Archive for the ‘Beauty News’ Category:
Well, this is certainly tragic and very alarming for those of us that color our hair. I just read a story about how a teen woman in Scotland, who according to friends had dyed her hair many colors before, died shortly after applying a hair dye to her hair.
The seventeen year old girl had applied the hair color to her hair about twenty minutes before she started to get violently ill. She began apparently tugging at the hair foils (sounds like it may have been a highlighting hair dye kit) and saying “no, no”.
She got sick, and then her friends had to hold her down. She went limp. The emergency medical services were called and she was rushed to a hospital, but it was too late. She died and could not be saved. It is unclear now whether the hair dye she used was tainted with something or whether she simply had a very violent allergic reaction to chemicals in the hair dye.
Currently, the death is listed as unexplained. I will follow up when I hear more on the outcome of the autopsy, which undoubtedly will be done.
Hair color is a big concern for me. I used so many different hairy dyes when I was younger. I’ve only recently switched to natural hair dyes without all of the toxic chemicals in them in the last two years. Not only is my hair healthier and I’m not breathing in the chemicals for days afterwards, but I don’t get the burning scalp feeling that you get with so many chemical hair colors.
Many, many ingredients in commercial hair dyes have been linked to cancer as well as neurological disorders and other health conditions. It’s just not worth it any more when you can get some great, natural alternatives today that do just as good a job of dying your hair.
It’s the dark hair dyes that have the most worrisome ingredients in them, and those are the ones you want to avoid most – although lighter colors also have harsh ingredients. Listen to your body. Do your lungs and nose burn when you inhale the fumes? Do you feel nauseous when you are around these chemicals?
If so, then your body is telling you these ingredients are toxic. This is a tragic story, absolutely tragic.
The shortage of dermatologists continues to be a problem in many areas of the United States. So, if you’re currently a pre-med student, maybe you have a new incentive to become a dermatologist or skin specialist! You certainly would have your pick of clients right now.
I remember when I was younger (in my teens, yep a while ago), and had my pick of several dermatologists when I started having big issues with acne breakouts. It was easy to call up and get an appointment. Granted, you may have a week’s wait, but you could usually get in fairly quickly.
Now, many patients are on months long waiting list just to get checked up for routine stuff. More concerning is that people with more serious issues such as suspicious spots on their skin that could be cancerous, may be having just as tough a time getting in for a look.
Apparently a lot of people are graduating with their dermatology degree and are moving away from places like the midwest and south in favor of moving to places like California, Oregon and the pacific northwest (which is desirable for a lot of people for a variety of reasons).
Unless you already have an established relationship with your dermatologist, you could find yourself having a hard time getting an appointment as a new patient these days. If you have serious problems, you really may have to look around for a while or call your health insurance company to get some guidance on how to get in somewhere sooner.
You could also see if you can get a phone consultation, or you can go to a primary care doctor to have them take a look at the issue you are having with your skin. They can then refer you to a skin care specialist if needed, but sometimes they can take care of the problem without sending you to anyone.
If it’s acne, remember you can find some of the best acne products at the drugstore.
In a surprising outcome, tests done on liposuction patients – those that were average healthy weight as well as those who were heavier to begin with – actually showed a large drop in their trygliceride readings. This means they had great cholesterol readings.
When your cholesterol is high, you are at a much higher risk for things like stroke and heart attack, so having low cholesterol levels in your blood is really an excellent thing for your health. When we are talking great numbers on patients who had lipo, we are talking HUGE numbers.
We are talking close to fifty percent drops, which is no small potatoes. Ok, so it’s in the low forties, but that is still amazing to me that a procedure that sucks the fat off your body can actually have that large of an impact – especially when liposuction is limited in how much fat it can take off of the human body.
It’s quite amazing, and no doubt will be yet another draw for women and men alike to go get the procedure done. Not only is it beneficial to your appearance, but it also may help your health. Now, there are still the downsides that there always were to this fairly serious cosmetic surgery.
You are put under completely for one. You also have to go through a sometimes painful and long recovery. There are also the risks we talked about a while ago that have to do with the potential for the fat coming back in very odd places.
The fat does redistribute on the body, but many times patients have complained that now they have bigger arms if they got their belly done, or bigger thighs if they got their arms done and so on and so forther. The risks of the surgery itself are not anything to bat an eye at either. There are the inherent risks of anesthesia, which can be serious if one has an adverse side effect. There are also always the risks of infection.
There is an alarming trend that Doctors are warning women (and men) to stay away from. Apparently, Botox is now available in “Do it yourself” kits online, and women are flocking to these kits as a way to have Botox done without paying almost double the price in a professional’s office.
However, there are terrible things that can happen as a result of a non professional adminstering this product, and I’m kind of surprised that the FDA hasn’t stepped in and made this illegal to sell online.
You can scar yourself, temporarily or permanently paralyze unintended areas of the face or body, or even kill yourself if you do it wrong, so it’s important that a professional administer these types of treatments. After all, it is a botulism bacteria that you are injecting, and it is deadly if it reaches the wrong areas of the body.
Botox is only meant to go just beneath the surface of the skin – it is not meant to penetrate any further past that. People who are not experienced may go too far in the muscle, or may inject it in to the wrong area. Also, they may end up getting things like a droopy eye or mouth because they put the needle in too deep.
Of course, the kit comes with a do it yourself video to watch, but is a couple minutes watching a video really any substitute for years of experience. Heck, even Doctors and professionals with experience can screw up the procedure, as has been evidenced by complaints from some clients and notorious horror stories.
I’m all for doing anything you can at home that is safe, but injecting yourself with a needle of Botox seems a bit extreme. I like doing my own facial peels, microdermabrasion and other self administered treatments at home, but none involve a needle and a highly dangerous strain of bacteria that when used wrong can have devastating consequences.
If you want Botox, I’d advise you to stick with the original plan and go to a doctor. Then you are in capable, experienced hands.
So I took a chance and tried out the new Revlon Mascara Grow Luscious mascara. I am still bummed that the L’Oreal Lash Out has been discontinued at so many stores, but I figure if I don’t branch out more, I may never find a comparable mascara to my beloved Lash Out.
So, when I was at Target the other day searching for something totally unrelated to mascara, I saw that they were having a promotion on the new Revlon Grow Luscious mascara for $5.99, and I decided to give it a whirl. If it sucked and I hated it, I could just swallow the six bucks, so no biggie.
Revlon Grow Luscious comes in a foil like tube with blue colors on it, so it’s definitely eye catching – good job on attention grabbing packaging Revlon! It’s a thicker tube that I’m use to, but that’s fine because I’m more concerned about the type of wand it uses for application and the mascara formula itself, since those are the two components that determine how it’s going to plump and separate the lashes, as well as lengthen them.
I like a mascara that easily lengthens my outer lashes, and plumps the inner lashes, because this is how you get the effect of bigger eyes going. When I first applied it, my heart sank a little (ok, that may be a little dramatic for simply mascara, let’s just say I was a little disappointed) when I first dipped the brush in.
The brush wasn’t as fine as I like it, so I thought it may not separate as well, but it did a fine job of separating the lashes as it applied the mascara. The formula of the mascara is good as well, but it seems to take quite a few dips to get enough on the application wand to get some juicy thickness going.
As with most other mascaras, this one took a few coats to get the desired effect for me. But I liked the outcome. It’s not thick or clumpy, so it does apply well.
Now, does it apply as well as my treasured L’Oreal Lash Out? Heck no! But it’s a close second, and I guess that has to be good enough for now. L’Oreal, come out with another kick butt mascara again!
When you really feel like pampering yourself and doing a whole body makeover feeling, nothing beats a good manicure and pedicure. As with anything else, you, as the consumer, need to look for certain standards in the nail salon of your choice.
Certain types of implements are not permitted for use on your feet. The disallowed implements for use are razors and cheese graters. The reason they are not permitted is that these are considered invasive because they can spread germs by drawing blood from the consumers.
For buffing or exfoliating the heels, the only legal implements for use are pumice stones or buffing files. They are only to be used on one customer. After use, they have to be discarded as they can not be sterilized.
The concern about these instruments and the cleanliness required is because you could get a fungal infection or, worse yet, a more serious contagious disease, or a bacterial or viral infection. The sanitary requirement for the pedicure bowls and filtration screen is to be cleaned every day with a disinfecting solution and the bowl, itself, must be cleaned between each customer.
As a consumer, you should see clean towels rolled up and stored in a closed container, covered trash cans and instruments for use on customers stored in a disinfectant solution. The overall look of the salon should be perfectly clean.
The solution to clean the instruments must be used according to the manufacturer’s directions and not diluted. After use, the instruments need to be cleaned first with warm soapy water and then immersed in disinfectant solution. The container used for the instruments and the disinfectant solution must be covered with a lid.
If a customer does get a minor cut, the cleanup items have to be double- bagged or put in a biohazard container. The salon is required to have rubbing alcohol to clean and treat minor cuts.
Another standard for nail salons concerns the use of styptics.
The styptics used to stop bleeding must be a powder or liquid form. The nail salons are not permitted to use a styptic pencil that can be used by more than one person.
The requirement for the towels used in a nail salon is laundering in a washing machine with detergent and bleach. For storage, they must be in a closed cabinet or container.
There are certain “red flags” that would indicate a nail salon is not a safe one to go to.
You should just leave a nail salon if you see dirty nail buffers or other tools or if they are soaking in dirty solution or containers. If a nail salon uses products from unmarked containers, don’t get your nails done there.
Other signs to just leave are nail techs that stick their fingers directly into a container, can’t explain how they clean their instruments or salons that don’t keep a log book for cleanliness. It’s up to you to be on the lookout so you can find an impeccably clean and certified nail salon. This way, you can truly enjoy your experience and not worry about the risk of infection.
I had an interesting conversation with a family member of mine yesterday over lunch. They said they were talking to yet another family member who said they had struggled with what so many other men and women struggle with their wholes lives – dark undereye circles, or bags.
This problem comes either two fold with having the darkness under the eyes and the bagginess, or puffiness, or just constantly having dark eye circles. Often times, they can look tired even if they’re not, and it can be a really cumbersome thing to deal with in your beauty routine. It can also be a really tough thing to get rid of.
You can try a lot of different products for dark undereye circles, and they just never go away, because the problem is usually under the surface of the skin and can’t be addressed by merely topical products, but rather a combination of dietary, habits, and product application.
This family member apparently had tried all types of creams and other remedies for the dark eye circles she had struggled with for so long, and then she found a solution to her problem. It was dietary for her actually. She found that after she gave up Splenda artificial sweetener, and switched over to the more natural alternative sweetener (which I happen to use and love) Stevia.
Stevia is a natural plant based sweetener. It is an alternative to sugar that is not chemical based and has been a favorite of natural foods stores for a while before hitting the mainstream and becoming popular with dieters and health conscious people.
She said that when she changed from artificial sweetener to stevia, her dark undereye circles cleared up. So basically she cleared them up without cosmetic intervention – it was all dietary.
The interesting thing is that I couldn’t find any documented correlation between stopping usage of artificial sweeteners of any kind and clearing up of dark circles. I did find that excess sugar may lead to bags and worsen circles, but this really wasn’t the correlation I was looking for.
If anyone has any further knowledge, or stories about how they cleared up their own undereye circles, let us know and leave a comment here!
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Filed under Beauty News
Tags:artificial, bags, circle, circles, dark, diet, eye, eyes, related, splenda, substitutes, sugar, sweetener, under
I’ve seen a lot of throwback photos recently of young starlets in heavy black, winged eye makeup, a throwback to the fifties and sixties mod look that used to adorn the likes of Twiggy (the skinny supermodel), Goldie Hawn, Bridget Bardot and Barbara Streisand.
The “cat eyes” look was all the rage back then, and still is used in throwback photo shoots today to sex-kitten up the women and make them look like the epitome of the femme fatale character.
I’m starting to see more of this type of makeup, and I think that the deep blues, pinks and purples of the fifties and sixties are making quite the comeback. I couldn’t be more pleased, since these are the colors that most complement my features!
They are actually quite universal in their complementary nature though. Blues, purples and the cooler colors on the eye makeup spectrum. It’s the warmer colors that you have to be careful for, because the warmer browns, bronzes, yellows and golds only really look good on people with a warmer, darker skin tone.
There are a lot of smoke-eye kits out there right now that help you achieve the fifties and sixties mod cat eye look. It’s almost one in the same, the smoke look and the cat eye mod look, because a lot of the same cooler tones are used.
The most recent photo spread I saw that threw back to this time period and look was the W magazine Kristen Stewart spread. She wears the big, gorgeous hair with lots of body and texture, and bold, deep dark eye makeup. Very different for her, and it brought out her beautiful eyes really well.
The only thing that isn’t making a comeback yet, since it already did in the eighties, is the light pink shimmery lipstick. That was all the rage in the eighties, with bright pastels being in for the eyes. Now, the nudes and reds are really in for the lips. I wish that I had fuller lips so I could wear reds without it drawing attention to my thin lips 
Just because you have lips that are on the thinner side, doens’t mean you can’t wear some version of red. You just should go with a more muted tone, with a little bit of a purple shade to it. Purples help to make the lips look larger and more well shaped – at least that’s what I’ve found for my lips.
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Filed under Beauty News
Tags:blue, cat eyes, colors, cool, eye makeup, eyehshadow, eyeliner, ffities, heavy, kristen stewart, liner, mod, purple, sixties, smoke
Whether your hair is short or long, there’s nothing more fun than purchasing a new hair accessory to give you a boost. Throughout history, women have been adorning their hair with a wide variety of clips, barrettes, headbands and ribbons.
So, it’s no wonder that the latest craze in fashion hair accessories is in a most unlikely, yet original, area. The latest fashion trend in hair accessories for women is fly -tie feathers that are usually used for fishing lures.
Fly shop owners and managers have been caught off-guard with the sudden high demand from hair stylists looking for fly-tie feathers. It’s an unexpected challenge to try to keep up with the unprecedented increased need for these suddenly fashionable items.
The fad was started by vocalist, Steven Tyler, of Aerosmith, who began wearing the fly-tie feathers in his long locks. So, this fad can be for men or women.
The fishing lures so suddenly stylish are called hackles and they are long skinny rooster feathers. And, as business and economic facts go, when the demand is high and the supply is low, the price goes up.
The feathers are being sold online and getting much higher prices than usual. The feathers are not that easy to come by is the first place since they come from roosters that are specially bred for their unique plumage.
When the feathers are used in hair extensions, they can be either brushed, blown dry or curled. In beauty salons, the feather strands are usually sold for about $5.00 or $10.00 per piece and that is subject to change as the supply lessens.
As to how most fly fishing stores are handling this latest fashion craze, they are favoring their regular customers and some managers are not selling them for hairstyling uses. The wholesale suppliers to these stores are favoring their regular customers too. Their philosophy is looking at the long-run of their businesses.
As with any fashion fad, the demand will die down and the suppliers and shops will have to rely on the true anglers and fishermen to keep them in business. This trend has caused some husbands and boyfriends to be possessive of their fishing lure stock telling their wives and girlfriends to stay out of it.
It may be a difficult time for women to buy fishing lures as shop owners may assume they are buying them for hairstyling uses and not want to sell them the feathers. The cost increase really is remarkable with a typical package of rooster feathers that used to be about $60.00 now selling for anywhere from $200.00 to $400.00.
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Filed under Beauty News, Hair Care
Tags:accessory, bird, clips, fad, feathers, fishing lures, hair, hair accessory, hairstyle, roosterr, steven tyler, stylists
One huge beauty trend that you have probably noticed becoming larger than life over the past few years are eyelash growth accelerators. These eyelash enhancing products propose to enhance the thickness and length of your lashes – something often coveted by women since it can really enhance the eyes and make them pop.
They can come in a variety of ways as well. Some are a gel that you simply put along the lash line, and some are just like mascara, using a wand to apply the serum or gel to the eyelashes directly. The one that you need a prescription for, Latisse, is one that is applied along the lash line.
Other eyelash growth accelerators also claim to help darken the lashes, reducing the need for so much mascara. For me, I actually have decently long lashes, but they are not very dark, especially as I age, so I really need that hint of black in my mascara to really make them stand out from my eyes.
Beautiful, long eyelashes can really enhance your overall appearance. They can bring out your eyes, and they are a great finisher to your completed look along with eyeshadow and eyeliner. Mascara further brings them out, but if you don’t have a lot of lashes, or not very long lashes to start with, then you won’t be able to make them really stand out.
It’s funny, we used to buy up false eyelashes to make this happen, but now you can actually help your own natural eyelashes to grow out into what you want them to be, without worryign about your falsies falling off, or looking too fake. Although I will say, falsies can really create a great illusion if you have the patience to apply them.
You really have to know what you’re doing though. The majority of the models that are shown in magazines and on television need to have falsies applied just so that their eyes will stand out enough in the picture and not disappear into the rest of their face.
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Filed under Beauty News
Tags:darker, eyelash, falsies, grow, growth accelerators, latisse, longer, mascara, popular, serums, thicker
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