Entries from November 2008 ↓

It’s time for another High on Health blog contest, and this time I’ve got prizes worth over $75 USD.

The prize!

This blog contest is proudly sponsored by Vitale Natural Skin and Bodycare. Vitale provides a diverse selection of effective organic and natural skin care ranges and simple proven solutions to help with skin issues. You can visit their online store here – http://vitalenatural.com.au/.

The pack includes a Richesse Anago Facial Cleanser, Third Stone Botanicals Cederwood Refining Mist, Third Stone Botanicals Cederwood Moisture Gel and Remedica Clair Visage Serum. You can find more information about each of these products in Vitale’s store here.

How to enter

All you have to do is leave a comment in the box below with your pimple horror story.

My zit horror story is when I stupidly picked a small pimple on my nose which WOULD have been fine if I left it. But of course my picking turned into a whopping “Rudolph the red nose the reindeer” scab right on the tip of my nose that makeup couldn’t even cover. It took a week for the scab to fall off and that was one of the most embarassing weeks of my life. At least I can laugh about it now

If you don’t have a pimple story I’ll make it easy for you – just leave you name and age (or age range if you’re a bit shy!).

Make sure you leave your name and Email address so I can contact you if you’re the winner.

The contest will be open until Monday evening so get your entry in quick. On Tuesday 18th November I’ll randomly choose a winner.

Good luck!

I’m frequently coming across fed up adult acne suffers who have tried eliminating a lot of foods from their diet – including refined sugar, dairy and wheat – but their skin is still broken out with chronic acne.

There are a number of reasons why this could be happening, so if this is you please don’t give up just yet. In fact, I stumbled across a video the other day from The Renegade Health Show blog which demonstrates this exact situation and one treatment option really well.

“I’m not in the business of having acne”

The video is by a health journalist who suddenly broke out with a forehead full of pimples. Being in the health industry, he was so distressed with his sudden skin problem that he went crazy eliminating foods from his diet to try and heal his skin. He did not resort to changing his skin care routine or using any supplements or prescriptions. His diet was the only thing he altered.

Kevin eliminated so many foods from his diet that he ended up eating only raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. He even stopped taking all supplements that he was previously taking in case they were the culprit. Kevin had become an extreme raw foodist to try to heal his acne, but it still wasn’t working, he still had acne!

And then Kevin starting thinking that perhaps his acne wasn’t caused by an intolerance to food, but an overgrowth of Candida, yeast, fungus or mold in his body. He’d recently taken a course of antibiotics so it all made sense.

His treatment was to remove all sugars, including natural sugars and fruit from his diet.

As soon as Kevin stopped eating fruits, his skin cleared up completely. He also starting drinking green smoothies (vegetable only) throughout the day, and took a colon detoxifier and some natural anti-bacterial and anti-viral healing herbs.

Watch the video to hear Kevin’s story. He’s a really energetic guy so it’s definitely worth watching.

What I found most interesting about this video is Kevin’s description of the acne on his forehead. I’m beginning to think that you can look at your spots to help determine what the root cause of your acne is. Continue reading →

I’m not going to bore you with my sob story again about how my long-term boyfriend and I split up and I ended up with severe acne. So if you are one of the very few that haven’t heard my story yet, you can read about it here, and I talk about it a bit in my mini-course.

I brought up this story again because I was reading an acne forum a moment ago which talked about how our emotions can be the primary cause of our acne. I’m a big believer in the connection between emotions and physical disease, so I love it when others discuss this connection between their acne and some emotional distress that occurred in their lives that they believe contributed to the problem.

Every resource that I find about the mind-body connection of acne, relates to the emotional feelings of separation and sexuality.

In my case these emotions are spot on. My severe acne started shortly after I was separated from my boyfriend and best friend of over eight years. When we were together, we were one of those couples that lived in each others pockets. We did everything together and knew each other inside out. He knew me better than anyone (even my own mother!) and probably still does.

So when he was taken away from me so suddenly, this was an extreme form of separation. It also affected my self esteem, femininity and sexuality as he left me for someone else.

My case is an extreme case, but I’m positive these same emotions induced by issues or problems that differentiate from my own have affected many others. Maybe this is you, maybe these emotions are the cause of your chronic acne.

This could also be a long shot, but it can even be said that perhaps teenage acne is linked to these emotions too. The path from being a child to a tween, teenager then adult is the ultimate path to freedom, individuality and in some way a separation from your parents. It’s also the period of your life where you’re going through an awkward sexuality stage as your travel through puberty.

In my case it just made so much sense because the only thing that changed in my life when my acne broke out was the relationship with my boyfriend. I still ate the same, had the same job, exercised in the same way and took the same supplements. I went from pretty good clear skin with the occasional premenstrual spot to full blown severe acne. It’s so obvious how connected my emotional situation was to my acne.

And because we’re talking about acne we may as well add something about Candida in here, because I’m learning how closely related an unbalanced digestive system, candida, yeast and mold are to acne inflamed skin.

I recently listened to a recorded podcast of Truth Calkins giving a presentation at a health workshop. Truth talked about how Candida can be encouraged to grow in the body with strong emotional feelings of – separation.

And David Wolfe talks about how emotional cleansing is required to overcome chronic candida, especially issues related to parents or past lovers. Do you see a lot of similarity here? I keep stumbling across this same information and it’s all so interconnected.

And of course if you have acne is does not necessarily mean that your acne is caused by an emotional problem, and it does not mean you have an issue with separation or sexuality. This is just one of the leading causes of acne, and the only mind-body connection that I’m aware of.

Phew! Thankfully I’ve recovered from my London skin breakout. I recently spent ten days in London and experienced the worst breakout I’ve had in six months.

I’m now convinced my breakout was due to the high levels of pollution in London because my bad skin coincided so perfectly with the time I arrived and the time I left London.

And to prove my theory even more, my next stop after I left London was Brussels (the city of chocolate heaven), so the amount of Belgium chocolate I was eating in Brussels should have kept my skin bad or made it worse. But my skin began to clear up in Brussels despite the extra sugar I was consuming.

How to clear a sudden acne breakout

After clearing my skin so quickly after my breakout in London, I’m now confident that I’ve devised the best emergency plan for small breakouts.

These steps will work especially well if your skin is usually clear or your acne is only mild, and you experience a temperamental breakout like I did in London. Please keep in mind however that everyone’s skin is different, so even though I’m confident these steps will work well for most of us, there are always exceptions of course where the skin doesn’t respond in quite the same way.

This solution will also work the best for small pimples, clogged pores and inflammations. If you’ve had a sudden cystic acne breakout then you’re better off taking a more holistic approach. These steps will help, but are unlikely to clear your cystic acne as well as the milder forms of acne.

Step 1 – Don’t forget to wash your face twice a day Continue reading →

Uh huh, men are now wearing makeup. I did think this was a little weird at first because I’m a girly-girl and I like my man to be rugged and boyish. And the hippy part of me prefers not even to wear makeup at all, so I rarely wear it now that my skin is clear so I wonder why guys would even bother.

However, when my acne was bad, or even just badly mild …I religiously wore mineral makeup every single day, and boy oh boy did it make me feel more confident. So hey, why can’t boys get a piece of this confidence too.

Here are a couple of fantastic instructional video on makeup for men that will prove to be very helpful if you’re a guy and new to all of this.

Really the only difference between makeup for men and makeup for girls is the packaging of the actual products. That is if you decide to buy makeup that’s specifically made for men. There’s nothing stopping you from using makeup “for girls” because really makeup is not necessarily for girls, it just so happens that girls are the ones that are usually using it. Continue reading →