A blog dedicated to natural skin care, chemical facts, home made DIY recipes, product information & reviews and other interesting, healthy, good for you, tidbits. Enjoy!
Skin Serum is quite good for treating blemishes and breakouts. Even though it is an oil based product the rosehip and other regenerative oils and essential oils aid in healing and reducing scars, flaking skin and scabbing.
When I say 'treating' I don't mean in the same way as Clearasil or tea tree essential oils treat acne. Skin Serum doesn't do all that germ killing, cleansing stuff. I save that for Facial & Body Wash.
Skin Serum is regenerative, replenishing and rejuvenating. Perfect for healing wounds quickly and that's what you want when you're in the middle of a breakout. Sure other products treat the pimple causing germs and that's fine however then you're left with a nasty red scar, skin flaking and scabbing and looking icky for a while.
Skin Serum heals quickly and allows your skin to be softened so that when you apply makeup it's not being applied to harden scabs and looking a little bit yukky.
Another thing you can do is mix Skin Serum with mineral makeup powder to make a cream concealer. It works a treat and heals while providing optimal coverage. BONUS!!!
Mix about a .5c piece worth of mineral powder with 3 drops of Skin Serum to make a nice paint effect (see above) and apply concealer to affected area.
Store in an air tight container.
Only make very small batches, as per above directions.
Use within 3 days.
Wash container and brush thoroughly after 3 days.
Make another batch when needed.
Clean your mineral makeup brush regularly.
As you can see from the above pic the coverage is really good which is exactly what you want.
A lot of the time I'm sad
to say the answer is NO. Many companies use words like nature, organic, botanicals, made with natural... etc. Quite often I'll be watching TV or
listening to the radio and some ad will come on claiming some brand is natural
(or thereabouts) when it's NOT, and I cringe when I listen to
these ads worrying that people are being fooled into believing what the ad is claiming. Ads by Garnier, Dove, Nivea, Herbal Essence... and ALL the rest...
A general rule of thumb is:if it sits on a store shelf it
is NOT natural!!!!
There is always something in the product (usually synthetic) that allows it to be left sitting on a store shelf for long periods of time.
Ok, so lets look at some
brands who claim to be more NATURAL than the rest:
~ It's worth a note that research shows Abonne use to
use parabens and propylene glycol. As you can see from the below product
ingredients none of those are in this product. It does contain
urea though, a chemical compound found animal urine, although is is also made
artificially. Urea is a preservative that often releases formaldehyde which causes joint pain, skin reactions, allergies, depression, headaches, chest pains, ear infections, chronic fatigue, dizziness, and loss of sleep. Exposure also irritates the respiratory system; triggers heart palpitations or asthma, and aggravates coughs and colds. Other side effects include weakening the immune system and cancer. ~
Use methylparaben, propulparaben, propylene glycol and sodium lauryl sulfate. Not so good.
Jurlique aren't too bad. They use small quantities of SD Alcohol 40-A, Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate and phenoxyethanol as preservatives ( which have a low/moderate hazard rating of 3-4 out of 10).
Sukin are pretty good, they use small quantities of phenoxyethanol as a preservative.
Use natural preservatives made from a blend of herbal extracts. An effective preservative that is 100% biodegradable and doesn't have the same adverse effects on your skin as other harsh synthetic preservatives. To be a clear and completely open book - the only product that contains anything remotely iffy is Facial & Body Wash (not made by JOLI) which contains .05% of phenoxyethanol. All other products do not contain anything synthetic, man made or potentially hazardous.
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I know this subject is far removed from natural skin care. Still I had to share it with you because I'm the type of person who likes to look out for others and don't like to see people being taken advantage of.
Recently I had to change my Facebook profile picture because it seemed to be causing a stir with the single men on Facebook, sending messages "Are you single?", one even tried to talk to me about what sex is like with my husband after umpteen years of marriage. Um... sorry mate, you're out of line. I got a request to meet for coffee and when I said no he asks if we can meet at a hotel instead. NO!!!!
I had a friend who was part of an (official) online dating site and excitedly shared with me a new man she'd met online. He was remarkably handsome which instantly made me dubious. His messages to her were alarming to me, whereas she was positively smitten. Within two or three messages he was professing love and a desire to marry and have babies with her. He was moving way too fast which made me wonder why he's working so quickly. What does he hope to get out of this?
Ok, so you can tell I'm not like most people, not very trusting perhaps, in fact you could call me cynical.
He had sent her a picture of his passport and drivers license reassuring her he was who he says he was. Again this made me wonder. Why the need to prove who you are before anyone's questioned it? If I was online dating, the LAST thing I would do is share those two confidential forms of ID. My friend emailed me a copy of his passport and license and I began an all night campaign to find out all about this guy.
Did I mention I'm not like most people ;)
Hours of searching resulted in me finding out he was not who he said he was and his ID was a fake. I let my friend know and she told him what I'd found out and he never contacted her again. Guilty as charged!
Recently I received this message from a man via Facebook:
Hello,
How are you doing i was searching by when i came
across your profile i
must confess you look beautiful on your pictures i will like
to know
more about you i really hope we can have a chat
someday and get to
know more better. If knowing you is the last thing i really
think it
will be more appreciative,hope to read back from you
because your
beauty is appreciated and cherished.I'm very curious if
you will be
able to email me through my personal email
(hisname) at y a h o o dot com
because i don't come on here all the time hope to hear
from you soon.
kisses.
Seems harmless enough right, even flattering. If we delve further into it we find some suspicious signs.
His profile shows a white man in his 50's, well dressed and for all appearances well educated. Yet the above message is grammatically incorrect. The message was displayed as it appears above which, you will notice on Facebook, happens when you cut and paste. I asked a computer savvy friend why the email address was typed out like that and he said this is done when people try to avoid 'spam' folders and again shows this message is a cut and paste (sent to many) type of message. If he is genuine why the need to avoid spam filters?
I ignored the message. However I wanted to share it here because I want people looking for online love to beware of the pit falls. Not all is as it seems xo
Do you reach for a cigarette? Head to the kitchen in search of food? Or alcohol? Do you fidget or pace? Pull out your hair (trichotillomania)?
I rub and scratch my face. I have done this since my late teens, early twenties.
The first time I recall doing it was in my early 20's when I had a really stressful job (working for a hard arse boss) and I would rub my skin on the way to work and on they way back home. It is a subconscious thing, purely compulsive and most of the time I'm doing it without really being aware of it. When I become aware I try to stop, and have even tried sitting on my hands or holding something, however, next thing I know I'm doing it again. I cannot stop.
It begins with rubbing my skin all over until I find a lump. This "lump" might be a tiny blackhead, or a really small pimple that hasn't yet developed, or a dead or dying pimple, even a small flake of skin. Sometimes it's purely imagined "lumps". What ever it is I hone in on it and rub that spot obsessively. Then I'll move on and find more lumps, imaginary or otherwise. After doing this for days I end up creating angry red sores on my skin (see pic - eeek!!!!). If I'm doing this it is a sure sign that I am feeling super stressed and it's interesting to note that this doesn't occur when I'm premenstrual. It's purely stress related.
I had a friend call me up on it once, saying how bad my skin looked, how for someone in my line of work she was surprised I didn't have 'better' skin. I was pretty miffed with her remark since she's known me for a couple of years and it was the only time she'd seen my skin looking bad. She has seen I have great skin for my age... I take good care of my skin and it shows... when I'm not stressing out. And to be fair my skin hasn't looked this atrocious since she made her comment way back in 2009. Something has triggered this latest stress attack.
It is a frustrating habit, one I'm yet to break - if that is even possible. I'm just thankful that I don't get stressed too often, I'd HATE to see what that looks like!! I'm really lucky also that I use Skin Serum (the precious!) often because this helps stop any scarring this rubbing and scratching could cause.
So what is it you do when you're stressed? Can you related to rubbing your skin? Do others do this? Let me know your thoughts.
~ and remember the reaction buttons at the bottom of the post ~ mwah!
