My Beauty Space

We all know how important it is to protect our skin from the summer sun’s increasingly harsh and potentially toxic ray’s, but do we always remember to protect our lips too?  And what about our precious eyes? 

Dermatologists and physicians alike will tell you that it’s more and more important these days that you protect your skin and your eyes from the sun, thanks to a deteriorating ozone layer, which means less protection from the sun, and more incidence of skin cancer and even eye problems that are related to sun exposure.

So, you wear SPF every day, but are you really making sure your exposed areas are protected, or just the area that everyone tends to think of, the face?  What about your hands?  I myself noticed a couple years ago that I had tiny little bumps allover the tops of my handds, and they actually turned a darker color almost like a freckle in the summer.  I’ve learned to keep an eye on smalle things like this, since I’m Irish and my skin is not meant to tan easily. 

I also burned a lot when I was younger, which I’m sure has contributed greatly to the amount of photodamage my skin shows now, and is the main reason for most of my age spots, wrinkles and fine lines. 

Not only that, I’ve already had to get two spots removed that were basal cell carcinoma, one from my forehead, which wasn’t surprising since this area naturally gets more sun exposure, and one from my chest area, right between my breasts. 

This area shocked me, because it’s not like it’s exposed all that often to the sunlight, except for when I would be in a bathing suit.

Make sure when you buy sunscreen, you buy a broad spectrum sunscreen.  It may cost you more, but at least then you know your skin is protected from both UVA and UVB rays.  Also, protect your lips.  Your lips burn just as easily as your face, but it’s harder to notice because they are naturally a darker color.  This goes doubly so for those like me that do not tan easily and are of a fair skinned or celtic background. 

I like to use chapstick with SPF 15, or Burt’s Bees with SPF 25 when I’m out in the sun for a while.  I do notice that my lips don’t burn and are not dried out from the sun exposure when I wear SPF lip balm.

There’s nothing more that complements a cute pair of sandals than a nicely trimmed, manicured and painted set of toes.  So, you can either fork out the cash to go and get a professional pedicure, or you can give yourself a pedicure in your own home.  Although I will say, the results I’ve gotten from professionals looks much better and lasts forever! 

The trick to getting the nail polish to last forever though is something that not a lot of us folks at home take the time to do ourselves when we’re painting our toenails.  If you’re anything like me, you just rush a swipe of polish on with no base coat and no top coat and hope for the best!  But, if you really want your nail color to last a long time, you will need to get a base coat polish, and you’ll also need to get a top coat that’s tough as nails (no pun intended) so that it will prevent splitting, cracking, peeling and fading.

If you want to really pamper yourself, you can even give yourself a foot soak with some essential oils in the warm water, to soften your feet, and also rub down the bottoms of your feet with a pumice stone to get them smooth and soft.  Mary Kay cosmetics actually has an excellent foot and hand care system that costs 75 bucks, but it gives you a fell spectrum pedicure or manicure in your own home.  Not sure if it’s worth that much money, but I enjoyed my set while I had it.

A cuticle stick is a must also, because after you’re done soaking your poor, tired feet, you will want to shape and push back your cuticles so that they are not visible and don’t get in the way of the polish when you begin to polish you toes.  I prefer darker polishes on my feet, but this is just a personal preference.  I think it looks a bit more sophisticated than the lighter colors, plus it tends to complement more women’s feet than the lighter colors.  Do you have a preference or any tips on how to get sandal-perfect toes for the summer months?

I know this may be a bit off topic for MyBeautySpace.com, but I thought it worth the time to post on something that is a growing area in the expanding world of online commerce and those interested in how to make money online.  In this ever evolving world, we’ve seen a marketplace open up for those that are entrepreneurs at heart.  Look at small companies that started with just two women, or one woman, that are directed at woman who love beauty products. 

An example of these types of entrepreneurial success stories are Lip Venom, a small company started  by two Italian women who loved to plump their lips and had a great recipe for doing it which included cinnamon and other lip plumping valuables.  They soon became every Hollywood starlets staple! 

Then, look who also exploded on to the scene of lip plumping and other advanced cosmetics, lip Lip Fusion and their expanding line of beauty products, including self tanners and facial care products?

Search engine marketing allows these types of startups to market their product to a wide audience, a younger audience, and a very targeted audience through text link advertising and other types of advertising popular online to the beauty community, like banner ads and other forms of internet attention that all companies, especially startups, really need to get things going.  Are you a beauty entrepreneur?

I wanted to share with you an email alert I received about a breast health guide that’s put forth by one of my favorite magazines for it’s unique content and fresh, youthful views.  JANE magazine, one of my favorite woman’s magazines for it’s irreverant articles, is having a new breast health guide and I thought you might like to read it.  It’s coming soon and here’s the email I got about it :JANE magazine discovered in a recent survey of their readers that a shocking 75% of women say they are unhappy with their breasts.  With that in mind, the May issue of JANE features “The JANE Guide to Breast Health” - a comprehensive feature promoting physical and emotional breast health.    

The guide focuses on positive self-image beginning with a personal essay by Editor Annemarie Conte discussing how she grew to love her asymmetrical breasts.  Following the essay is a full-page of photos of real (100% natural) breasts in a variety of shapes and sizes to show readers the large range that is “normal.”  The photos combat the media bombardment of false images of “perfection” that just leave women feeling bad about themselves.  Each of the photographs is accompanied by the real woman’s reason for loving her breasts.  The page also calls out to Jane readers to submit photos of their own breasts and their reasons for loving them to be posted on Jane’s website, janemag.com.

Geralynn Lucas, author of “Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy” will be blogging for Jane’s website, janemag.com, for the month of May. Her first posting on “Inner Cleavage” is up today. “Inner cleavage,” according to Lucas, “is a state of mind.  It is a belief that you are sexy regardless of your cup size.  It means loving the boobs you own.  It doesn’t require a plastic surgeon, implants, padding or push up bras.  It means that I am not only my bra size.”

The link to the online version of “The JANE Guide to Breast Health” - http://www.janemag.com/magazine/articles/2007/04/BreastGuideMain

The May issue hits newsstands nationwide on April 24^th.

Thanks!

We all know that not everyone can look like Catherine Zeta Jones, Angelina Jolie and Brigitte Bardot, and likewise not all men call look like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and David Beckham.  But why is there such a diversity in the human population between the outside appearances of men and women?  And why are certain traits considered to be more “beautiful” and handsome?

According to some geneticists, it is actually gene mutations that create the different looks, and more interestingly, the incredible beautiful looks that seem almost insanely impossible in today’s celebrities and models.  It is a well known fact that in other animal species, different traits that are considered attractive between animals are for reasons that actually have an underlying purpose. 

For example, the peacock who has the most beautiful plummage for a tail (the male, surprisingly) is adorned with female admirers who are ready and willing to mate with them.  But it is not because the animal actually knows the tail is beautiful, it is an innate knowledge that the males with the longer, more colorful tails are less likely to get sick and are more disease resistent, which is something the female innately knows will be passed on to her chicks. 

This example can also be seen in humans, where men with a more chiseled jaw and women with fuller lips and more symmetrical faces are seen by the opposite sex as being more sexually capable as well as more capable of producing healthy, strong offspring.  Interesting stuff, isn’t it?  It just goes to show that no matter how far we’ve evolved as humans, there are still huge parts of us that remain instinctually based animals. 

There are a few wrinkle filling injectables of note today in the higher and higher tech world of cosmetic dermatology and anti aging wrinkle filling and anti aging cosmetic techniques.  Among them is one called Hylaform, which was FDA approved back in 2004, making it a relative new comer in the wrinkle filling genre. 

Wrinkle fillers are injectable fillers that are injected underneath a line or wrinkle, or some other sort of skin depression such as acne scarring, pitting, and ice pick scars, to fill them out for a period of time, until the filler is inevitably absorbed by the body and a new injection is needed to sustain the plumping and filling of the tissue-deprived depression.

Inamed, an innovator in breast implant devices, among other things usually related to cosmetic anti aging and wrinkle improvement, is the corporation that invented and formulated the Hylaform wrinkle filler.  It had become the fourth injectable wrinkle filler on the market when it was approved back in 2004, and followed others such as collagen, restylane (which I’ve heard is the best way to go), and another one whose name escapes me at the moment.

I’ve heard that restylane is the way to go if you’re looking for wrinkle plumping, because it is a synthetic form of hyaluronic acid, which is a natural substance that is secreted by the body and keeps the skin young and supple, which of course deteriorates with age. 

It is said that restylane actually stimulates collagen production, and it is known for a relatively long life in the skin, so it does not just quickly absorb into the body, being rendered useless as a wrinkle filler, whereas collagen injections have a relative short life because they are so readily absorbed by the body. 

I don’t really know much about Hylaform, except that since it’s approval in 2004, I have not heard too much about it, which just leads me to believe that restylane is the superior product even more, because everyone seems to think it’s the way to go if you want to both fill out wrinkles, and help your skin to start producing its own collagen again, as it did in it’s earlier years. 

I just saw my cousing over Easter, and commented to her that her skin looks great.  She’s 35 years old, and I thought her skin looked as if it were glowing, and it also looked as if her lines had faded. 

She said she had been using a skin care system called Obagi, and was using it under a dermatologist’s care in combination with Retin-A, which is not only and acne medication for topical use, but also was widely touted as the next best thing in anti aging topical skin care just ten years ago, but unfortunately has faded into the hundreds of other ” newer, better” anti aging skin care products that seem to be creeping into the market as an alarming pace over the past few years.

Retin-A is known for its exfoliation properties, and the speeding up of skin cell turnover, which is why it is recommended for both acne cases as well as for patients who are looking for age-sign reducing topical products.  Only side effect with Retin-A though, at least years ago when I was put on it, was that it made my skin peel horribly and also made it dry so bad that it had developed painful cracking and bleeding in some areas. 

This was years ago, when I was prescribed the product for my acne, and I personally think the concentration my dermatologist put me on was too strong, and my skin was so sensitive at the time, as well as my other skin care products too drying to be used in conjunction with  something that is known to dry the skin out in some cases as well as to speed skin cell turnover which can lead to flaking and peeling in some cases. 

I looked a little into the Obagi line, and it’s certainly high end, and may be considered high cost for some, but my cousing did get good results when she combined it with the Retin-A, so Obagi may be a very good, clinical quality skin care product if you’re thinking about agressively treating aging signs topically with a newer regimen for anti aging and wrinkle skincare. 

Burt’s Bee’s is one of those natural cosmetic lines that I think we’ve all tried at one time or another, whether we’ve tried their most popular products, which I believe are their line of lip balms, or their expanded line of beauty and cosmetic products like their tinted lipsticks, lip balms, shampoos, body butters and other fun stuff for body care.

I purchased on of their best products, at least that’s what I think, in a natural foods store that I frequent called Mustard Seed.  It’s their honey beeswax lip balm, and it has a hint of a mint flavor to it as well.  I usually am not a big fan of mint in my lip balms, as I feel it actually dries my lips out more than they were before (this has actually been proven too, which is why I can’t figure out why mint and camphor is one of the primary ingredients used in all lip balms and lip repair products, although it does have a topically soothing feeling).

Burts Bees lip balms are only about 3 bucks a pop, and you can find them in a lot of the natural food stores as well as in the cosmetics sections or supplement/natural health sections of some grocery stores as well.  Their popularity is among older and younger women, because they span the generations and they also have a slight cult following from their earlier days as the “hippy chic” cosmetics. 

We have a guest writer today - my mom!  She writes about the product that she’s been using for years on her skin, that’s also been a hit with many other women around the world, Oil of Olay, as well as the new Olay facial system with home microderm…

For years, I have been using just a moisturizing cream on my face after washing with soap and water. This routine has been working well until recently. As time marches on, other products can probably assist more in diminishing the look of fine lines and wrinkles that creep in more and more.

I recently moved (I know, one of our favorite things to do), and one morning, I had forgotten to take my makeup to the new house that now had our bed in it, so I was stuck facing the possibility that either I had to drive out of the way and be late to work to get my makeup at our old apartment, or I had to suck it up and buy the basics at a grocery store near where I work that I happened to know was open early enough in the  moring that I could at least buy the basics and not scare everyone at work with my “au naturel” look.

So, there I was, in a Giant Eagle grocery store at about quarter to seven in the morning, picking out the “basics”.  The basics to me may be different than what you consider your bare minimum when being seen in public or having to be in the work environment all day, but here are mine : cover up, mascara and a natural-toned eyeliner.  The cover up happened to be very important, because I happened to have a broken out face with acne because of all the stress (yes, my skin is the first thing to go when I’m under stress).

Here were my choices at Giant Eagle : Maybelline, L’Oreal and some Cover Girl.  I can’t stand Cover Girl makeup, so I steered clear of that section.  Next, I viewed the Maybelline.  Not a fan of Maybelline mascara, so I was relieved that my old faithful mascara, Lash Out, by L’Oreal happened to be in their limited offerings.  Scooped up the mascara.  Next I had to decide on a cover up. 

I saw that Maybelline had two kinds, one with a wand that was liquid, and one that was in stick form.  I picked the stick, because for me, the stick always outperforms the wand/liquid, every time.  It was a lighter color than what my skin tone is in the summer and even most of the time in the winter, and I picked this because it is said you should NEVER go dark with a cover up.  You’ll only end up with a weird, unnatural look if you even go one shade darker than you natural skin tone, so it’s always best to go light if anything. 

I love the cover up stick by Maybelline.  I actually ended up throwing my old one away.  It covered evenly and required very little application to get the job done.  The cover lasted all day, needing no touchups - and the tone I picked happened to be a great match. I’d recommend the Maybelline cover up/concealing stick any day.  And it’s cheap - under five bucks!