My Beauty Space : Product Reviews, Tips and Experiences

About two to three months ago I purchased, online, a cellulite treatment kit to try it out and see how it was.  My conclusion on the product is two fold.  While I still strongly endorse the use of the Revitol cellulite treatment, I still want to try different cellulite remedies, because that is, after all what I do on this site - experiment and try new things!  So, please read my review that follows on the relatively little-known Green Canyon Spa Cellulite treatment product.

This cellulite treatment kit comes with two jars of product.  One is called a cellulite reduction gel and the other is called a cellulite reduction cream.  Now, I expected to notice a difference in consistency between the two jars of product, but I didn’t.  They both looked and felt like a cream to me, so I wasn’t really sure what the difference was. 

My only real complaint about the product which is rubbed in is that it never really seems to “sink in”, and you are left with a sort of sticky residue that can be a bit bothersome.  Especially in the summer, so I’m glad it’s winter right now here in Ohio.  The scent was pleasant enough, and the packaging itself is nice, so that always adds to the “feel” that you’ve purchased a quality product. 

I can’t say I was particularly impressed with the cream, but I did love the tool they sent with it, which was one of those pronged massage tools that is great for massaging cellulite prone areas.  This tool was my favorit part, and I still use it, although I quit using the product along with it.  Massaging tools like this are excellent for cellulite prone areas, because they help to stimulate the circulation that is lacking in those areas, and which contributes to the appearance of cellulite. 

All in all, the Green Canyon Spa Cellulite treatment was very reasonably priced kit, but the only part I really felt I’ve gotten value out of so far is the cellulite massage block.  Let me know if any of your readers has used it and had any different (or the same) experiences with this product.  Love to get other’s feedback! 

Well, it’s been confirmed.  I thought I initially liked the Burt’s Bees pomegranate replenishing lip balm, but I think I was too swayed by the cool bright red color which gave a bit of a pinkish/healthy tint to the lips and the luscious taste of the product. 

I had the pomegranate in addition to my original Burt’s Bees lip balm, as well as my Honey Burt’s Bees in my purse, and I found that it seemed like everytime I used the pomegranate it actually ended up drying my lips out more than before I used it.  I still gave it a good review though, because I liked the way it seemed to not be waxy and just glide right on and taste so good. 

It felt good on my lips at first, but I noticed, unlike the waxier types of lip balms, which I thought I didn’t like, it actually didn’t coat my lips the way it needed to, and didn’t even stay put very long, resulting in drier lips.  I feel like when I use the waxier types of balms, it makes my lips look a bit naturally plumper because it also fills in the lines that tend to make lips look dry and deflated. 

When a friend of mine bought the same lip balm, she asked me if I noticed a dryness, and that’s when I knew I wasn’t just being too picky or anal - it does dry the lips.  I would only recommend the Burts Bee’s original or Honey now, so sorry I gave a it a good review at first!  Sometimes when you initially think you like a product, it’s easy to jump the gun! 

One of my favorite stores to shop for my professional clothes - clothes that I have to wear in the law office where I work (yes, I have to dress in business attire, which I’m none too happy about, but sometimes it feels good to look nice!) is New York and Company, formerly known as Lerner, at least when I was a teenager and a young twenty-something. 

I noticed the last time I was in the store, buying massive quantities of clothes while they were deeply discounted for the Christmas holiday, something I like to splurge on every year since it’s a great opportunity, I noticed that they had (what I think is) a new line of beauty products called City Beauty.  It looked sort of like the Gap’s beauty and toiletries line, with extremely colorful, simply labeled bottles of creams, lotions, scents and lip balms and glosses. 

In other words, your standard run of the mill fare that all the clothing outlets seem to be trying to get a piece of.  I also noticed Victoria’s Secret has dramatically expanded their beauty line the last time I was in there.  Problem is, does this stuff every really sell?  I don’t know anyone who buys it really, and I’ve never heard anyone rave about a primarily clothing related store’s beauty line. 

So I guess my question is, why do these retail outlets keep trying to foray into the beauty market - why not just leave it up to the experts, like Sephora, or Mac, and other superior makeup lines or stores where you can get superior makeup and cosmetic products?  The City Beauty line appears to be just a bath and body offering now, but this is the way that Victoria’s Secret started with their beauty line as well, so I bet if they even get modest interest in it, we’ll soon be seeing an expansion into self tanners, eye makeup, hair care products, lipsticks, lip plumping products and other actual cosmetic products.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining - nor have I tried any of these “retail clothing” lines of beauty products.  I just wonder how saturated the market will be when women are bombarded with choices even when they shop for clothes now.  Genius marketing, or fizzling fad?  I guess time will tell! 

For anyone who uses traditional hair colors for covering gray hair, there are some alternatives to these chemical laden hair products.   One look at a traditional hair coloring label will show you an array of chemicals you can barely pronounce such as ammonium acetate and p-phenylenediamine. 
 

Of course, the smell of traditional hair coloring is ghastly and there’s always concerns of allergies.  One reason that people keep using them is that they work to cover even resistant gray hair.  Use of commercial permanent and non- permanent hair dyes has been linked to certain kinds of cancer.  Among these cancers are multiple myeloma, Hodgkin’s disease and non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  This is the most important reason to consider alternative solutions.   The darker brunette shades pose a higher risk.
 

When shopping for a safe alternative hair coloring product, you will find them at health food stores, natural pharmacies and natural product supermarkets.    One of the chemicals of particular concern for possible carcinogenic risks is the dye, para-pheylenediamine.   So, try to avoid this chemical when reading the label on your hair dye in question.
 

One of the non-toxic, natural hair dyes for use is henna.  Henna is an effective semi permanent hair dye and it has another advantage of being a great conditioner for your hair.  Paul Penders has  henna based products for coloring your gray naturally called Light Mountain Henna.  Along with some great Sedu hair styles, where you use the Sedu hair stylers and products, you can get some truly gorgeous hair. 

Paul Penders also has features hair dye products that use mineral salts for temporary color highlights called Color Me Naturally.  Highlighting hair rinses can be mixed at home and require long-term use to bring results.  Hair rinses that can be made at home are from chamomile, rhubarb, cinnamon, lavender, sage or hibiscus flowers.
 

Another frame of mind for using only safe natural products on your hair is to acceot the appearance of graying hair.  Gray hair does not have to be associated with negative concepts such as a lack of vitality or beauty with aging.  See our other hair product reviews for some great suggestions on having model-like hair for less, and in the privacy of your own home.   

This is not going to sound as serious as the headline indicates about “women suffering for beauty”.  We’re not going to talk about plastic surgery, stomach stapling, or any other sort of very serious lengths to which women (and increasingly men) may go to look fabulous.  Instead, we’re going to talk about those little, at-home, mundane beauty rituals or extreme, uncomfortable measures we will go to just to achieve that latest look. 

One of those rituals is leg shaving.  Yes, it’s become a matter more of hygiene in today’s looks-conscious world, but is shaving your legs really necessary to your health or hygiene?  Um, not really - as a matter of fact, it has just become part of women’s bare bones approach to sex appeal and keeping one’s appearance up, which sucks because shaving legs is one of the most time consuming and boring parts of my routine, and I routinely skip it a lot in the winter, because well, I just hate doing it!

Another thing that comes to mind when I think of my suffering for beauty is a laugh-worthy incident in my cousin’s bathroom when we were growing up.  I had just discovered Sun-In for my hair, and thought it would be so cool if I could get natural highlights by laying out in the sun with this stuff in, since my mom wouldn’t yet let me get my hair colored.  Well, after my cousin and I laid out in the sun with our Sun-In in our hair, we went inside, and thought we should make our eyebrows match our hair. 

So, like a couple of young kids who didn’t know any better, we sprayed the stuff on our eyebrows, not thinking about our eyes, really more just thinking about the beauty aspect, and she and I took turns blowing eachother’s eyebrows dry with a hair dryer, to make them a little lighter.  It was very uncomfortable, and yes - stupid.  But that’s just an example how we learned at a very young age that we would be willing to “suffer” for beauty.

So, we pluck, poke, prod, shave, blow dry, shampoo, condition, put masks on our faces, exfoliate, cleanse, tone, and do God knows what else to our faces to maintain beauty. And it doesn’t end there.  What about self tanning?  God knows the last thing I want to do in the morning is slather my whole body with self tanner, let it dry for a half hour while I’m freezing my butt off, and then stink up the clothes I wear once it activates, and yet I do it every summer! 

And what about cellulite treatment?  I use a special pronged device whenever I can at night to help remove cellulite, and I never feel like doing it, but yet I do as much as I can.  There’s cutting and filing of the nails, painting them, giving ourselves pedicures, coloring our own hair, sometimes cutting our own hair and tons of other things we will do just to be a little more beautiful.  But in the end, isn’t it all worth it? 

Plastic surgery can be a good thing for some people, when it is done in moderation, and when, in my opinion, it’s not a facelift.  I think a facelift is probably the single most disastrous plastic surgery in the history of plastic surgery, no matter who performs it.  I have yet to see a woman, or man for that matter, with a facelift that I think looks good or natural. 

It always ends up somehow distorting the patient’s face and making them look inhuman, and I’m definitely not a proponent of the facelift as it is today.  Maybe if they can come up with ways to make facelifts look more natural, or even make the person still look like themselves, just an improved version, I could stand behind them, but in general they are just a really bad idea. 

The thing about plastic surgery is that it can become addicting, and the person who does it begins to think that nothing they ever get done ever makes them look “perfect”, so they keep getting more and more work done, only to look like a shadow of their former selves, or worse, to end up looking “inhuman”. 

I know that sounds harsh, but how many women can honestly say they think someone like Joan Rivers, who admits to having numerous plastic surgeries looks “good” or beautiful in any way?  Instead, those that are obsessed with plastic surgery and changing every little aspect about their face and body end up looking worse, in almost every scenario, than they did pre-surgery. 

There have been many facelifts and other surgeries that I can think of amongst celebrities that have been nothing short of disastrous, and that list includes people like Melanie Griffith, Michael Jackson, that “Cat Lady” woman whose name escapes me and may be the worst example of plastic surgery gone awry in history, Nicolette Sheridan, Mickey Rourke, and more.  I’m sure the list goes on and on, what with people still being delusional that face lifts can actually make them look better! 

Hey guys, trust me, if you have beaucoup bucks and are looking to get younger skin, go get dermal fillers and botox, but please skip the darn face lifts!  Or you can also manage the health and youthful beauty of your skin by using great antioxidant and firming products like the line of Revitol skin care for wrinkles and anti aging. 

It’s wintertime and, in addition to our skin feeling drier, our lips feel the effect of the cold air and wind by becoming chapped sometimes to the point of cracking.  Many of us apply lip balm frequently during the day to combat this chapping.  I know I am almost addicted to using lip balm in the winter. 
Why are our lips so sensitive to climate change?   The lips are so prone to chapping and drying because the skin is very thin and the oil glands are few for the lips compared to the rest of our body.  Lip plumpers are used to combat this effect, but you want to be careful to use lip balms that are natural ways to plump the lips that use moisturizing agents instead of stinging agents that just irritate the epithelial layer.

One habit that you should avoid is licking the lips.  Licking your lips feels better for the moment but actually dries the lips more.  Lip balm should be applied several times a day or more frequently if needed.  If there’s still no improvement, you can switch to a regular vaseline type of product.  When shopping for a lip balm for winter use, look for one with petrolatum. 
If your lips continue to be chapped and you’re using lip balm already, you could have an allergy causing your chapped lips.   Allergens can be mouthwash, toothpaste, lip balm or liipstick.  If you suspect you have an allergy to any of these products, try not using the product in question for a week or two and see if you note any improvement.
The purpose of a lip balm is to prevent or repair chapped lips. For types of lip balm, you can select one with a petrolatum base, or a type with sunscreen for outdoor activities, or an overnight type with vitamins and aloe vera.
To diminish the amount of chapping and dryness to your lips, make sure you drink lots of water.  Another way to cut down on dryness, not only of the lips but for all of your skin, use a humidifier.
Use of a lipstick can reduce the effects of the cold air, sun and wind.  Be sure to select a moisturizing type of lipstick and apply frequently.  A word of caution about the long lasting lipsticks is they contain a chemical that can actually dry the lips.
Some topical preparations we use for our face can dry the lips such as benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid and Retin A.  If you find that you have stubbornly chapped lips, stop the use of these topical medications and see if it helps.

A new study that has come out which seems a tad dubious but actually has merit, is a set of research that points to the fact that psoriasis sufferers of the most severe type of the skin disease, tend to live shorter lives.  Although the exact reasons for the shorter life span are not clear now, they are recommending that those with chronic psoriasis see their doctor for better preventive maintenance programs for overall health as well as general screenings for things like heart, lung and other organ function. 

The research was carried out on British men, where records for men were examined over a period of several years, and the correlation between severe psoriasis and earlier death was made.  The earlier death was estimated to be almost 4 years earlier death than their male counterparts without severe psoriasis. 

However, women also had the same statistics hold true when their records were put under examination, they also died statistically significant earlier deaths.  Psoriasis is actually an inflammatory disease that affects the joints and the skin, not just the skin as many people (including myself) thought previously.  There are thoughts that people with psoriasis (and perhaps the reason for the disease in the first place), have higher rates of obesity, smoking and unhealthy diets, and that may be the reason why the death rate is also higher, not so much a direct cause and effect. 

Well, ok, it’s not so much a “secret” because Heather Locklear revealed this anti aging beauty secret in an interview I read a while ago, and it’s something that quite a few women are aware of now, and one of the practices I have instituted in my own personal anti aging regimen.  It’s a very simple, and free thing to do.  Some people may not prefer it this way, or like to do it in other ways.  Give up?

It’s the way you sleep at night.  What I mean is, what position you sleep in at night.  Do you sleep on your side, or on your back?  If you sleep on your side, you’re doing it wrong.  Simply sleeping on your side can actually accelerate the wrinkling process, and can make the skin fold in unnatural ways that will make themselves evident in permanent wrinkles if you continue to sleep in the same position. 

Think about it, if you sleep on your side, you’re essentially scrunching your face one on side for 8-10 hours in a 24 hour period, so of course your skin is going to eventually form in that way.  A perfect example of this is when I started to notice that when I was a side and back sleeper, the nights I would sleep on my side, I would wake up with a crease down the side of my face on the side I slept on.  Not only that, but there was a crease between my breasts, from them pressing together.

If I had continued to sleep that way, those creases would have taken longer and longer to go away, and eventually they would become permanent.  Sleeping on your side can not only result in additional random creases on the facial area, but also can make crow’s feet worse. 

Heather Locklear disclosed in an article for a beauty and health magazine (can’t remember which) that one of the biggest beauty secrets her grandmother taught her was to sleep on her back, and that’s part of why she feels she’s remained so youthful looking.  Hey, if sleeping on my back will help me age as gracefully as her, I’m all in!