be considered for the show!

Yes, that’s right.  And isn’t it nice?  I truly hope this move marks a new trend for women, fashion and beauty magazines that shows that women do not have to starve themselves, be a size zero or lower, and be unhealthy in order to make it big in the fashion industry. 

It’s also a Spanish network that did the decision making here, and guess what? Traditionally, the Spanish culture treasures women with curves, which I love.  Have you seen any of the Spanish networks lately? 

The women that inhabit the fashion world, newscasting world and any other tv show that I’ve ever seen on telemundo are DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, so I don’t mind being lumped in with these vivacious, busty and beautiful, yet not a stick figure, women, do you?

Apparently Brazil, land of beautiful women, has a big problem with illegal and dangerous cosmetic surgery.  For example, one woman recently died when she paid a little over $3,000 for a nose job and liposuction in the basement of a condo. 

The 24 year old women was found to have a condition, directly caused by the botched cosmetic surgery, called pulmonary fat emboli, where fat particles are in the lungs, where they’re not supposed to be.  She died three days after receiving the illegal and highly dangerous “home liposuction” from the unlicensed and unprepared “surgeons”. 

When Brazilian women were asked about the problem, they acknowledged that cosmetic surgery is enormously popular in Brazil, where tradition is that Brazilian women will go to great lengths to look better and stay beautiful. 

In fact, if you can believe it, Brazil favors plastic surgery even more than Americans do, and Brazilians tend to even wear fashions that are uncomfortable, all in the name of looking sexy and beautiful.  This is a dangerous trend, especially if the cosmetic surgery phenomena is bigger over there than it is in the US, which I thought was not possible!