My Beauty Space

While the situation with this economy is probably the most dire most of us will see in our lifetimes, we will come back from this, but it is going to take a lot of time.  While we will come back from it, this economy leaves many people seeking reasonable alternatives to expensive cosmetic procedures. 

This economy does mean for many of us that we need to make cutbacks on things that are not a necessity or things that could be put off without too much hassle of inconvenience.  One of the items that falls in the “not a necessity” category is, you guessed it, one of the burgeoning markets over the past ten years, plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures. 

According to most plastic surgeons, the past month or two have brought dramatic decreases in their business, especially when it comes to the more expensive procedures that range in the thousands of dollars category, such as breast augmentations and liposuction, both of which are costly because of the anesthesia and actual complicated surgery that is involved. 

Conversely, other specialists that mostly do less expensive procedures such as facial fillers, Botox, and other more temporary, but less invasive procedures that do not involve surgery and thousands of dollars, may have actually seen a slight boost in their sales.  In other words, lots of patients who may have otherwise been planning to get a facelift, mini facelift, or some other anti wrinkle facial procedure requiring surgery may have opted instead for the less expensive, less invasive procedure to save money for the time being.

The quest for other alternatives that may be less expensive to these common and very popular surgeries has led many women to look for alternatives to breast implants, face lifts, tummy tucks, liposuction and the like.  However, even those areas of opportunity or women and men have seen dips with the faltering economy. 

They’re finding that there are some great nonsurgical ways to look and feel fantastic and to improve their bodies as well as their self esteem, which is a great thing since surgery isn’t for everybody and doesn’t necessarily always accomplish what they patient wants.

Facelifts may be the way to go for some, but often times they do not have the desired outcome and look unnatural.  I’ve seen a few women in the public eye who have gotten them and looked good, like Madonna and maybe Janice Dickinson would fit in that category, but for the most part facelifts just make the person look like they got a facelift. 

There’s no need for that any more with the abundance of cosmetic dermal fillers like juvederm and restylane, not to mention a bevy of at home products that can be used to blast away wrinkles and the fine lines and spots that go with aging. Such products for anti aging and wrinkles I’m referring to are the at home soft light lasers, microdermabrasion systems, chemical peels that are available in the same strength as a dermatologist office (just use caution), and other home treatments that provide a world of difference when it comes to looking younger. 

There are also ways to enhance the breasts without surgery, such as natural breast enhancement products, vacuum devices that stimulate growth, and a variety of creams and lotions, heck, even hypnosis for breast enhancement, that have worked for women seeking to enhance this part of their body. 

When it comes to cellulite, areas where spot reduction is needed, and body contouring, there are a ton of body wraps that can be used at home, cellulite treatments that work with massage to contour fatty areas, and even special shorts one can wear that reduce specific areas of the body through compression.

So you see, if you are one of the people who has put off that plastic surgery or that “dream procedure” you’ve been hoping for all these years, take heart that you can improve your appearance without surgery, and for a lot less money.  

I like the better results I get when I roughly massage my cellulite afflicted areas of my body, the thighs being the worst on me personally, however, I’m also fairly prone to easy bruising and that can be a problem when you are massaging very hard to help smooth out the bumps that cellulite produces in this area.

We recently went on a trip to an all day amusement park affair, and I forgot my self tanner, which I really needed because I would be wearing shorts or cut off pants (capris), and my legs were as white as a ghost.  So, we stopped at the local store and I ended up picking out a gradual self tanner after much debate, since they didn’t really have many full-on self tanners there, so I really had to choose from one of the ones that are displayed year-round since we are coming up on fall here in Ohio, which narrowed it down to the slew of gradual self tanners that have come out from the makers of moisturizers.

I ended up deciding on a Nivea product, because I do like the Nivea line of moisturizers, and thought that since I know they have a high quality moisturizing line and even some decent cellulite treatment products, how could I really go wrong with their gradual self tanner?  So I settled on one called Sun-Kissed Firming Moisturizer, which is both a firming agent as well as a touch of self tanner in it, for a gradually worked on glow.  I bought the self tanner that was made for those with “medium to dark skin”, although I am fair skinned, since I wanted quicker, darker results that would be overnight almost or maybe two nights since I didn’t have much time for my self tan to develop.

The Nivea tanner comes in an 8.4 oz container, and runs about six bucks which isn’t half bad at all cost wise.  The consistency of the product is very watery in my opinion, so if you try it, you’re gonna want to make sure you don’t squeeze too hard or too much product will come out and you’ll have to distribute it over more surface area than you thought to get it to sink in without wasting it. 

There is a faint smell of DHA to it (the chemical that causes the darkening of the skin in self tanners), but nothing too offensive.  It rubs in right away, so you have to be careful not to over do it in some areas since it absorbs very quickly.  I found that I over did it on my feet, which I had already applied moisturizer to as a prevention measure against it getting too dark down there sincce the drier areas do tend to darken more easily, but I still got a darkening there that didn’t quite look right. 

As far as the smell when you are wearing it, it’s not too bad once the DHA activates, although you can smell a faint smell again when it activates.  The Ginkgo extract is a nice touch for a shimmery and firming quality added to the cream, and you won’t find me complaining about any product that adds firmness while also creating a nice self tan. 

The color was to be expected, pretty much the same as any self tanner, only much lighter since the DHA concentration wasn’t too heavy.  Overall, this isn’t a bad choice for a gradual self tanner, just don’t expect a huge change in color - it does still take time, even if you buy a shade darker than your natural skin tone, which is what I did. 

It’s something that some American advocates are jealous of and want to happen over here in America, but it may not because of the lobbying going on, or at the very least may take longer for anything as radical as this to happen over here, but in Australia, the government arm that controls tanning and beauty salons is reportedly forcing tanning salons to post skin cancer warnings after lobbyists have complained that the indoor tanning industry does not post warnings against skin cancer.

The indoor tanning industry over here in the US has long denied that frequent indoor tanning has any effect on the likelihood you will get skin cancer in it’s most deadly form which is the melanoma form of skin cancer, but the statistics have shown that skin cancer has increased almost 50% amongst the age group of women who also happens to be the demographic that goes to tanning salons the most.  It’s a young age to be diagnosed with such a serious skin cancer, and many researchers point to the popularity of indoor tanning as the primary culprit.

While I agree that frequent indoor tanning definitely damages the skin cell’s DNA and leads the way to melanoma cancer, I also think that avoiding the sun all together can be dangerous as well, since the sun is our primary source of producing vitamin D on our own (and the best, most cancer-protective form of vitamin D can only be made by our bodies via sun exposure and vitamin synthesis from that). 

I think that as long as you wear sunscreen during long exposures to the sun and take into consideration your concentration of melanin for the amount of sun you do get, you should be fine, but little jaunts into the sun without covering up head to toe can actually be more beneficial in the end as far as creating this protective vitamin that trying to avoid sun exposure all together.  This is all just coming to light in a body of research about vitamin D’s protective and preventive qualities when it comes to cancer because it was found that vitamin D lacking patients who had cancer had less chance of surviving the cancer than those who had enough vitamin D. 

Do I think Australia’s warnings are a good thing?  Absolutely!  It’s the real sun that is most therapeutic to us anyways, so the indoor tanning salons really are harmful because of the way people tend to use and abuse them and go way too often to form a deep tan, which is very damaging to the skin and can definitely lead to skin cancer in the end.  There’s always your best buddy if you really want that deep tan, self tanners nowadays are my favorite fashion accessory because the create that deep tan without all the damage to your skin. 

Body wraps were made popular as a way to temporarily spot reduce fat and to help trim size off the circumference of typical body omplaints on women and men - their bellies, thighs, buttocks, and upper arms, and evolved into somewhat of a regular treatment for many who swear by it’s detoxification abilities and their great affinity for spot reducing size as well as the appearance of that thing we all hate, cellulite.

Body wraps started off as a pampering beauty treatment for those that could afford things beyond the expensive haircut and coloring on occasion, since they usually went for anywhere from fifty to one hundred dollars per appointment.  Add that up and you have quite a costly beauty habit!  For information on a product you can buy that you can make your own home made body wrap with by buying ace bandages and performing the wrapping yourself, see our Revitol cellulite treatment review.

Now, thanks to the innovation of a few companies offering at home body wrap treatments, we can do a body wrap on ourselves, in our own home, on our own time and in privacy and comfort.  There are a few excellent kits being sold mostly online now that can really give you that smooth, toned, smaller look on your problem areas just like the in-salon treatments can do.

Body wraps done at home are a simple way to help trim a few inches off over a few days or weeks with repeated use if you are anticipating a big life event, say you’re in a wedding, going on a big date, or you have a high school reunion to attend, these are the times that many people seek out body wraps so they can spot reduce their trouble areas without actually dieting or killing themselves exercising to do it.

Home body wrap systems often work by the user applying some sort of herbal botanical concoction to the area they want to treat first.  These special herbal mixtures may contain any combination of tightening and toning ingredients such as seaweed, caffeine and other ingredients that tend to help reduce water retention and encourage the smoothing out of the skin.

These kits then supply you with some sort of a wrapping devices, such as thin strips of wrap material that look similar to an ace bandage, which you then use to tightly wrap the area you are treating after you have applied the (usually herbal) formula.

These techniques provide size reduction and cellulite smoothing as well and tone improvement in the affected areas by using compression as well as the ingredients in the topical cream or serum to really force the fat cells to compress together, creating a smoother, leaner look, and often even temporarily reducing the size by “training” the tissue to stay smaller and tighter for a period of time as well as smoothing out the appearance of cellulite.

Often times once you can achieve the desired outcome after doing several treatments, you only have to do upkeep treatments after that to maintain the look you want.  Note that body wraps both at home and at a salon are not designed for actual weight loss, they only make the body parts they are applied to appear smaller, but they usually do not cause the individual to lose weight, only size.  Any weight loss should be viewed as a bonus.

Cellulite reduction products such as creams, serums, gels and liquids, heck, even some offer pills that claim to help with the reduction of the appearance of the stubborn spongy stuff, have quite a few ingredients in common usually.  There’s a reason for that, and that is these ingredients have been demonstrated to have somewhat of an effect on the appearance of cellulite in the people that use it.  Albeit it is usually a temporary reduction, but it nonetheless does seem to disappear from view at least reasonably for hours after application.

But are their ingredients that really help to tone and tighten, that you should look for when choosing the best cellulite treatment you can find, and do these products really make a difference?  My belief is that they do, as a cellulite cream user myself, since I can definitely see a difference in the pitting and spongy look in my buttocks and thighs when I’m using the cream regularly vs. not using it.

First off, your cellulite cream should definitely have some source of caffeine in it. Where the caffeine is derived from it shouldn’t matter, but caffeine is one of the best surface toners out there, and models have been using the coffee grounds to reduce cellulite for a long time, however that’s messy and time consuming, so utilizing caffeine in a cream is best for those of us who don’t have time to mess with using used coffee grounds on our trouble areas in the shower every morning. 

Many types of algae have been shown to have skin tightening properties, as well as helping to alleviate surface water from the skin, which just pushes the bulges out further, making the cellulite appear worse than it is and exacerbating the problem areas.  Natural algae is not only great for cellulite, but also is therapeutic for the skin as well, so you get a two for one here.

Retinol and retinoids are excellent as well, as they are a derivative of Vitamin A, and they have great therapeutic properties for toning the skin and helping promote elasticity, something that is hindered by cellulite, hence the puckered look instead of a smooth look.  Retinol is not only a great cellulite fighter, but is also excellent for the skin and is used in several top notch skin care products for anti aging because of it’s promotion of skin elasticity. 

What I say when I mean a good self tanner plus natural sun means you get a gorgeous deep tan, is of course not that you fry yourself out in the sun, and take precautions, especially when it comes to sunscreen on your susceptible body parts that burn easily especially the face, but that with a little natural sunlight after applying a self tanner, you do get a very nice result because the self tanner effect is intensified over and over again when it is exposed to sunlight.

This is for a few reasons.  First, because the natural radiant heat that is emitted from the sun helps to “bake” the self tanner in further and help it penetrate the skin’s layers, making for a potentially longer, more lasting tan, and also making for a more beautiful, deeper color that you can say really came from some natural exposure (but not too much). 

Second, self tanner’s main ingredient is made to interact with oxygen, and when it is exposed to oxygen there is a small chemical reaction between it and your skin, which produces the browning of the top layers of the skin, which produces the self tan that helps make you look gorgeously summery while maintaining the integrity of your skin and helping to prevent wrinkles and skin cancer. 

The less covered you have your body, say if you have a pair of shorts and tank top on, this means the more oxygen your body is exposed to, and the better the self tanner develops, and the quicker it develops, into a brown tan that you can be happy with.  Any time I’ve ever applied self tanner and then gone out in the sun, I’m amazed at how quickly and effortlessly the sunless tan develops, whereas it may take a lot longer to develop if I am fully clothed and indoors. 

A little sunlight is good for you, it helps you produce Vitamin D, it’s just those that overexpose themselves to UV rays that find it backfires on them and they may develop skin cancers and premature wrinkling since sun exposure does produce Vitamin D in the body, but it also can produce free radicals which help destroy healthy skin cells. 

It’s called a “Local Secret” lotion in Maui, Hawaii, where the product is manufactured, and after using it I can sort of agree, but I did notice one drawback of the Maui Babe Browning Lotion, but it wasn’t really all that important since I did feel it worked.  The lotion has become somewhat of a hit with the tanning crowd, because it is supposed to give you a dark tan that is faster and even may help curb burning, although it does not contain any sunscreen, supposedly perhaps because it is such a dark lotion to begin with that may serve as somewhat of a screen against UV rays, but that’s really just my uneducated guess.

Maui Babe, contrary to what I said in my last post, is not in as small a bottle as I thought.  I thought the bottle size was a bit too small from pictures and just visualization before I got my bottles in the mail which I ordered from Amazon.com, but when I got them I thought they were well worth the ten dollar price tag, and after I used the product it furthered confirmed the value becasue a little bit of this super rich and thick lotion does go quite a long ways. 

The Maui Babe Browning lotion does have tons of emollients in it, and because it does, it helps to draw the sun to you a bit more, but it also gives a nice brown instant color because of the potassium iodide, which is also presumably what helps your skin tan a little faster.  I remember the old trick of putting iodine in baby oil when I was young and dumb and just fried my skin to get a tan, so it doesn’t surprise me that potassuim iodide is in this stuff, it’s probably what lends a lot of the dark color to it. 

Some of the other ingredients in the product that are great for the skin are a light mineral oil (less comedogenic than heavy mineral oil, which isn’t recommended because it clogs pores more readily), Kukui Nut oil, vitamins E, C and A, Kona coffee plant extract, aloe and potassium iodide. 

Some of those ingredients are antioxidant powerhouses, so it’s really got some great stuff in it.  My only complaint is that the product does seem a bit heavy and almost sticky, so you do want to be careful not to load up too much when you apply it, because you will feel sticky and gooey for a while, but I think that’s why it lends itself to being water resistant also, because it does stick to the skin very well.  One of the best parts about it is that it gives that instant color like tinted self tanners do, so it’s ideal to put on while you’re in a bathing suit so you can get a little extra brownness going on that looks good instantly. 

A while ago my sister showed me this stuff she bought called Maui Babe.  It was in a pretty small bottle, actually a bit too small for the price, which was about ten bucks, and it was a rich, deep brown color.  She told me the stuff was great, it was a bronzing lotion that helped you attain a deeper tan with less burning (but with no sunscreen), and gave a richer, deeper brown color than normal tanning lotion, with a very pleasant scent and tons of emollients. 

Well, I forgot about that stuff, until I was searching for unrelated stuff on Amazon’s beauty section (which by the way I’m addicted to in case you couldn’t tell), and this Maui Babe stuff popped up because Amazon likes to show other items to people they think might like them based on their past shopping history with them, and I’m assuming since I’m the queen of self tanner shopping, and especially on Amazon since they have good deals on that stuff, that’s why it showed me this stuff.

Well, it got rave reviews from the people who posted about it pretty much, so I ordered a multipack, figuring since I was paying for shipping anyways I might as well order in bulk.  See, that’s how they get you to buy more, but I fall for it like a sucker every time   I’ll have a review coming on it as soon as I receive my shipment, which should definitely be coming this week.  I plan on wearing it out in the sun then next time I’m out doing gardening or lawn work, so I’ll let you know if it gives me a nice glow or if it’s a bust! 

Well, for those of you that loathe that spongy, loose looking flesh that tends to accumulate so much on women in the same “problem” areas such as the hips, thighs and buttocks, and occasionally even the belly and lower legs (calf area), there may be some very exciting news in cellulite reduction.  But brace yourselves, because it’s probably the most expensive cellulite treatment to date. 

At a rate of about $4,000.00, you may have access to getting cellulite reduction that actually lasts, and also where results can be seen after just one session.  Normally, cellulite treatments take several sessions to gain results, and then take monthly or biweekly treatments just to keep those results going, but this Thermage cellulite reduction treatment may be a little better than what’s currently out there when it comes to permanent results and quick ones too.  It’s called the Thermage Therma Tip CL cellulite tool, and it’s bound to cause a buzz in the beauty and spa industry as soon as women see results after the very first visit, if it works as they company says it does.

Thermage is a system that has been used for a while now, and is usually used on the face as a means of anti aging and wrinkle control.  It is a series of radio frequency waves and heat that are transmitted through the skin via a professional hand held device, and it supposedly can penetrate layers of skin more effectively than even the best layers currently can do. 

This is why they are saying it is so effective at breaking up fat and helping rebuild collagen while improving the circulation and promoting blood flow to help break it up more, and why it is great for breaking up cellulite problem areas, and very quickly.  The cost though is very high, and that is definitely a consideration and something that is casting it into the only-the-rich-can-afford stratosphere of beauty and personal care, so it may be very limiting, but often times when something is first introduced it’s astronomically prices and then comes down shortly thereafter. 

Unfortunately, this is so new that I have not read any reviews or user experiences with the treatment yet, but I do know that many users complained about Thermage that had it done on their face, that it was extremely painful.  This may be different though, since it is not being performed on such a sensitive area, and it may also produce a different set of feelings because traditionally where there’s cellulite, there aren’t many nerve endings of blood flow, which is why it bruises so easily, but which also may be why the pain could be totally tolerable in this area.