Cuticle Woes Be Gone!
Dry cuticles, hangnails, and lackluster nails are the bane of most hands in winter. Nails that are a little or a lot worse for wear are generally a result of a lack of hydrating moisture due to the onset of chillier weather. Hands that also spend a fair bit of time in and out of water, without a proper bit of moisturizer applied to them in between, can particularly fall prey to dry cuticles and hangnails. Ouch! Talk about sore, unsightly little terrors.
Creative Nail Design SolarBalm is a nourishing pot of moisturizing goodness. SolarBalm is a highly emollient conditioning balm made specifically for nails and skin, which comprises of a blend of jojoba oil, vitamin E, and sweet almond oil. Just the tiniest amount of SolarBalm rubbed onto the nail, cuticle and surrounding skin will instantly hydrate. After a few days of regular use, you will certainly see and feel the difference in your nails and cuticles. Do resist the temptation to bite off or pull at any bits of dry cuticle or skin that are annoying you. Often this will cause them to tear further, to be even more painful, and become a potential source of infection. Use a quality pair of cuticle nips to remove the desiccated cuticle and hangnail only. Tweezerman Stainless 2000 Cuticle Nipper is Beauty Marked!’s tool of choice. This stainless steel, double spring cuticle nip is fantastic for removing that nuisance bit of dry cuticle or hangnail that’s not only unsightly, but catches on what seems like absolutely everything! Talk about adding insult to injury. Ugh! But not to worry, because before long, with regular maintenance, dry cuticles, hangnails, and brittle nails won’t be an issue for you… Right?
Creative Nail Design’s SolarBalm comes in a handy 9 gram tin that fits wonderfully in your handbag, pocket or wherever you store all things precious. Visit Creative Nail Place for your local stockist. Tweezerman Cuticle Nippers supplier info is gladly available from Dateline City.
Heading Home.
As you can imagine, I personally test darn near everything I write about. For those few products I can’t test but do write about, I, at the very least, have someone I trust test the products for me (like in the case with men’s products or products not specifically suited to my skin type or colour). Other than that, it’s all me. So with the major amounts of Guinea Pig-ing I do, my skin occasionally arcs up and freaks out. I have had allergic reactions or my skin has threatened an outbreak of the most catastrophic kind! It ain’t pretty. So what do I do in the event of those rare but dark times? I head straight home. I go back to basics.
[A’kin] Unscented ~ 24 Hour Pure Moisture with Shea Butter, Chamomile & Vitamin B5 is home for me. As with all [A’kin] products, Pure Moisture is 100% nasties-free. Not a paraben or sulphate to be found! Pure Moisture was designed specifically for sensitive, allergy prone, fragile and damaged skin, that’s been in the proverbial “wars”. This ever so nurturing moisturizer is positively packed with natural soothing actives such as vitamin B5, Vitamin E, and Viper Bugloss oil, which is a highly concentrated source of Omega 3, 6, and 9 essential fatty acids. [A’kin] Unscented ~ 24 Hour Pure Moisture gives me all the pure, safe, organic, and healing warm and fuzzies my skin needs at such times of crisis. Before long, my skin is back on the road again fit to merrily experience and test more beauty bits just for you.
The End Is Nigh.
For your beloved skincare items. Now what? I don’t know about you, but to me, it seems such a colossal waste when you have a product or several products in fact, that will not get used before it’s time for them to give up the ghost. I often find myself in this situation, when I have a beauty product that I adore, so I use only the tinciest amount each application so as to prolong its time in my possession. But what I end up doing, without fail, is miscalculating the realistic daily allotment and end up with tons left when the PAO (see Wednesday’s post) and the commencement of regular sniff testing is just around the corner. It’s ridiculous! Even if the products weren’t suited to you for its original intended use, too oily for your liking, or the wrong texture for your face, for example, perhaps they can be used another way. With a little lateral thinking, it may be possible to salvage that moisturizer, scrub, or mask, and then it won’t seem like such a squander when you have to let it go. Simply reinvent its use.
Just a few of my favourite ways to use up skincare items are as follows:
- use facial exfoliants on the decollete, hands, and the tops of feet.
- use gentle gel cleansers without any chemical exfoliants to cleanse makeup brushes.
- use face cleansers with chemical exfoliants (such as AHA, BHA, SA etc.) as body wash.
- use rich night creams as shaving creams (men can get in on the action with this tip too).
- use face masks on the decollete, hands, and back.
- use moisturizing serums (oil based) as hair glosses.
- use untinted lip balms as hair wax for the bitsy look or to slick down rogue strays.
Just Imagine…
Ideally, I’d love to razzle dazzle you with my Photoshopping skills, but as you can see, my ability is sorely lacking. Luckily, there are fabulous essential oil concoctions, lotions, and potions that I can always reach for when I need a boost of confidence and sense of well-being , as I’m not up to the point where I can gather kudos for my groundbreaking image altering talents, just yet. Imagine the My bod® Body Oil pictured gracefully cascading from the svelte neck of the amber bottle into a warm, luxurious bath filling the room with the perfume of nurturing and healing Sandalwood, Rosewood, and Patchouli essential oils. Divine!
(I knew there had to be a reason why I couldn’t get the up right version of that photo to work.)
My silliness aside, I think I might have stumbled onto another of Mother Nature’s finest, bottled to help promote a sense of confidence, well-being and all the while sensational for dry and cracked skin. My bod® Body Oil Sandalwood, Rosewood and Patchouli Blend is outstanding at healing dehydrated skin and soothing the soul, when applied after a shower onto damp skin, sprinkled into a running bath, or used neat as a massage oil. The ingredients of the Australian-made My bod® Body Oil are almond oil, safflower oil, avocado oil, jojoba oil, sandalwood, rosewood, and patchouli essential oils, and vitamin E. My bod® Body Oil Sandalwood, Rosewood and Patchouli Blend is certainly one of those stellar bottles of goodness worth getting a hold of. Visit bod® for your local supplier and learn of all the other beautiful bits of bod® bounty.
When In Doubt, Chuck It Out!
Did you think that today’s post heading only pertained to suspect food in the fridge? Well, the same goes for cream based cosmetics. The nose knows. We have all seen those natty little drawings (PAO symbols) on most cosmetic packaging of a round container with the lid ajar and a number and the letter M (M = months) around it. The varying numeral on the jar states how many months the cosmetic company reckons you can safely use their products once opened before they are meant to “go off”, so to speak and need replacing. I’m not entirely convinced that these stipulated periods of time are wholly accurate, but more a not-so-subtle indicator as to when you should go and *wink* buy more. This most certainly seems the case with dry powder based products, as they can last ages just as pristine as when you first purchased them. But, In all fairness, they must be a somewhat reasonable life span indicator for cream based products, because some cosmetics can certainly turn a bit manky soon after this duration. My suggestion to you is to not only plan to turf cream based items within this time period, but to sniff them every now and again to be sure to be sure. Most oils and waxes within products will definitely “turn” eventually and have a slightly sharp and possibly more rank and or pungent smell to them. Trust me, rank and pungent is never good in cosmetics. Even that smell of something that makes you feel a bit unsure is your cue to place that cosmetic item in the circular file: the bin. When in doubt, chuck it out!
Lest We Forget.
On this ANZAC Day, I shall spare a thought for the brave men and women of the armed forces who have served, risking all, for our country. Thank you.
Lest we forget the humble shrubby evergreen herb rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) as well. Rosemary is the symbol of remembrance commemorating ANZAC Day. Most of us are familiar with rosemary’s culinary uses, and would have certainly seen sprigs of this herb worn on ANZAC Day, but are not as well acquainted with its aromatherapy uses in beauty. Rosemary can be used successfully in skincare as a highly effective treatment for dandruff, eczema, to encourage hair growth, to improve follicular stimulation, enhance blood circulation, and aid in the treatment of cellulite, just to name a few. Rosemary essential oil has many valuable and varied uses. In fact, its use in skincare, is just the beginning.
Rosemary is the key ingredient in “Hungary Water”, the prized Eau de Cologne made in 1370. Hungary Water was named after Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, who claimed to have retained her beautiful appearance well into old age as a direct result of liberal use of this very early EDT. Hungary Water was not only prized as a fragrance, but as a great medicinal tonic used topically.
Here’s Beauty Marked!’s version of Hungary Water. Mix all the ingredients together, decant into a sterilized glass bottle, and tightly cap. leave your Hungary Water to sit for 2 weeks or more to mature before use. Store away from direct light. Enjoy!
Hungary Water
30 drops of rosemary essential oil
12 drops of cold pressed lemon essential oil
5 drops of rose otto essential oil
5 drops of Neroli (if available) or cold pressed orange essential oil
2 drops of peppermint essential oil
150 mls of perfume grade ethanol or Vodka
50 mls of purified water
**pregnant women, individuals with high-blood pressure, and suffers of epilepsy should avoid use of rosemary essential oil. Essential oils should not be taken internally**
If it’s not on, it’s not on.
Think of this blog entry as a Beauty Public Service Announcement. Sunscreen should be worn everyday. Rain, hail or shine. After all, If it’s not on, it’s not on. Seriously folks. My heart is breaking here. So many beautiful faces and decolletes prematurely ageing (not to mention that other thing) all because not a skerrick of sunscreen has had the pleasure of routinely being in the presence of your grace. So many great foundations have decent SPF in them these days, primers are also cashing in, heck, even lots of lovely moisturizers have a SPF of 30+ in them now. Never mind the plethora of really suitable, good old-fashioned sunscreens currently available, which are devoid of the oily preparations and white casts of yesteryear. There really is no excuse. You are quite spoilt for choice when it comes to sun protection these days. The best thing to do is just put on sunscreen regardless, everyday, as part of your cleanse and moisturize routine. Before long, it will become automatic and everyone, yourself included, will remark at how gorgeously pristine and youthful your skin is. Promise.
