Old skin/Young skin

Today I met a lady who asked me if I sold creams for old skin and young skin. I explained to her that although the simple answer might be “yes,” how I classify skin is first and foremost by the oil content, not age. Without knowing how much oil your sebaceous (oil) glands are producing (or not producing), you could wind up with a skin care disaster.

If you have oily skin and are 50 or 60 years old (yes, this is possible!) and you are using creams for “anti-aging” and/or mature skin, you might create an oil slick, or at the very least blackheads and possibly whiteheads. And you conceivably could be 25 and have true-dry skin in which case you would want a product that puts oil on your skin, even at that young age.

To help you understand your own personal skin type, see:

• Determining Skin Type 

To get a better understanding of my opinion of this (mature) skin “type” and also the aging process, see:

• Mature Skin explained
• Ageless Beauty—Part I
• Radiance—what makes a woman radiant

Taking care of your skin when you’re sick

I remember when I got it—the “crud” as some call it: chest and sinus congestion with laryngitis. Oh happy day! Not your normal cold, this lasted well over 10 days; ten days I couldn’t go in to work. I was simply too sick to do much more than lie around, drink fluids, and take medications (both allopathic, mainstream meds and “non-traditional” herbal supplements).

Being down for the count also meant I wasn’t washing my face morning and night and obviously not doing an at-home facial or even simply exfoliating. How did my skin look? In need! Adding to this, I had gone on a camping trip (where I caught the bug) the weekend before I got sick, so I wasn’t able to take great care of my skin in that situation either. What this all amounts to is my skin needed some emergency care.

Don’t despair. Whenever you are temporarily unable to take care of your skin—for whatever reason—you can do a few things on the back end to help your skin look its best going forward.

• Drink a lot of water. It helps clear your skin and keep your organs moving toxins along. Even if you aren’t sick but just aren’t—or haven’t been—taking care of your skin, drinking more water will benefit your whole body, including your deprived skin.

• Get back into your twice daily cleansing routine as soon as possible. Without giving your skin a general cleanse morning and night, you are asking for trouble eventually. When your circumstances change (you’re feeling better after an illness, for instance), be sure get back into your skin care routine, which also includes using a toner and hydrating with a cream(s). 

• Give yourself an at-home facial. This involves exfoliating and using a (clay-based) mask. The addition of the mask after exfoliation will help to revive your skin and put moisture back on the surface. 

• Exfoliate 3 days in a row. My exfoliator of choice: Yonka’s Gommage. Although exfoliating just one time (one day) is fine, if your skin is in need and especially if it’s breaking out, exfoliating for consecutive days will help to snap it back into shape. Exfoliation improves circulation, gets rid of dead skin and excess oil, and improves texture—immediately. 

• Get a professional facial. For some, this may not be possible, but if you can, do. During a facial your aesthetician will be able to assess your specific needs and give your depleted skin everything it needs. Please don’t go in for a facial while you’re sick. Doing this puts the professional in a position to get your illness, and if you’re sick—you should be home in bed!
  

Getting your skin back in shape after a temporary absence from regular care isn’t so hard to do. It just takes a few steps; some every day (like drinking water and restarting your skin care routine), some weekly (like exfoliating and doing a clay mask). With this extra attention after an absence of care, your skin will be glowing again in no time!

UPDATE: 

Being sick and unable to clean your face is a perfect application for a wonderful Yonka product that came out in 2015. Read this article to get more information: New WATERLESS Cleanser from Yonka: EAU MICELLAIRE.

For more information, see:

• Help for a winter (or any time) cold
• At-Home Facials—A DIY How-To
• All About Exfoliation

Follow your intuition—that little voice in your head

How many times have you heard the “little voice” in your head, only to disregard it and perhaps regret that decision later on? I can say for sure this computer glitch definitely has me wishing I had listened.

A while back, my mom sent me this great little backup device for my PC that was totally easy to set up—even I could do it. I moved it from my kitchen to my office to right next to my computer in order to trigger my memory to use it. Still, I didn’t. Now my PC [was] at the shop, and hopefully the technicians will be able to retrieve all on my hard drive, all I haven’t yet backed up. [All was retrieved and rescued in the end.]

My point is: Listen to that voice. It usually if not always knows the right path to take. And if you hear a warning over and over: heed it! It might be that all-knowing part of yourself trying to alert you to something that may be blocking your path up ahead.

I wish I had listened, but lesson learned—again!

Also see:

• Life in Transition: Take this moment for You
• Accepting what is—or else
• The Webs We Weave

Hot water and lemon to the rescue

I went on a 3 ½ hour hike today up to Green Mountain in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. I ran into a few hikers who were feeling the effects of the night before. In other words, they were hungover. I wondered if they took any “hangover helpers” before they went to bed last night or if they did anything this morning to help their bodies—specifically their livers—recover from too much alcohol.

If you’ve had a night of drinking (too much) or even if you’ve just had one or two, the next day is a good time to treat your liver to a little pick-me-up. It’s simple and you can get it anywhere: Hot water and lemon. The lemon juice is a good liver tonic and can help it recover from alcohol consumed the night before. Water is obviously hydrating, and since alcohol acts as a diuretic, leaching water from your body, it is essential during and after drinking alcohol.

This lemon-water drink really tastes good too—if you like lemons! Simply squeeze ¼ to ½ of a lemon in a cup of hot water. Not only will you receive detoxifying benefits, but lemons are high in vitamin C.

If you can, drink one or two glasses of water in between each glass of wine, beer, or liquor. Also, taking evening primrose oil before you go to bed will help with the inflammation and dehydration caused by alcohol, helping to allay a hangover the next day. And do try to drink hot water with lemon juice to give your liver a pick-me-up the morning after.

For more ideas to help you after a night of overindulgence, see 

• A Quick Tip to have fresh lemon water at the ready—always
• Holiday Hangover Helpers
• The Many Uses for Evening Primrose Oil 
• Emergen-C—a little effervescence for your health

Summit marker with the names of the 12’ers, 13’ers, and 14’ers to the west of Green Mountain in Boulder CO.

The Webs We Weave

I was hiking up a trail this morning and came across a beautiful newly woven spider web. I assumed it was new because the night before we had torrential rain storms, something a delicate spider web wouldn’t have survived. It got me thinking about life and how we weave our web, making connections with people and things and building our world all encased in our personal web.

Sometimes there are events and turns in life that cause our web, our security, to get destroyed or otherwise disrupted. Being the strong, persevering humans we are we build and rebuild, and so it goes. We have this wonderful capacity to continue moving forward, even if we have to rebuild our web numerous times—just like a spider.

I want to remember this the next time a storm (a major life event) comes and takes out my web (causes angst and stress and disruption in my life and home). I have the power to rebuild—every day if necessary—and create another web and to create new connections in my life. And in this rebuilding perhaps create a stronger web than the one before.

Also see:

• Coping through tough times 
• Axioms for Life
• Moving Through Loss

Taking Time Out—Less IS More

Lately I have been taking on a lot more than is normal for me. Consequently, I’m tired! What my body is telling me is get more sleep—please! And unfortunately, I haven’t really had time to catch up.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed and can’t get off the treadmill of your life? At these moments, it’s time to take care and listen to your body.

During this time of overload, I have been able to take little cat naps. Even though it’s not getting me caught up completely, these little moments of rest are helpful. If I’m home between working and meeting up with friends, I’ll lie down on my bed—even for just 5 minutes—and relax. Any amount of relaxation during a stress-filled or otherwise busy time will help to recharge your batteries, even if just a little bit.

Without listening to your body and its needs, sometimes your body will just find a way to get what it needs anyway. Many times this will appear as some sort of illness or an injury—anything to get you to slow down! Our bodies are truly brilliant (and efficient) in this way.

Rest well and take care of yourself. I’m saying this to myself as well as to you!

Also see:

• Too Busy for Skin Care
• Bathtime Quick Tips (plus Do Not Disturb Me sign ideas)
• Moving Through Loss

Accepting what is—or else

Is the following a matter of computer viruses or (if you’re into astrology) perhaps Mercury is in retrograde?

A few Fridays ago, late in the day, both my PC and Mac computers shut down for no apparent reason. I’m somewhat computer challenged so I was a bit helpless until I could take my PC into the shop the next business day, which was that following Monday morning. I didn’t have any idea they’d be keeping my precious computer for two weeks. At the time, I used my PC on a daily basis. Now with both computers on the blink, I was going to be stuck—Internet-less.

I felt this “happening” was an important reminder for me: Take life as it comes, and then relax. Eckhart Tolle (author of The Power of Now and A New Earth) talks about accepting what is. Not an easy concept right off the bat, but without acceptance we usually cause ourselves unneeded mental anguish and suffering. Sometimes happiness comes from simply accepting what is.

At the very time my computers gave out, I had a lot of work to do on my website along with articles to write for this blogsite. I also do a lot of communication with clients (as well as family and friends) online, so it was incredibly inhibiting to not have access to my own, personal computer and running over to Kinkos to keep up with my business emails. (And that is exactly what I ended up doing!)

The good news is I got through this computer glitch without too much pain and suffering. I decided to just let go and let life do what life wanted to do. I could have gotten upset and found all the reasons why this event was causing hardship in my life. Instead, I decided to just relax into the now and do other things in the meantime. Things that didn’t involve a computer.

It’s not that easy to “just relax” when life takes unexpected twists and turns. But what other choice is there—really? The alternative to breathing and relaxing in the moment is to stress and worry about things that usually you have no control over. Obviously, computer problems don’t compare to real life traumas like the loss of a loved one or news that actually changes your life. But staying in the moment and not letting your thoughts go too far into the future or delving back into the past can really help you from getting too stressed-out at any given moment. It is not effortless to do—actually, that is exactly what it is!

Happiness is having my PC back

Practice staying in the moment and accepting what is as often as possible—especially when things go sideways. Once you get used to relaxing in the now, the calm state that follows will come more naturally to you, and I believe it will serve you when the winds of change come blowing through your life.




Also see:

• Axioms for Life 
• Coping through tough times
• The Webs We Weave

YONKA SERUM—repairing, nourishing facial oil: DISCONTINUED/REBRANDED

UPDATE 2017:

OK, I hope I don’t go off the deep end here, but this particular item from Yonka is one of their signature products. Why on earth give it a new name? And the names they chose to replace 4 of their serums all end with “+”—I hate it! OK, I said it—I really really hate this! That Yonka took away the name etched into this one product was amazing. Then the name they gave it: Nutri+ just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Darn it again Yonka—you keep disappointing me! Without further ado, I will leave the old article on Yonka Serum here and you can read essentially the same piece with the new name by CLICKING HERE.

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YONKA SERUM is a nourishing, repairing, hydrating concentrate. It is a true oil vs. many of the hydrating concentrates in the Yonka line (like Optimizer Serum and Hydralia) that are not true oils or what I describe as “oily oils.” Therefore, you will want to use caution when using this nutrient-rich product. Yonka Serum can be used in many ways, as you will see in the directions below.

This is one of the very first products produced by Yonka back in the 1950s. It contains the “Yonka Quintessence”—5 essential oils that are employed by many Yonka products (listed under Essential Ingredients). The essential oils along with the cereal germ oils make this serum hydrating, nourishing, and regenerating. Interestingly, the essential oils in this product are the very ingredients that got Yonka Serum a poor review on Paula Begoun’s product review website, paulaschoice.com:

“Yon-Ka Serum is a corn oil–based serum for dry skin that is not recommended because it contains lavender, rosemary, thyme, and cypress [essential] oils. None of these can repair skin in any way, shape, or form. If anything, the irritation they cause can lower skin’s defenses and impede the healing process. The extract form of these plants would be preferred, especially for thyme because it has potent antioxidant ability.” 

I assume from the remark, “The extract form of these plants would be preferred,” the fact that essential oils are extracts from plants and flowers has somehow escaped this reviewer’s understanding. I actually don’t know where to begin with my opinion of Paula Begoun’s critique and her comments about essential oils. Below you will find a link to a review I gave of Paula’s review of Yonka products.
Please see *Note* at the bottom of this page.

Here is the product description from Yonka headquarters: “Yonka Serum deeply repairs and nourishes lifeless and damaged complexions. A vitality booster that stimulates optimal energy flow by eliminating toxins, increases blood circulation and oxygenation of the tissues. Helps skin heal after specific in-depth resurfacing procedures.” [aka: peels]

Essential ingredients:

• Corn, sunflower, soybean oils—regenerating, nourishing
• Vitamin F—hydrating
• Vitamin E—antioxidant
• Yonka “Quintessence” (essential oils of thyme, lavender, cypress, geranium, and rosemary)
• Thyme—antiseptic, antioxidant
• Lavender—antiseptic, soothing
• Cypress—vasotonic, clarifying
• Geranium—balancing
• Rosemary—detoxifying, anti-inflammatory

Directions for use:

No matter how you choose to use Yonka Serum, remember this is an oil, so don’t overdo it. Here are some recommendations:

• Add 2-4 drops of Serum to your day and/or night cream for extra hydration
• Yonka Serum may also be applied in a thin layer around eyes or mixed in with eye cream (one drop is enough)
• Apply to closed wounds and scrapes to aid recovery and minimize scarring
• Use on chapped lips
• Serum can be added to hand creams for extra nourishment
• If you are a skier, apply a thin layer of Yonka Serum to your entire face to help with the extreme exposure of cold and wind

Yonka Serum is a favorite with many of my clients. If you feel the need for extra hydration, give this nourishing oil a try and fall in love.

For more information, see:

• Is your face in need of extra hydration? Try Yonka’s Hydralia or Advanced Optimizer Serum
• My review of Paula Begoun’s review of Yonka-Paris products

*Note*

As I do before I post any of these articles, I was reading over this piece before it published. Sometimes I write posts weeks or months before they appear on this blog, which was the case with today’s article. I went onto Paula’s website to find the review, something that was available just a short while ago, and could not find anything pertaining to Yonka, Yonka products, Yonka-Paris—nothing. All I got after my searches was “Sorry, no results were found.” As I updated in my previous post listed above on my review of Begoun’s review of Yonka, I’m not sure why this is the case, but at this time Yonka products are not available to see on either of her sites. Perhaps this will change in the future. Regardless, the above review along with any others on my blogsite were taken verbatim from pages I found on her site in 2015.

What Pets Write In Their Diaries—a must read!

As noted in my opening blog post, not everything found here will be skin care related. And that is certainly true with this post! I think this is so cute—and so true—I wanted to make it available to you in case you hadn’t come across it. Author unknown.

What Pets Write In Their Diaries

Excerpts from a Dog’s Diary…… 

•   8:00 am—Dog food! My favorite thing!
•   9:30 am—A car ride! My favorite thing!
•   9:40 am—A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
• 10:30 am—Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
• 12:00 pm—Lunch! My favorite thing!
•   1:00 pm—Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
•   3:00 pm—Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
•   5:00 pm—Milk Bones! My favorite thing!
•   7:00 pm—Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
•  8:00 pm—Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
• 11:00 pm—Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary…

Day 983 of my captivity…

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets.

Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a ‘good little hunter’ I am. Bastards.

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of ‘allergies.’ I must learn what this means and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow—but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released—and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe, for now...

For more pet related articles, see:

• Amazing Grace—Such a long, long run
• QUINCY BLU—A Beautiful Life
• Doglessness has its moments

Life in Transition: Take this moment for You

I was talking with a client today who got laid-off a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, she is joining the ranks of thousands—maybe millions.

I could hear the stress in her voice and I offered her the following:

• Don’t pass up this opportunity to take a moment and relax in your life. 

Yes, do your due diligence and take whatever steps to find employment. But there are going to be periods of time where you’ve done everything you can, and what you need to do now is just relax. Don’t feel guilty that you are “slacking off” or otherwise losing focus. On the contrary. If you don’t balance this time you have (wanted or not) with relaxation and moments of stresslessness, you will no doubt come across to perspective employers as a big stress ball!

There isn’t anything wrong with taking an hour out of your day and doing something that brings you joy. After you’ve made the phone calls and looked at all the job opportunities online, go whip up a new recipe you’ve always wanted to try. Go for a wonderful hike in the mountains. Read a frivolous novel or watch a mindless show on TV. Take a moment for yourself, for your health, and know it is OK.

In short: Do what you need to do then let go. Let go and trust that everything is going to work out. Hasn’t it always in the past? You’re here, now. You have food to eat and a roof over your head. Doubtful that is going to be taken away from you. Trust in life and in yourself and keep your mind/body/spirit in balance. Balance, after all, is the key to health and well-being.

Blessings to all of you who are in a transition. BE WELL.

For more information, see:

• Relaxation—can you dig it?
• HEADSPACE: Get your meditation on
• Accepting what is—or else