…and not in a good way!

I went to a dermatologist this morning. I initially made an appointment due to a small spot I have on my back. It became inflamed this weekend and I wanted to get the ball rolling to have that taken care of once and for all. While I was at it, I decided to talk to the doctor about the acne issues I have been facing.

As a teenager, I had perfect skin. Literally, I had skin that was flawless, enviable. I could have probably not washed my face and still had skin to die for. Starting in my mid-30s, though, I started to experience adult acne. It’s not terrible, but sometimes I have small bumps on my forehead or I break out in my t-zone monthly. The bad part of it has been trying to re-learn how to care for my skin.

I walked out of that office with four prescriptions: an antibiotic, a body wash and 2 facial washes. *sigh* I’m putting off calling my insurance company for a couple hours to find out what the co-pays will be. I want to delay the sticker shock.

Now, if I could only get my teen figure back.

I can remember, to the day, when I realized I needed glasses. I was in 6th grade and I put on my friend Kathleen’s glasses just to be funny. I looked up at the chalkboard (yep, we had chalk boards back when I was in school!) and I realized I could see the teacher’s writing better. Everything was sharper. Colors were better. My eyes felt oddly more relaxed.

I went home and told my mom. She got me in at my family’s eye doctor and the next thing I knew, I had my very own pair of glasses that I was supposed to wear for things like looking at the board at school, watching TV, and going to movies. When I got older, I needed them to drive as well. There was a period my freshman year when I wore gas permeable contact lenses, but they were painful and I gave up within several months.

Halfway through college I began to wear glasses pretty much all of the time and it became an issue of vanity. So, I finally went to soft contact lenses. I love them for the most part. When I say MOST part, I mean I love them WHEN I can wear them.

I have very bad seasonal allergies and for a collective three months of the year, I cannot wear my contacts at all. So, I have spent a lot of time researching Lasik. It’s a matter of saving up the funds and taking the plunge. I already know I want to be able to rollover in the middle of the night and see the room around me clearly. I want to see clearly without worrying about contacts and allergies and the risk of bacteria.

DocShop is a site that brings together links to respected doctors in any given field so you can research your local options; get the lowdown on the professionals an make a more educated decision when it comes to trusting who you will use for your medical needs. DocShop’s LASIK information section is more than just a link farm, though. It is loaded with articles and information about the technology, the results you can expect, the pros of choosing the surgery, and even the risks associated with the procedure. I’m looking at a good article now that explains the breakdown of fees. The articles are concise and I’ve found most of them to be useful in my decision-making process.

Once you are ready to check out their physician directory, you can search by state and then listings are broken up by map regions. At that point you can run down all of their basic info and find your way to their website. It’s a good resource for locating a variety of professionals in your area, not matter the field or specialty.

A few years after I moved to Florida, I discovered Birkenstocks. That led to an entire series of discovery adventures in finding all kinds of footwear that is actually so comfortable my back and legs never hurt. I’ve gone to great lengths to find shoes that are not only foot friendly, but also look great. Granted, that does not usually include pumps and other high heeled styles. Nonetheless, I have a lot of shoes that look great and I can proudly say I can walk all day and nary feel a pinch.

I can hardly understand people anymore who suffer to wear shoes that look a certain way. I have a very good hairdresser friend who wears sexy shoes every day. Take those hot shoes off, though, and her twisted little feet are full of lumps and corns and other nasty foot ailments. No thanks!

Now that I am getting ready to re-enter the work force, I’ve been a little worried that I will have to give up foot comfort. I was thrilled to look around the schools where I did my teaching hours to see a lot of the teachers wearing attractive clogs and other comfy shoes.

There are several manufacturers that specialize in foot friendly shows. One of the more companies that puts out several of the more attractive and professional looking styles is Dansko shoes. They are designed to follow the natural contours of the foot and have a well-padded insole. The unique quality Dansko has is their rocker style bottoms. They afford of a kind of movement that protects your legs and feet and is ideal for people who have to stand around a lot, like teachers! I included the links for MetBoots, because they happen to have good pricing on the shoes and often times free shipping. I like to forward my readers to the deals on the net.

I’ve written several times that I am dealing with adult acne and that as I have grown older, I realize that my skin is as different from the skin I had in my teens as apples are to oranges. I’m relearning how to care for my skin, my hair, my body in general. I still need to wash my face, moisturize, use sunscreen and remove dead skin. Now, though, I understand the science behind beauty.

I have so much more of an understanding that my skin reflects my inner health. If I have a build up of toxins in my body, my skin reacts. If I am stressed, I break out. If I am tired, my skin gets dry and patchy. In order to make sure I have beautiful skin on the outside, I have to look at what I am putting into my body.

Happily, the beauty industry is also recognizing the need to care of our inner health in order to produce outer results. One product being recently touted is R.G. Skin Revitalizer (Red Gâc) is an oil extract from the tropical Gâc. It’s abundant in Beta-carotene, a carotenoid antioxidant which gives a natural boost to the immune system and aids your skin in cellular rejuvenation.

Gâc is a bright-red fruit found all over sub-tropical Asia, especially in Vietnam. Used as a nutritional supplement, it acts much like any of the other super fruits or super foods that are becoming increasingly more valued for their reparative properties.

When you take care of your self from the inside out, you will not only feel better – you will look better as well.

Last week I wrote about ordering some “Jailbait” scented Biker Groove Lube Lotion™ from Big Bad Mama Biker Body Works. It arrived just this afternoon and I wanted to follow up on my last post.

The lotion is made with macadamia nut oil, shea butter, extra virgin olive oil and other good stuff. In fact, the nuttiness of the blend made the cherry smell more like cherry almond and that is actually so mouth watering I wanted to lick my own arm after putting on some of the lotion. I refrained, but it was difficult. There is no greasy residue. The lotion has a great absorption factor. And, as it wears on I find that the cherry scent is really rising to the top. It’s not sugary sweet, but certainly the fresh fruit shines through. I love it. Plus, I rather dig the idea of having the beer bottle sitting on my bathroom counter. You can bet it will be the first thing people visiting will pick up when they are in there. Maybe it will even deter the medicine cabinet snoopers.

When it comes down to it, the product appeals to me because of the natural ingredients and the small business aspect of Big Bad Mama Biker and her very intriguing Body Works line of cool things to slather on your body. I’m not so into walking into one of the big mall chains and filling up a basket with the same scents everyone else in town happens to also be wearing.

Let “Mama” help you get in touch with your inner biker… and pamper your skin at the same time

BTW, I was absolutely not paid to write this particular article. And, they threw in a free bar of their Skin Free brand of Extra Moisturizing Soap. It’s free of fragrance, colorants, petroleum, and harsh chemicals. The ingredients contain coconut oil, palm oil, olive seed oil, shea butter fruit, cocoa seed butter, and vitamin E.

I have skin like my mother’s. She has skin like her mother’s. All in all, the skin of the women in our family is all pretty much the same in both color and texture. I have to admit, I was pretty lucky to have inherited skin that refrains from wrinkles quite well. My grandmother taught my mom her skincare regimen. My mom passed it along to me, and my grandmother followed up with great tips.

It’s my place to pass along skincare tips to my own daughter. The thing is, her skin is very different from mine. I am very fair skinned. She is decidedly olive skinned. Her skin has a different texture, it behaves differently in sunlight, and I know she will need a skincare regimen that suits her needs rather than mine.

For example, her father has small, dark patches of scarring from when he had acne breakouts as a teen. He also tends to scar on the outside with larger injuries. I’m not used to dealing with those issues and as it turns out, my daughter’s skin is more like her dad’s than it is my own.

ORIKI Cosmeceuticals has products specifically for those with Asian, Mediterranean and other Olive (AMO) skin types. The products take into consideration the unique pigmentation factor AMO skin types. I am happy to have the products and the company website as a resource, because I had never given thought before to the fact that I need to take pigmentation into the mix when teaching Gigi to care for her skin.

I hate to sound cryptic, but I wanted to mention that I am helping to test a new skincare product that is absolutely amazing! I cannot tell you who the company is of what the product does, but I can tell you that AS SOON as it is on the market I will be letting you all know.

I have only been using it about 5 days and I can already see a different in my skin. I’m in my mid-30s and this is absolutely the time in you’re life that your skin takes on a whole new way of “being”. I have to relearn how to clean my skin, moisturizing it, what chemicals irritate it and even what being out in the sun will do to it. I feel like I am learning to live inside of a whole new person.

The product I am using in this test is phenomenal for my age group and my skin type. I can only image that once it hits the market, we are going to be a generation of women with more beautiful skin than ever before.

On one of my old blogs, I wrote a long missive about my obsession with having my legs smooth, freshly shaved. I said that I can be out camping in the woods, be sweaty and hot and as long as my legs are smooth, I still feel clean. There is nothing, and I mean absolutely NOTHING, like sliding into abed between clean, cool cotton sheets when you have just shaved your legs.

The thing is, you need to make sure your razor has a good, sharp blade. If you actually change your razor blade as often as you should, things can get pretty expensive.

The Infinity Razor is supposed to have blades that never get dull and never need to be replaced. If the blades do go dull, you can get the entire thing replaced for free. Seems like a good enough deal to me, considering that the entire razor cost about what I pay for one box of blades. This is a lifetime guarantee, so that would mean I would not have to purchase blades again, ever. Seriously, I cannot think of a better frugality solution than this.

Have any of you tried the infinity razor? I’d love some feedback, because I am getting ready to put it on my Christmas list.

When I think about lead-based makeup, I usually think of the thick, white face paint used by the Geisha in days of old. Surely our world is far past the use of lead n makeup now, right?

Actually, the correct answer is Nope.

It turns out that lipstick being made right here in the Untied States has more than a little problem with high levels of lead, according to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics yesterday.

The CSC says a full 61% of the brand-name lipsticks they tested contained detectable levels of lead. In fact, a third of the lipsticks tested had higher levels of lead than the top level of lead allowed in candy by the FDA. Lead, as you know, can be toxic if ingested. Lipstick is worn on the lips and if you are anything like me, you tend to unknowingly chew said lipstick off without hours.

The Reds seem to have the biggest problems with the lead. Top levels were found in L’Oréal Colour Riche “True Red,” L’Oréal Colour Riche “Classic Wine,” Cover Girl Incredifull Lipcolor “Maximum Red” and Dior Addict “Positive Red.”

I’d like to see a list of safe lipsticks, personally.

I need a haircut. It’s as simple as that. I spent a year in an intensive university program and pretty much just lived with my hair pulled back into a knot. I wanted out clean and out of my face, that was my only stipulation. In the meantime, my hair just kept growing, getting longer and longer. Now I look in the mirror and cannot believe how long it has become – certainly longer than I have had it in this particular century, at least.

I want to take advantage of all this growth and get a great hairstyle, since I obviously have enough hair to start with that I can get about anything. But, I am having trouble imagining just what will look good on my face. So, I’ve got my photo uploaded over at MakeoverSolutions.com. I adjusted the settings to track my features, set my hair color, and now I am trying on different hairstyles. I can with almost 100% certainty now that most hair dressers I have worked with are correct – bangs do not work on me!

I am thinking a sleek cut with a flip on the ends, razor cut probably, to add texture. I’d show you my final picture from the website, but I uploaded a pretty bad picture and I have more pride than that. ? Trust me, though, this really helped me work through what kinds of cuts look good with my face right now. I look a lot different than I did the last time I had long hair, so this has been a huge help.

I am quite earnestly recommending this site. The basic makeover tool is free and you can get quite a bit done if you take a minute to upload your own photo.