Skin Care and Protection

Skin care and protection of skin should be an essential part of your health for fitness & beauty regime. If you take care of your skin, your skin will take care of you! If you're stuck in a skin care rut, or if you are just looking to learn a bit more about the basics of skin care, read on to learn more about this important step in your daily activities.

Some Opinions for Skin Care:

The first step to taking care of your skin is preventing damage. Sun, wind, pollutants, and simply aging can degrade the condition of your skin. Common complaints include dry and itchy skin, wrinkles, sagging, color changes, and age spots. There are steps that you can take to keep you skin looking and feeling its best.

Exercise, rest, and good nutrition lay the foundation for beautiful, healthy skin, inside and out. A proper diet is not only good for your overall health, it also helps to ensure that your skin will receive all of the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that it needs to maintain and repair cells. Drinking purified water is another good way to keep your skin healthy. Water helps to hydrate the skin and move waste and nutrients through the system. It is very effective mixing a teaspoon or capful of Organic Apple Cider Vinegar in with your water. Do not drink Tap Water.

The most important way to care for your skin is to protect it from the damaging rays of the sun. Ultraviolet radiation damages the skin and can lead to wrinkles, premature aging, age spots, and cancer. Take extra precautions to make sure your skin is not exposed to the sun?s rays.

Dry skin is very common, especially with age. Older skin has fewer sweat and oil glands than younger skin. Dry skin may be caused by frequent baths, certain cosmetics or medications. But whatever the cause, there are ways to alleviate the itchiness associated with it.

3 Tips for Skin Care:

A skin care routine does not have to be elaborate in order to be effective. But you should develop some kind of skin care routine based on your skin type, daily activities, and nutritional needs so that you can be sure you are taking the very best care of your skin. Following a daily skin care regime will also allow you to more closely evaluate your skin for abnormalities. Here's a simple routine that you can adapt to fit your needs:

1. Cleanse: Wash your skin thoroughly on a daily basis to remove the dirt, debris, pollutants, and perspiration that accumulates on a daily basis. If you have dry or sensitive skin, use only warm water to wash your skin and use a mild natural cleanser every few days like the product Oxy-Skin. If you have normal or oily skin, be sure to wash with a gentle cleanser on a daily basis. Be sure to brush your teeth before washing your face, as toothpaste residue can irritate sensitive facial skin.

2. Moisturize: Unless your skin is very oily, you will want to use a moisturizer everyday to keep your skin hydrated and healthy. Your skin needs moisturizer all year long as both the indoor winter heat, and summer sun can be equally damaging to your skin. The most advanced product is ?Parfait Visage? which is used for the face.

3. Protect: Use a natural sunscreen when possible, regardless of whether or not you plan on spending much time in the sun. The sun's rays are very damaging and if you get in the habit of applying sunscreen everyday, you will never be left without protection. The suns most beneficial rays occur at sunrise and sunset.

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The 5 Most Common Makeup Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them)

Orange face, white neck. Brown neck, pink face. We all know someone with no perception of how her make-up really looks on her own face. She?s sweet, really sweet. But she?s a joke in your circle of friends. Oh, no. It isn?t you, is it?

Well, even if you don?t wear ?clown makeup,? chances are you're making some mistakes with your makeup. Take stock to be sure that you don't fall into any of the makeup traps below.

Mismatched Foundation

Your foundation should not be a different color from the rest of your body. Really, it shouldn?t. This is an easy problem to fix. March yourself down to the make-up counter at your favorite department store and let the salesperson do her job. It?s her job, after all. Don?t be intimidated, you don?t need to buy the whole product line.

Blue Eye shadow

Blue eye shadow works for some people. Little girls in dance recitals. Guests at 1970s-themed parties. Ethereal looking supermodels. If you aren't one of the aforementioned people then don?t wear it. Enough said.

Dark Circles Under Eyes/Obvious Under Eye Concealer

This is a chicken or egg problem. You?re right, the circles aren?t great. But neither are orange crescents under your eyes. Play around with a few shades of concealer to see what really works best for you.

Different products work differently on different people. Just because one brand works for your friend, doesn?t mean it?ll be flattering on you. Make sure you?re getting enough sleep and talk to your doctor. Sometimes those circles are a sign of allergies or a vitamin deficiency.

Obvious Lip liner

This is a look. It?s just not a flattering one. Lip liner is intended to add dimension to thin or small lips, to lengthen the wear of your lip color and to prevent your lipstick from ?bleeding? onto your face. It is not intended to create a visible outline.

Inferior products in your dressing area

Most of us are not starlets with dressing rooms and make-up artists at our disposal. But that doesn?t mean we don?t deserve to look like starlets with dressing rooms and make-up artists. Invest in good lighting around your vanity. Stock it with quality make-up brushes and limit your make-up collection to products you'll actually use. That way, your budget can be used to buy better cosmetics.

You?re worth it

Add a couple of extra minutes, a wee bit more effort and a little money into your daily makeup routine. It?s not vain to spend a few dollars on or a few minutes at your vanity. Put on your prettiest smile, bat your beautiful lashes and show the world that you like who you are.

Put your best face forward... you don't have to hide behind crow's feet and lip lines...

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Allison Saunders is a MAC qualified Make-up Artist and the author of an amazing new course, Hollywood Makeup Secrets a step-by-step simple video system for maximizing your inner and outer beauty potential. You can learn more about Allison, and subscribe to her free newsletter by visiting:

http://www.hollywoodmakeupsecrets.com/dt/s.php?id=9

(c)2005 HollywoodMakeupSecrets.com. All rights reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------

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Real Beauty Fitness

Fitness and beauty can be one and the same. Being fit and healthy will automatically make you look better. A healthy inside creates a healthy outside.

Fitness through exercise can help you to maintain a healthy body weight and improve muscle tone.

Our looks reflect the sum total of who we are and how we live, and the best we can do in life is to make the best of what nature has given is, without excuse, apology, or pretense. If we try to live otherwise, we find ourselves acting on a stage with other actors and actresses--great pretenders without real friends, without real lovers, without real relationships.

While we realize that there is such a thing as natural beauty, which is beyond all standards of culture and history in some sense, there are also relative standards of beauty.

We all know about fads, styles, and adornments that are in one season and out the next. This includes cosmetics, hair styles, clothing, and even body weight and size.

These standards may vary from country to country, year to year, or even among different age groups in the same country and year.

For example, full figures are considered the ideal in some historical periods, but slender figures are valued now--at least in Western countries.

The point is that cultural standards change--and we may choose to follow or ignore them--because the cultivation of natural beauty is not dependent upon fads.

In order to get along harmoniously, whether at the level of dating, courtship, or marriage, men and women have to get past physical looks and into the more important qualities that make up human relationships, such as kindness, friendship, and areas of mutual interest.

There is such a thing as a beautiful personality. There can be beauty in the way a person thinks. An attitude or smile can be beautiful. Love is certainly beautiful, and all of life is beautiful when we are in love.

A person is truly beautiful when he or she is healthy. Any disease or illness affects all parts of the body, sometimes for many years before the symptoms are manifested. If the body and mind are not healthy, then a person cannot feel or be truly attractive.

Good health brings a glow to the skin, a ring to the voice, a twinkle to the eye, and a spring to the step that no beauty school can teach.

Learn more at Beauty Fitness.

Ruby Boyd is the owner of a Natural Health and Beauty website that offers information on how to achieve health and beauty fitness goals naturally.

You may contact me at: 3rdsista@bellsouth.net

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Shampoo Killed my Beautiful Hair

Hair is everybody's crowning glory.

The previous paragraph is the sole reason as to why beauty salons and shampoo companies have become the in thing in the business world. They earn money by caressing vanity, the very grain that is inherent in human nature. They awe us by parading beautiful girls with long, shiny hair. They instill in us the drama, the magic, the beautiful-girl-stories of finding fame and romance by sporting soft and shiny locks.

We buy these hair products. We try these salon treatments. But of course, none that is similar to those shampoo commercials ever happens to us. None ever will. But then we keep buying these products. We keep trying more salon treatments. Until we fail again.

It is sad that we end up forever victims of what we believe as the great solution. We don't know that what we religiously follow at the back of shampoo bottles is not really a beauty secret, but actually a deceitful commercial script to bring more business for shampoo companies. In reality, constant usage of shampoo actually diminishes the strength and the shine of the hair. But because we have so much faith, we never put the blame on these products. Instead, we use more, buy more, hope even firmer that in the long run, we still will achieve the shampoo-model-type-hair.

The rationale for this is simple. Over washing the hair rids the natural oil from the scalp, thereby prodding the latter to produce more oil to compensate. This results dandruff and grease. Also there are residues from hair creams and shampoos that accumulates in the hair, making it more difficult to wash.

In an article by Natalie in stretcher. com, she gave tips on how to maintain a less-costly but healthy hair:

1. When you wash your hair, lather once, not twice (like all shampoo instructions suggest!). Wash your hair and scalp thoroughly, and then rinse. Your hair might not feel squeaky clean, but it will be as clean as with two lathers.

2. When possible, leave your hair without washing an extra day. Try not to wash your hair every day. Your hair will become less oily over time.

3.Brush your hair and scalp every day (your grandmother was right). This will stimulate your scalp, distribute protective oils throughout your hair, and combat dandruff.

4. Unless you've had your hair colored or permed in the last month, do not condition the hair at your scalp. This will discourage greasiness, and it will also save you money!

5. If you want a fresh feeling but don't want to shampoo, just run hot water over your hair in the shower. This will rinse away some of the dirt and even out your hair, so that it will look clean without having to shampoo.

There we go. There are actually more less-costly but more effective fixes that we can think of than depending on instant treatments. It is never wrong to look for easier alternatives, but hey, a beautiful mane is a treasure unworthy of being gambled. Let?s play it slow and sure. Beauty, after all, is not an overnight thing.

Other articles from the same author can be found at: http://www.ion-healthbeauty-4u.info/

Erica Alexia Registered Nurse

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Tummy Tucks and Scarring

Plastic surgeons are doing more and more tummy tucks as the effects of poor nutrition, stress and a lack of exercise takes affect on all of us. This brings up the issue of tummy tucks and scarring.

Tummy Tucks and Scarring

Many people who find that diet and exercise are not enough to shape their abdominal area are turning to abdominoplasty. Abdominoplasty, which is also known as a tummy tuck, is one of the most common body sculpting plastic surgery procedures that is performed today. While this procedure is a relatively quick method for getting rid of that spare tire, you need to give some thought to the potential scarring that will result in some cases.

Tummy tuck scarring is very common after having the operation. The traditional tummy tuck procedure involves making a large cut horizontally across the lower abdomen from hip to hip. This cut allows surgeons to access the underlying abdominal area, where they can remove fat, tighten muscle and get rid of excess skin in the stomach area. Often, this procedure can require other areas to be cut and realigned such as the area around the navel or belly button. All of these cuts can, and will, leave scarring to some extent.

Luckily, most tummy tuck scarring is usually positioned below the waistline where bathing suit bottoms and underwear cover the scar from view. Some people are still upset by the idea of purposely inflicting a large mark on their body, however, it becomes an issue of weighing them against the excess skin and fat in the area. Furthermore, your plastic surgeon is not a mad scientist. They are trained to provide you with body enhancements, not large disfigurements. They will do everything possible to minimize scarring.

So, should your abandon the idea of undergoing abdominoplasty because of scarring? It is a decision that only you can make, but you must only make the decision when you have all of the facts. In this case, the facts mean sitting down with your plastic surgeon and reviewing pictures of other patients. The surgeon should have before and after pictures of tummy tuck patients. You can view their tummy tuck scarring and ask your plastic surgeon to identify the pictures that represent what he or she believe will be closest to yours.

Tummy tuck scarring sound like a serious matter and they are for some people. The key is to make an informed decision with your plastic surgeon after viewing before and after pictures. For most people, they are sufficiently small that they do not constitute a reason to avoid the surgery.

Ricardo de Silva is with PlasticSurgeonPractices.com - a directory of plastic surgeons. Visit us to read more plastic surgery articles.

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