Article by Laurel Levine

Recently, I was asked to evaluate the Image skin care product line. They seem like good products, judging by the information that you can get at their website. But, there is some missing information.

First of all, you can’t order the products on line, unless you are a spa owner or a retailer. If you are a retailer, you can’t sell the products online. Apparently, you have to call to place an order or buy them in a spa, which, of course, means talking to a salesperson.

I have no problem with salespeople, but I used to be one. So, I know their tricks. They want you on the phone so that they can explain “why” their products are so expensive.

They can tell you about all of the benefits, before they give you a price. By the time that the sales pitch is over, most people will buy, without doing any comparative shopping and that’s what the salesperson wants.

I can’t tell how much Image skin care products cost, because I didn’t make the call. I didn’t see any reason to, when there are other products on the market that contain more effective ingredients and sale for a reasonable price. The bottles are larger, so I don’t have to reorder as often. Plus, I can order them online, which is important to me.

Let’s say you are looking for an effective anti-aging cream. Image’s “bio-peptide” cream is one of the products that the company offers for that purpose. They actually have several others, but this one contains the most “active” ingredients.

It is designed at use for night, which is a good time to use an anti-aging cream, because the cellular rejuvenation processes go >> Read More

Article by Laurel Levine

It’s unbelievable. I still sometimes have a hard time believing that so many people choose the chemically laden products that are distributed by the major cosmetics companies over the safer, more effective organic skin care products that many of the smaller manufacturers are selling. There are some that will even argue that a lot of the products that the major corporations are selling are organic, but that is not entirely true.

Many of the big companies do manufacture products that they advertise as being organic, and they will contain a few all natural ingredients in them. If you were to further examine the ingredients label though you would find that these products are also laced with harmful chemical additives, and preservatives. The chemicals that they use in these products are dangerous.

Truly organic skin care products would not contain ingredients such as this in them. A large number of the chemicals that are widely used in cosmetics products have been deemed as toxic by both the scientific community and the U.S. FDA. There was even a recent attempt by the FDA to have these ingredients banned for use in cosmetics products, but it was overturned in court.

The reason that the FDA attempted this ban was for the same reason that the European Union outlawed the use of these ingredients. These ingredients have been found to be organ and neurotoxins, endocrine system disruptors, and carcinogens. It should be illegal for the cosmetics companies to include items that can cause you to develop cancer, but apparently the courts don’t see this as a crime.

There is absolutely nothing harmful about the use of organic skin care >> Read More

Article by Carol Truesdale

According to recent studies, more than one gender now cares about skincare? We all know how crazy women are about their skin, especially as it starts to age. They’ll do anything…buy anything…that gets rid of wrinkles and saggy skin. But now, they won’t just be elbowing each other to get to the latest product.

Finally, men have woken up to skin care health. Well, some men.

Companies have taken note too. Many now offer man skin care lines that rival their womens line. They offer everything—face creams, eye gels, body lotions, and even masks.

Some of that stuff probably sounds girly to you. And you wouldn’t tell your buds at the gym that you put on a hydrating mask over the weekend. Male skin care products, though available, are still very much an underground thing. Don’t believe me?

Well, the next time you have to buy a gift for a guy friend, father, or brother, get him skin cream. And watch the reaction as he opens it. One of two things will happen. The other people in the room (men and women) will crack jokes about your gift. Or the room will be dead silent and the guy you gave it to will say, “oh…skin cream”.

In many households and social circles, there still is a stigma to male skin care. This is unfortunate and hurts men in two ways.

(1) Men avoid using skin creams altogether. Even though they notice the bags under their eyes or dry skin, they just live with it in silence. Could you imagine a woman doing that? Your skin is no different from other body parts. In fact, it’s the largest organ. Yet, an entire gender pretty much ignores it to maintain some sort of false sense of manhood.

(2) Because men >> Read More

I’m shocked to say that male skin care products contain some of the harshest ingredients known. It isn’t even logical to call them skincare products. They don’t contain anything that helps you care for your skin’s health.

When it comes to caring for a man skin care products should be soothing and gentle. Men are often exposed to more environmental pollutants and UV radiation from the sun. They usually shave their faces, which causes more damage, irritation and inflammation. So, why would male skin care products contain ingredients that do more damage?

The answer is not really clear. Part of it is tradition. Big companies have been using the same ingredients for 50 years or more. They aren’t really interested in changing their formulas.

If you are a man skin care product selection is critical. You need to remember to read the label of ingredients and learn the ones to avoid. Here’s a short list; petrolatum, mineral oil, paraffin, polyethylene glycol, parabens, ethylene oxide, ethanol, propylene glycol, isopropyl alcohol, oxybenzone, benzophenone, avobenzone, toluene, parabens and fragrance.

The word fragrance on the label is something like a minefield. It could refer to any number of 2400 different chemicals, known as “aromatic hydrocarbons”. Companies are not required to list which chemicals are used to make the fragrance in a woman’s or a man skin care product. It’s supposed to help them protect their “secret formulas”.

Male skin care cleansers should contain mild ingredients like goat’s milk, manuka honey, tea tree oil or oatmeal. Shaving lubricants should be non-foaming solutions that are primarily vegetable oil. Aftershave should not be the same thing as cologne. A dab of cologne is okay and all that’s really necessary. Many men overdo it, just a little. Ask any woman.

If they are for a man skin care >> Read More

Article by Lauren Masters

Let me let you in on something a lot of people don’t like to talk about: the skin care cream you use may in fact be a hazard to your health. Now, I don’t mean that it is poisonous, or that it could hurt you through short term contact…but more and more data is being released that suggest that some skin creams are way more dangerous over a period of long term application that anyone thought.

How could something as innocuous as a skin care moisturizer cream be harmful, you might wonder? The problem lies in the chemicals that constitute it, that are used to make up the full range of the product. Many skin care creams, for example, utilize parabens – chemical compounds that are very cheap to produce, and are found within a wide variety of products, from toothpastes to skin creams.

Although when coming into temporary contact with the body, parabens do not remain, and are avoided easily enough, when included in a skin care cream something very different happens…it’s easy to think of your skin as being only the surface of your body, but the fact is, the epidermis is incredibly porous. Think about staying in a bath for too long…your body actually sucks up moisture into your skin like a sponge.

Now consider further that your skin will do that to anything it comes into contact with, effectively drinking it into your body! In terms of just your skin, there is no problem…what is on or in the skin can be shed through dead cells, as part of a regenerative process of the body. But when it comes to chemicals like parabens in some skin care moisturizer cream, they may be absorbed into your body outright.

The European >> Read More

Article by Jami Goode

Here’s something that may surprise you. Just about every skin care cream and moisturizer in your local health and beauty outlet contain ingredients you really should avoid. Let me tell you about them and why you should avoid them.

What are the ingredients in a skin care moisturizer cream that you should look out for? They include parabens, fragrances, petrolatum and alcohols.

Years ago, a respected dermatologist came up with the idea of using skin care cream to treat common diseases of the dermal layers. Instead of prescribing drugs, he promoted the idea of using naturally occurring substances to improve and protect the skin’s health to prevent worse problems in the future.

He did not mention parabens specifically, but he did mention preservatives, which is what parabens are used for. He mentioned preservatives, because along with fragrances, they are the two most common allergens.

If a skin care moisturizer cream causes an allergic reaction, then scarring can occur and other types of damage can increase. Even if you are not normally a “sensitive” person, you should look for preservative free and unscented skin care cream.

The reason is this. Allergies sometimes develop over time, particularly when it is something you are exposed to on a daily basis. You might not even realize what caused the problem, but suddenly you have itching or excessive dryness, hives or pimples. If you shop safely from the start, you won’t run into these things.

Another problem with parabens specifically is that they have been linked to cancer in numerous studies. They penetrate through the pores and enter the bloodstream. They >> Read More

We know that collagen protein is vital for having nice skin, but did you know that elastin is also a vital protein…yes, collagen and elastin are the two proteins responsible for nice skin.

In the younger days, your skin was smooth, soft, moist and pliant due to the fact that your body produced a large quantity of collagen and elastin. So it makes sense then that restoring elastin along with collagen is the secret to helping your skin regain some of its youthful appearance.

But don’t go running to the store and purchasing lotions and serums that say contain elastin and collagen because they simply <b>do not</b> work. Here’s why.

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The elastin and collagen proteins said to be added to creams and lotions are ineffective. Collagen and elastin proteins are much too large to absorb into the skin (you can research it on any reliable scientific website) to have any effect when the lotion is applied topically. Don’t waste your money on skin care products that promise you that the added collagen and elastin will help — you’re just being led astray.

You’re probably wondering then how to go about restoring elastin in your skin. To restore both collagen and elastin proteins, you can achieve this by using creams and lotions that have ingredients proven to help your body stimulate more production of the two proteins on its own.

This is very different than rubbing the lotions containing collagen and elastin on your skin. I’ll go over a natural ingredient that helps your body increase its own collagen and elastin proteins naturally.

The substance is called Cynergy TK. Rich >> Read More

Treatment for Cystic acne

Cystic acne on first glance may look similar to nodular acne. The difference is that unlike nodular acne, cystic acne is pus-filled. So it is important that before starting up the treatment for acne it should b identified from a specialist what form of acne is their to be treated. This ensures a speedy treatment and recovery and also avoids further complication.

Isotretinoin is the most common, and most potent drug prescribed for cystic acne treatment. It is a man-made form of retinoid (Vitamin A) that is taken in pill form.

An alternative treatment is injections of cortisone into the cysts to decrease the inflammatory response. Accutane is used by many dermatologists due to the severe nature of the acne.

Oral contraceptives are used as cystic acne treatment in females. It suppresses overactive sebaceous glands, and is safe to be used long-term.

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Tea tree oil

Tea tree oil does help acne but only to a limited degree. If you have mild acne it may be worth giving it a go.

One of the problems with natural products is the huge variation between different products containing similar ‘natural ingredients’.

If tea tree oil is not carefully purified and processed it can actually become cause allergies and even irritation. Some poorly made tea tree oil products cause severe allergic reactions in around 1 in 20-40 people who used these products.

Although Cystic acne is resistant to many acne medications, there are treatments available that can help. Currently >> Read More

Why is it always a struggle when trying to find the best anti wrinkle products? Most people have had the frustrating experience of buying anti wrinkle skin care products that simply don’t do an effective job of making our skin look younger. Why does it have to be this hard?

The quality of most of the products that advertise themselves to be the best anti wrinkle products is questionable at best. The average creams and lotions that you will find on department store shelves are not worth the money that you pay for them. They should be paying you considering the health risk that you are taking.

The anti wrinkle skin care products that you find more often than not are loaded down with chemical agents that are potentially harmful to your health. Many of the chemicals use have been linked in clinical studies to cancer. These kinds of products are better left alone.

Anti wrinkle skin care shouldn’t have to come with a warning label. On a website run by the Environmental Working Group products by Avon, Este’e Lauder, Exuviance, Clarins, and L’oreal all scored in ten out of ten categories as highly hazardous materials. Many more of their product score eights and nines.

These categories linked the ingredients used to cancer, developmental/reproductive toxicity, allergies/immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, organ system toxicity, irritation of the skin/eyes/lungs, and biochemical and cellular level changes.

If you have been using any of these companies self labeled best anti wrinkle products then you should feel betrayed. You should also feel concerned, because if you have been using their products for quite some time you have no idea of what damage has been done or to what degree damage you have been affected.

Of these companies that I’ve named not one of them signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics. If you are not familiar with the Compact it is a pledge >> Read More

Article by Louise Forrest

For many people, plastic surgery is a way to turn back the clock when it comes to their aging skin. Often this is a result of not paying enough attention or knowing how to care for their skin and body while they were younger.

Of course, the best medicine is preventative medicine, which recommends that a healthy diet, lots of water, moderate exercise, and a good organic skin care regimen all started at a young age.

However, not everybody was able, or knew to, do this when they were younger. Of these people, many turn to plastic surgery to correct their mistakes and anti age their faces.

In years gone by, plastic surgery consisted of one treatment or surgery at a time, meaning that women (and men) who needed to have several different things done to their face in order to achieve the look of youth that was desired had to undergo a number of surgeries and recuperation periods. This meant time off from work for many, making it take a long time to get to where they wanted to be where their looks were concerned.

Today, anti aging through plastic surgery does not necessarily mean multiple times under the blade. There are many surgeries that can be combined, so that one time of operation can result in many things being achieved at once. This is a great help to those who want several things done. Not only does it mean much less time off from work and less total recuperation time, but it means less expense because you only have to pay for anesthesia and other necessities one time, rather than once for each different procedure to be done.

One such combination is a combination laser resurfacing and face lift. >> Read More