On the topic of chocolate (sorry I know …again), I have recently discovered raw cacao beans and of course how ridiculously healthy they are for you. If you can handle the bitter taste, then these little beans are definitely something awesome to incorporate into your daily diet.
Not only are they absolutely amazingly fantastic for our body, but they contain an unbelievable amount of:
Anti-oxidants - way more than any other food, and which are very powerful at healing the skin.
Magnesium - more than any other food and which happens to be the number one mineral deficiency in the US.
Chromium - again more than any other food and which also happens to be the number one trace mineral deficiency in the US
Incredibly high levels of Vitamin C
So if you eat one of these little beans, you are getting a concentrated source of anti-oxidants, magnesium, chromium and vitamin C. More than any other food around and way better than popping a synthetic supplement or pill.
The word ‘cacao’ actually means ‘cocoa’. Apparantly the Brittish couldn’t pronounce the word cacao, so they called it cocoa instead. Seems strange to me, it’s not hard to say, you kind of pronounce it like: ka-cow. You can watch my video below for the proper pronunciation.
This food is so special, that a long time ago in Mexico City they even used it as currency. That’s how amazing and valuable the cacao bean was considered to be. Now you can just pick up a giant bag for around US$15. I guess we’re really lucky now how affordable and accessible this food is.
But what exactly are anti-oxidants?
So apart from anti-oxidants protecting us from free-radical damage of the skin, they are really just a measure of the color pigment in a food. So essentially, the darker the color of the food, the more anti-oxidants it contains. You’ll notice in the video when I crack open the cacao bean that it’s a black or deep purplish color. This just shows how many anti-oxidants are present in the bean.
Now blueberries are quite dark too, and they’re often thought of as being fantastic for our skin. But while blueberries contain 32 antioxidants, and wild blueberries contain 61 ..cacao beans contain an unbelievable 621 anti-oxidants!!! That is an insanely high amount. Now you know why I’m putting up with the bitter taste of these little things, because I know how GREAT they are for my skin.
Here is a video I recorded which shows the actual cacao bean, and some chocolate I bought from a farmers market that was made out of these beans.
I needed a change of scenery to work today so I packed my macbook into my backpack and headed off to a bookstore in downtown Toronto.
I love working in bookstores. Apart from the delicious smell of the brand new books (or is that the choc-chip cookies in the attached Starbucks cafe?), I love how if I need to research or look up any information while I’m here, I have instant access to a huge range of quality resources. And before you roll your eyes and tell me “Um, that’s what the Internet’s for …” (duh!), bookstores are great because you don’t have to weed through all the junk that comes with researching on the net. So there.
So of course, one of the first things I did when I arrived (apart from order a green tea and drool at those choc-chip cookies), was to browse the well being and skin care sections of the book store.
Call it fate, or whatever, but every book that I picked up popped straight open to the cleansing page. And every book screamed one key point at me - “Do not over wash your skin”. So unless these skin care experts have formed some kind of special ‘elite’ group and are getting together for herbal tea and note swapping, I guess there must be some truth to this point if they’re ALL saying it.
Why it’s really bad to over wash your face
It’s kind of simple. We were all born with great functioning skin. Skin that left alone does a really good job at looking after itself.
Take how I wash my skin as an example. I probably shouldn’t be publicly admitting this on my blog … but I hardly use soap or any other cleansing method on my body in the shower. That’s right, for years I’ve ditched the body cleanser and I only have a bar of [natural] soap in my shower to cleanse the dirty bits. You know, underarms, feet, and that other bodily part that I won’t mention. The rest I just let the water run over. So why is it that I can get away with completely skipping the cleansing of my arms, legs, stomach, shoulders, etc without any negative effects? Why is it that when I stopped cleansing those areas my skin actually improved. My skin is rarely dry (unless I have super hot showers or I’m in Vegas), and no, it doesn’t smell, and it looks clean and healthy. Continue reading →
I’m going to be really harsh in this review, but I can’t help it …this has to be one of the worst products I’ve ever used.
Skinvitals sells a range of cloth masks, each with its own purpose. The G-Energize mask is an anti-stress rejuvenating and invigorating mask with the active ingredients ginseng and ginkgo biloba, both apparently ‘powerful’ anti-oxidants.
The concept of a cloth face mask sounds cool, I mean …less mess and less fuss and all that. But in reality it was a nightmare to use.
The instructions on the back of the pack
The first thing I noticed when I opened the pack was the smell, which was just okay. It kind of smells like cheap oils. Like walking into an essential oils store and asking for the cheapest oils they’ve got, then mixing them all together.
The cloth also felt really cold and slimey. Not that same thick luxurious feeling you get when you dip your hand into a thick clay mud mask.
Placing the cloth onto my face was the nightmare part. It just didn’t feel like it fit! I know I have a big nose for a girl, but it should cater for my kind of people. I had trouble placing the cloth against my skin on the sides of my nose, and it kept popping off my chin and ‘mustache’ area. In fact, the whole time I was wearing the mask it constantly felt like it was half falling off.
AND I looked ridiculous. This girl in the image looks fabulous. She’s gorgeous, relaxed and happy. Her mask fits well and she’s kinda comfortable wearing it. While I felt like some character out of a horror movie. Even after I’d warned my house mate that I’d be wearing a mask so not to freak out if he saw me. Once I’d freaked out after I saw me there was no way I was showing my face to anyone. I did take a photo but I’m too scared to post it.
But, the worst part of this cloth mask is how in no way did I feel relaxed or soothed which is what I usually love about masks. In fact, I felt very uncomfortable. With the mask half falling off my face, a little piece sticking in my right eye, and the feeling that I had wet surgical gauze plastered onto my face like a burns victim, was in no way relaxing or soothing. I was also a little freaked out about the piece that kept sticking me in the eye because there’s a warning on the packet that says “if product gets in eyes, rinse thoroughly with water”. Okay, definitely not a natural product.
And of course after I took the mask off (after 5 minutes out of discomfort not the full 15), I was left with gooey oily stuff all over my face. So my next thought was, “uh oh, are these oils going to break me out??”. Luckily a day later they haven’t, but the scary thought was still there.
I’m sorry Skinvitals for being so harsh. But really, what were you thinking when you made this product?? I’ll definitely be sticking to non-cloth masks in the future.
HOLY COW Las Vegas is hot! If you want to know what being inside an oven is like, then come to Las Vegas in summer. This is my third day on holidays in Vegas and I’m still not used to the searing 40ºC (104ºF) dry heat.
I think my skin is cranky with me for being in this oven. And it doesn’t like the constant drying air conditioning either. It’s rebelled by stopping all production of natural moisturizer. Well at least that’s what it feels like anyway. I feel as though I’m slowly drying out to a prune. The worst areas affected are my hands, shoulders, back, elbows, upper thighs and feet. Thank goodness my face isn’t too bad [yet], but my chin this morning has become unusually dry. So much for that ditching my moisturizer idea I had in humid Toronto.
Here it’s dry everywhere. The heat outside is so incredibly dry, and everywhere indoors is heavily air conditioned. No amount of moisturizer that I slather onto my body is doing the trick. Last night when I went to bed the driest bits were actually a little sore. And my shoulders and back hurt in the shower as if they’re burnt!
If you live here I guess it’s different, your body just must be used to it. I also have very dry skin anyway [my skin has always been dry] so these hot and dry conditions are just making it worse. If you have oily skin, you’ll probably love it here. Continue reading →
I felt like a rebel last night. After I had cleansed my face then applied my BHA, I didn’t moisturize. I didn’t feel like I needed to. When I stepped out of the shower my skin did not feel dry or tight, and after I applied the BHA it felt as though it had been moisturized already. So it got me thinking, do we really need to moisturize our skin? Or is that just something the cosmetics industry tells us that we need to do?
I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about not moisturizing my T-Zone, so I guess I’m now just taking it one step further. I had such good results with not moisturizing my T-Zone that I thought …why not just skip that whole step altogether. I’m still moisturizing my face in the morning, but not at night.
I’m leaving tonight for a trip to the U.S for two weeks, spending most of my time in Las Vegas and Sedona. I’m wondering if the dry hot air will send me back to moisturizing at night? So is this just a humidity thing or if we’re eating well, exercising, taking supplements and looking after our body, then perhaps our skin just balances out to ‘normal’ - as in not oily and not dry and we no longer need to moisturize?
Dr. Hauschka’s say on all of this
I remember reading a while back on Dr. Hauschka’s website that we actually shouldn’t moisturize our skin at night at all. I thought this was a load of bollocks at the time because I had quite dry skin …but now I’m wondering if there’s some truth to it. Continue reading →
On the topic of chocolate (sorry I know …again), I have recently discovered raw cacao beans and of course how ridiculously healthy they are for you. If you can handle the bitter taste, then these little beans are definitely something awesome to incorporate into your daily diet. 
I needed a change of scenery to work today so I packed my macbook into my backpack and headed off to a bookstore in downtown Toronto. 
It’s kind of simple. We were all born with great functioning skin. Skin that left alone does a really good job at looking after itself. 
Price: US$2.99
AND I looked ridiculous. This girl in the image looks fabulous. She’s gorgeous, relaxed and happy. Her mask fits well and she’s kinda comfortable wearing it. While I felt like some character out of a horror movie. Even after I’d warned my house mate that I’d be wearing a mask so not to freak out if he saw me. Once I’d freaked out after I saw me there was no way I was showing my face to anyone. I did take a photo but I’m too scared to post it.
HOLY COW Las Vegas is hot! If you want to know what being inside an oven is like, then come to Las Vegas in summer. This is my third day on holidays in Vegas and I’m still not used to the searing 40ºC (104ºF) dry heat. 
I felt like a rebel last night. After I had cleansed my face then applied my BHA, I didn’t moisturize. I didn’t feel like I needed to. When I stepped out of the shower my skin did not feel dry or tight, and after I applied the BHA it felt as though it had been moisturized already. So it got me thinking, do we really need to moisturize our skin? Or is that just something the cosmetics industry tells us that we need to do?
