100 Natural Skin Care Tips – More or Less…
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
I originally wanted to provide 100 natural skin care tips in this article. All together there are more than a dozen tips.
The most important is to moisturize, and repeat. In fact, you can repeat that as many times as you like to make up the difference between the number of tips provided here and one hundred.
I have seen people spend thousands of dollars on anti-aging treatments of all kinds. They spend hundreds of dollars on various skincare products. They try different name brands, use exfoliants, toners, masks and concealers. The product they overlook most often is a moisturizer.
Dermatologists agree on this subject. Failing to use a good moisturizer is a big mistake.
Books have been written about how to prevent or reverse the visible signs of aging. No matter what your age, it’s never too soon to start thinking about that.
You can and should eat more fruits and vegetables. They are loaded with antioxidants and your skin’s antioxidant content is very important. The content decreases with age. That is one of the primary causes of the visible signs of aging.
If I did have 100 natural skin care tips for you, these five would be included in the section about what you eat and drink.
- Eat more fish for protein and essential fatty acids
- Avoid simple carbohydrates—they cause inflammation and cellular aging
- Be sure to get enough protein—the body needs protein to build collagen
- Drink plenty of water—has to do with the skin’s moisture content
- Take some anti-aging dietary supplements—they may help keep things like free radical damage to a minimum
Holistic practitioners have always recommended that we maintain the skin’s health from the inside out and from the outside in.
What you eat and drink, the supplements that you take and the foods you avoid cover the “inside out” part of the equation.
When it comes to the “outside in” part, the first rule is: Never apply anything to your skin’s surface that you could not eat.
Holistic practitioners do not have 100 natural skin care tips, but there are thousands of common cosmetic ingredients they want us to avoid. Most of them are petrochemicals; derived from crude oil or petroleum. They are poisonous to our body’s organs. The skin is the largest of the body’s organs.
One of the easiest ways to select cosmetics is to read the label of ingredients and buy only those that contain naturally occurring ingredients. Are there 100 natural skin care ingredients? There may be. Here’s a list of some of the most beneficial.
- Grape seed oil
- Olive oil
- Shea butter
- Wakame kelp extracts
- Coenzyme Q10
- Vitamin E
- Maracuja
- Passion flower
- Canadian brown algae
- Allantoin
- Palm oil
- Beeswax
- Jojoba
- Bioactive keratin
You will find more information about each of these ingredients in some of my other articles. Just remember. Even if you have 100 natural skin care tips to follow, moisturizing is the most important one.
A Few Reasons a Homemade Wrinkle Cream Might be Preferable
Friday, July 23rd, 2010Why go to the trouble of making a homemade wrinkle cream when you can go to the store and buy something? There are many reasons that you might want to make your own at home. Here’s a look at some of them.
You might be concerned about the safety of the ingredients cosmetic manufacturers use. While questioning the safety of cosmetics is always a good idea. It is easy enough to avoid common allergens, irritants and toxins.
Most allergic reactions are caused by artificial preservatives and fragrance ingredients. Other irritants include petrochemicals, petrolatum, colors, excessive alcohols and mineral oil. You can tell whether or not a product contains toxins by looking for a poison control advisement.
You might be concerned about price. Some anti-aging creams cost hundreds of dollars per ounce, but there are less expensive alternatives. Independent studies have shown that price is not equivalent to effectiveness. Some of the less expensive creams are just as effective as the costly ones.
There are some effective compounds to look for if you do decide to buy a ready-made production instead of trying to make homemade wrinkle cream. Independent researchers have found that ubiquinone, keratin proteins, peptide complexes, plant extracts and some vegetable oils are effective. Those are all natural non-irritating ingredients.
You can make a mask using plants like wakame kelp or a cleanser using lemon juice. You can use soybean oil as a moisturizer. But, you can only buy ubiquinone as a dietary supplement.
It is better known as the antioxidant coenzyme Q10. The form that is taken by mouth will not penetrate the skin. So, it’s not possible to include it as an ingredient in homemade wrinkle cream.
Soybean oil does contain some coenzyme Q10, although the concentration varies from 54mg/kg to 280mg/kg. Whether or not the form present in soybean oil could penetrate the skin is unknown. In order to get the best penetration, researchers have reduced the size of the molecules.
In the reduced form, COQ10 reverses wrinkles and sun damage by about 30% after three months of use. It’s hard to say what kind of results you would see using soybean oil.
Keratin proteins are hard in nature. If you boiled some animal skin or chicken feathers, you might be able to get some keratin out of them to use in a homemade wrinkle cream. But, the cooking process would destroy the nature of the protein.
The only stable bioavailable form of keratin was created by extracting it from sheep’s wool and processing it very carefully. The exact processes are patented. So even if you raise sheep, it’s not something you could learn how to do at home.
Peptide complexes are composed of natural amino acids. They have to be combined just right to provide the results which include stimulating collagen and increased skin cell production. You can’t make peptide complexes at home.
So, my suggestion is to use soybean oil as a moisturizer instead of trying to make a homemade wrinkle cream. But, if you really want something effective, you will have to buy something ready-made.
All Natural Skincare Ingredients are Filled with Antioxidants
Monday, July 19th, 2010One of my favorite all natural skincare ingredients is grape seed oil. Let me tell you a little about it.
The oils of grape seeds contain the antioxidants vitamin E and resveratrol. Vitamin E has long been recognized as beneficial to the skin’s health. Most creams and lotions contain the ingredient, but most companies do not use the naturally occurring form. Synthetics are cheaper.
Resveratrol has been written about in scientific journals and talked about on television programs. It is one of the most potent antioxidants that have been found. Some manufacturers list resveratrol as an ingredient.
You never know where that resveratrol comes from if grape seed oil is not listed, too. Much of it comes from China. You may be aware of all of the issues that have been caused by Chinese ingredients. If the manufacturer does not reveal the source of the resveratrol, I would suggest you choose another manufacturer.
Antioxidants are important, because they prevent and reverse free radical damage, at least to some extent. Free radical damage is one of the causes of wrinkles and other visible signs of aging.
Any all natural skincare cream worth buying will contain antioxidants. Ideally, the cream will contain lots of extracts that contain them. Grape seed oil is not my only favorite. I like wakame kelp extract, too. The day cream that I use contains both of those ingredients.
According to scientists, wakame contains compounds that inhibit the activity of enzymes responsible for breaking down the skin’s hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid is one of the compounds responsible for the skin’s firmness and smoothness. The amount present in an older person’s skin is less than what is found in a younger person’s. The cause is a pesky enzyme called hyaluronidaise. Wakame kelp extracts take care of the pest.
I also like an all natural skincare ingredient called avocado oil. My night cream contains it, instead of grape seed oil. There are advantages of each one.
Grape seed oil forms a film that keeps makeup from clogging your pores. I have found that nighttime makeup removal is easier when I remember to use my day cream.
Avocado oil has been shown to increase the skin’s collagen content according to scientists. That’s something that I cannot verify, but I do know that when I use my night cream on a regular basis, my skin feels smoother and firmer. I recommend it to all of my friends.
Shea butter is another good all natural skincare ingredient. It’s also in my night cream. It’s a little too heavy for daytime use.
The well known benefits of Shea butter include a reduced risk of acne and other inflammatory conditions. According to scientific evaluations, that’s because the antioxidants in Shea butter also have anti-inflammatory activity.
All of the ingredients mentioned above feel good going on. They leave no trace of greasiness, not on my face or on my pillow.
If you’re like me, you want all natural skincare ingredients because they are safer. My favorites are also the safest.
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