Entries Tagged 'Skin Care' ↓

Salt is a mineral necessary for life. But when it comes to skincare, the relationship between humans and salt gets a little complex. On one end, salt can help skin to be healthier, while on the other end, salt can prevent proper skincare as well as cause damage.

When concerning themselves with the health benefits and detriments of salt, most folks concentrate on alternative water softener and reducing sodium in their diet. But here we will focus on the pros and cons of salt when it comes to the health if your skin:

THE PROS

Salt Exfoliates

The coarseness of sea salt makes it an ideal natural exfoliant when mixed with olive oil or other natural thick liquid agents. A perfect way to achieve this is to draw a bath to the height of your ankles, then take 2 cups of coarse salt and mix it with ¼ cup of water to create a sort of sludge. Get into the bath and apply the concoction to your skin, rinsing off with the warm water.

Salt Stimulates Blood Circulation in the Skin Continue reading →

A: Sounds like an obvious question right? Well it seems not. Every day of my career in natural health and skincare I have seen an amazing phenomenon and it is directly linked to INTENTIONALITY. This is something that has also been coming up a lot in my own life lately and so I felt the need to share with you!

Intentionality is the concept that what we ‘intend’ on whilst ‘doing’ something is the force with which we direct the outcome of whatever it is we are doing. Now I know people may have come across this concept before and you may have already discovered in your life that if you focus on a goal and have the intention to succeed you are more likely to succeed. Or you may have come across films or books on the Law of attraction such as The secret , which talk about this idea of ‘what you think is what you create’.

Intentionality is very much along these lines and it is incredibly simple to practice but it is also equally easy to miss! What I mean is that we might intellectually know that when we practice to win something it is better to focus our intention on winning but the mind gets in the way and starts thinking all sorts of things “ you can’t win, are you serious ? look how good the other team are? Blah blah blah” you get the picture!!! But what – you ask – does this have to do with skincare? Continue reading →

I’ve finally figured out what has been causing my skin rash!! I’ve had itchy skin on my stomach, back and thighs for the past five or six weeks which has been a huge pain in the butt! During the day it’s not so bad, a little itchy but bearable .. but every night I wake up in the early hours of the morning scratching like crazy.

First I thought it was just dry skin so I was plastering on my homemade moisturizer like crazy. Then I thought it was a reaction to parasites so I did a parasite cleanse (with no change in my rash). And then someone mentioned bed bugs so I freaked out a little and started to wonder if that was it. But in the end the answer was really quite simple – my rash is a reaction to my laundry detergent.

I typically use natural laundry detergent to wash my clothes and have done for years. At my home here in Peru I haven’t been able to do that because natural laundry detergent is not available in any stores. I also don’t have a washing machine at my house so I’ve been hand washing everything which has been okay but it’s almost impossible to rinse all of the detergent out. So my clothes have kind of been left to dry holding a slight residue of chemical laundry detergent .. which has been causing this rash and annoying itchiness on my skin.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to use natural products for everything, including for washing our clothing. My skin reaction to the detergent I’ve been using is enough evidence of just how easy it is to soak detergent into the skin from what’s left on our clothes. And as we know, our skin is porous which means anything you put on to it can soak in and end up inside our bodies. Take a look at your laundry detergent for a moment. Would you be happy and comfortable with rubbing a bit of that onto your skin? And how do you feel about the possibility of some of that detergent actually soaking in? Continue reading →

I was with a group of friends last night and we were passing around a chapstick, as we do here in this high altitude land of Peru because the dry air makes our skin and lips dry out a lot. And then when it was offered to a friend of mine, he said “No thanks.. And don’t you all know that these things make your lips even dryer??”. Oh.

I’m addicted to my chapstick. I confess, I’m completely addicted. I love the way it smells, how luxurious it feels on my lips, and I love how certain brands can make my lips look all shiny and glossy. But I think my friend was right, I think that chapsticks do in fact make your lips dryer in the long term.

If you’re a chapstick addict like me then you’ll know what I mean. If you ever go out and forget your chapstick then you start freaking out and wonder how you’re going to get through the next few hours without it. But after the initial hour or so of feeling a little uncomfortable, I’m sure you’ll agree that you soon forget and your lips are perfectly fine without it. In fact your lips end up looking after themselves and losing their dryness.

How does this work? Well our body is great at healing itself .. if your lips or skin are dry then it will try and remedy the problem. By using a chapstick too much on your lips then you’re tricking your body into thinking that it has enough moisture in that area so it doesn’t need to produce any more. The result is your lips do not get the natural moisture that they need so you end up with lips that are unusually dry whenever you’re not using the chapstick. Most chapsticks are also quite occlusive which means they are unable to soak into the skin to actually properly moisturize and hydrate it. Instead they just sit on the surface a little like cling-wrap and prevent any real moisture from coming in or out. This is also why your lips can look extra beautiful and shiny for a while after you use the chapstick because the product really is just sitting on the surface of your lips.

I’m not saying that you need to throw out your chapstick because in reality sometimes our lips do get super dry so sometimes a little help is actually needed. But I am saying that getting into the habit of using it on a regular basis is a bad idea. If you’re using your chapstick several times a day then you are likely just making the problem worse. Now is a good time to cut right back and let your lips natural oil balance out again. Remember, our body does such a good job at healing itself so let’s support it in doing that.

Licking your lips will dry them out even more too

Have you ever used the water only method to wash your face? Have you noticed that it makes you skin a little too dry and tight? It’s the same kind of thing with liking your lips with saliva in an attempt to keep them moist and hydrated. Saliva only dries out your lips so by licking them you’re in fact making the situation worse. Good tip here – no matter how tempted you are do not lick your lips to try and keep them moist.

How to keep your lips hydrated

Keeping your lips hydrated is done in the same way as keeping the skin on your body hydrated. Number one – make sure you’re drinking plenty of water. You need to be drinking at least two liters of water per day (even more is better!!). Number two – eat plenty of good fats like young coconuts, avocados, olives and raw oils. Number three – avoid excessively licking your lips. Number four – avoid sunburn!

Then if your lips are still super dry, use a natural raw product such as straight cacao (which is my absolute favorite!!) or coconut oil. You could even use something a little simpler like jojoba oil (especially if you’re a jojoba oil addict like me).

Absolute disaster at the beginning of the “retreat” I’m currently attending in the Sacred Valley of Peru. Okay, it’s not really a disaster but in my profession it’s really bad. I refilled my bottle of jojoba oil (which I use as both a facial cleanser and moisturizer) before I left for the retreat with what I thought was jojoba oil but it was really shampoo. You need to give me a bit of slack here, both products are exactly the same color and a similar consistency, and I was in a bit of a rush that day with moving house and heading to the retreat so I was a little distracted and I guess it was an easy mistake to make.

So you can imagine my surprise when I was in the shower this morning and went to wash my face only to be greeted by a handful of shampoo. And then you can imagine my distress when I realized not only did I not have anything to cleanse my face with, but I had nothing to moisturize my face with either! Nothing at all, that is except for a bottle of homemade body wash that I’d made a couple of weeks ago. Problem is, this bottle of body wash also contains coconut oil which is something I do not like to use on my face, ever. Not after I had a disaster of an experience with using the Oil Cleansing Method with a jar of organic coconut oil (it took my skin months to recover).

So what did I do in this emergency situation and what can you do if you’re in the same? Well really I had two choices – either use the body wash or use the water only method. I’m all for using just water, I think it’s awesome .. however water is actually quite drying to the skin so you really do need to moisturizer after, especially if you have typically dry skin like mine. And I didn’t have a moisturizer so that was a problem. What I ended up doing was using enough of the body wash on my face as a cleanser (with water) to clean and hydrate my skin enough so that I didn’t need to apply it again as a moisturizer after I got out of the shower. My skin didn’t look amazing because it was a little on the dry side, but it was good enough. And I feel confident that “watering down” a product with coconut oil and using it as a cleanser is not anywhere near as dangerous as using it as a straight moisturizer.

Also keep in mind that you do have the option of just not washing your face at all which in all honesty is what I’d probably do. Only for some reason since I’ve been in Peru I wash a lot less now. I actually only shower about once every three days now and so I was due for a good shower, cleanse and hair wash. And no, I don’t wash my face for those days in between showering either. I just don’t clean at all for those in between days and my skin is loving me for it – I’m no longer as dry as I used to be and I go through a lot less product!!

So next time you’re in an emergency situation like I was this morning, know that you have three options – washing with water only, using whatever body product you have lying around, or just not washing at all…….

If you’ve had an emergency skin situation and have managed to remedy it, let us all know about it!