Want supple skin? Strike with oil

By Well+Good NYC

One of the best pieces of skin-care advice I ever gotwas also one of the most counterintuitive: Slick my skin with oils. Not just my body. My face. That is, if I wanted to age like Dorian Gray (or just protect my skin from losing its natural luster).

I took some convincing, so I understand why, when I say I’m now an oil-slathering convert, and use oils twice a day under my moisturizer, it often provokes a violent head-shaking reaction. But before you say, “No way, I will break out!” Check to see if you’re not already using one. Your skin-care brand may have just called it a “serum” because you’d never buy it otherwise.

I get that my fanaticism flies in the face of what conservative dermatologists and Neutrogena commercials advise. But here’s some of the reasoning that’s made me an oil addict culled from dozens of interviews with chemists, facialists, aromatherapists, and formulators.

• The smaller oil molecule (I’m talking jojoba seed, grapeseed, rosehip seed, apricot kernal, black currant seed, and more) can penetrate into the skin and nourish it. Creams can’t.
• The skin likes oil because it resembles its cell structure; so it lets it in.
• Oils help protect the skin from water loss and feed it hydrating, firming nutrients like essential fatty acids, gamma linoleic acid, and vitamin E that help boost elasticity.
• Using pure face oils spares you from chemical emulsifiers that many face creams and lotions need to keep the oils from separating with the water.

Facial oils often come in apothecary-style packaging

So how come we’re so convinced that face time with oil will cause our skin to freak out?

It’s likely most of us are still drinking the Clean & Clear Kool-aid. Maybe teenagers don’t need the extra oils, but your adult skin does thanks to three dozen years on the planet + sun exposure + free radical damage + accumulation of cocktails.

Not convinced it’s time to update your skin-care operating system? What if we told you your skin won’t break out?

Keep reading…

Vitamin C Face Cream and Gel

By VIBRANT BEAUTY

Vitamin C is a nutrient that is safe and effective. The healthy benefits that come about from a diet filled with an adequate amount of Vitamin C are increased immune system, reduction in the chance of contracting heart disease, early childhood/pregnancy problems avoided, healthy vision, and smoother, healthier skin. Who would have thought so many problems could be prevented with just a bottle of orange juice, right?As it relates to smoother, healthier skin, Vitamin C face cream is a product that is capable of giving you a healthy, radiant complexion.

Out of the numerous vitamins and minerals our bodies need in order to function properly, only three of them can be absorbed through the skin and all three of them are antioxidants as well. They are Vitamin E, selenium, and yes, vitamin C. Of these three, Vitamin E is known to replenish aging skin so that it takes on a smoother complexion, but Vitamin C goes a step further in that it is an antioxidant that helps delay the natural process of aging skin.

Our skin typically begins to show its first traits of aging and wrinkles when our bodies begin to decrease in the production of two proteins: elastin is the first and collagen is the other. These building blocks are extremely important in maintaining a youthful complexion.

Wrinkles usually begin to appear in certain places of the face. Around the eyes and lips are two of the most common places and the use of Vitamin C serum and Vitamin c wrinkle cream for face problems may prove to be very favorable. The reason for this is that Vitamin C liquid and Vitamin C gel contribute to the production of the collagen necessary to develop a more youthful appearance. Vitamin C gel also helps reduce the damage caused by the sun’s UV rays by using its antioxidant properties to disarm the free radicals that further destroy damaged skin.
It can be concluded that Vitamin C serum for face, as well as Vitamin C liquid and Vitamin C gel creams, will not only slow down and correct the signs of growing older (i.e. wrinkles, fine lines, etc.), but it will also give you a more brilliant, radiant and softer complexion. While using topical supplements, it is best to eat foods high in Vitamin C content. Studies have concluded that working from the inside-out and the outside-in simultaneously leads to fewer wrinkles than people that do not use both at the same time. In balancing a diet, with foods high in vitamins and minerals, and utilizing a high quality Vitamin c face cream you will undoubtedly improve the look and feel of your skin.

Really, What Are Mud Mask Benefits?

 

By VIBRANT BEAUTY

I can’t figure out how putting wet dirt on one’s face became symbolic with relaxation and pampering, but the allure of a mud mask has somehow trumped my rationale, and I want one. Mud seems to be more popular as specialty treatments at destination spa or resorts rather than the more utilitarian day spas, and not a typical treatment that an esthetician or dermatologist provides, unless the mud mask comes straight from a bottle.

Just what are mud mask benefits? Are they really more beneficial than a mask you would get during a regular facial? To discover the benefits we turn to dermatologist Ellen Marmur to see what she writes about clay masks (a type of mud mask) in her book, “Simple Skin Beauty”

Marmur dispels the myth that clay masks are some sort of stellar treatment and brings us back to the reality that, they don’t really “absorb” the oil and pollutants from our face in the lasting way that we’d like. Instead they do offer some benefits such as exfoliation and temporary benefits from other active ingredients within the mask. But these benefits are no more exciting than what you can get from your everyday at home exfoliators (like a BHA acid) or a manual skin brush like the Clairasonic.

The specialty ingredients that you can see in a mud or clay mask such as charcoal, kaolin and “sea mud” can do their job to help slough off the dead skin cells and excess oils, but the result is just temporary, and again similar to that as washing and exfoliating your face at home. Other added specialty ingredients like sulfur and tea tree oil can act as anti-inflammatory for about the 10 minutes they are left on your face, but you aren’t going to get a lasting power packed treatment from a mask.

And I guess that’s the conclusion to all of this, we like clay masks not for the affects but for the feeling. Mud mask benefits are fleeting, they exist while they are on our skin and can exfoliate our skin as they are gently rinsed off. The real value in a mud mask comes with the ambiance, the attention and the 10 minutes of rest and relaxation…of not doing anything…

Vibrant Beauty Takeaway: Clay and mud masks feel great and are effective while they sit on your skin. If you have a great skin care routine already, mud masks are unnecessary.

Cleansing balms: Would you wash your face with one?

By Well+GoodNYC

Would you wash your face with a cleansing balm?

A sink-full of skin-care companies—from Clinique and Darphin to high-end natural beauty purveyors, like REN and One Love Organics are hoping you will.

But why should you wash up with a product that has more in common with your lip balm than your cleanser?

The beauty of cleansing with a balm that uses plant-based oils (not mineral oil!) is that it does an amazing job of grabbing makeup, oil, oxidized sebum (aka blackheads), and daily dirt, explains Suzanne Leroux, co-founder of One Love Organics and formulator of the brand’s Skin Savior Cleansing Balm.

Chemistry 101 dictates that “like dissolves like,” Leroux explains. Oil is better at binding to oil and dissolving it, which is why it’s so often the basis of makeup remover. “A water-less balm is a great cleanse or a first step in a double-cleanse,” she says.

Depending on the type of sunscreen or foundation you wear, you may have noticed that water can just kind of move the dirt around your face. So a cleanser has to work double-time (or contain skin-stripping surfactants) to get your skin clean. But the oils in a balm bind to the oil in your pores (and in your makeup), and whisk away grime without stripping your skin. (If your cleanser leaves your face feeling tight and dry, you’ve likely been stripped!)

Keep reading…

Should facials cause breakouts? Our expert panel squeezes out the truth

By Well+GoodNYC

If you get a facial and your skin breaks out the next day, it’s easy to blame the facialist for flubbing your just-exfoliated gorgeousness. (And investment.) But it may not be her fault. Just what makes skin breakout after a facial treatment—and who’s to blame?

To find out, I asked leading aestheticians—Caitlin Conn, skin care director of Exhale spas, and Elena Rubin, the facialist-founder of Ethos Wellness in Soho—for their take on the most common causes of post-facial breakouts.

1. The Chinese Cure

Elena Rubin says that two things are equally true: The skin should not break out after a facial. Yet it’s normal if it does. The latter she attributes to the “Chinese cure,” a term used in acupuncture, which means sometimes the skin (in this case) gets worse before it gets better. “Skin can take the treatment as a sign to detox. And some people have three years of built-up sebum, dead skin cells, and sunscreen in their pores,” says Rubin.

Exhale’s Caitlin Conn

2. Poor Pore Prodding

As a facialist, “you have to be really careful that you finish what you start,” says Caitlin Conn. “A facial stirs up bacteria, and leaving it behind after extractions can absolutely cause a post-treatment breakout.” Conn likes to use anti-bacterial gadgets like light therapy (looks like a Lite-Brite panel or a glowing paddle) and high-frequency wands (sounds like a bug-zapper) immediately afterward. “These technologies are very quick and healing,” says Conn.

3. Over-Reacting Skin

“Some skin reacts to steam, facial massage, new products, or to the very potent drawing power of clay,” says Conn, and it can cause a breakout. “Clay draws out impurities almost too quickly. I’m cautious about using it and may just apply it across the nose in a thin layer, while using a hydrating mask on the cheeks…”

Keep reading for 3 more…

What not to do after a facial treatment

By Well+GoodNYC

For all the admonishing I get to drink a lot of water, not operate a combine, and to turn in early after a massage, there’s surprisingly little advice dispensed at the end of facial on what to avoid. (Perhaps it cuts into product-pushing time?)

So we’ve compiled this list of post-facial treatment no-nos—not just because these simple things can wreak havoc on your skin; but because it’ll be your fault if they do. Ignorance is not spa bliss.

Whether you’re paying $50 for a Spa Week facial or the going rate (about $150 for a facial in New York City), follow these seven Well+Good tips to make sure you get and keep the skin-care results you paid for.

1. Don’t visit the steam room or sauna.
Why? You’ve been cleaned and steamed. Heating your face up is just going to strip away your just paid-for glow. Ditto working out. (Not that we like to give you an excuse.)

2. Don’t have a massage.
Why? How does a toilet-seat-shape imprint on your newly poreless complexion sound? Book it before your facial.

3. Don’t wash your face. (Make that, don’t touch your face.)
Why? You’ve just had it washed by a professional who spent 59 minutes more on cleansing your skin than you usually do. You can skip this step in the spa shower and at bedtime.

Keep reading…

Milk for Skin- Really? Yes!

Don’t drink it! Use milk for skin instead

By VIBRANT BEAUTY

Is milk good for skin? Yes, according to dermatologist Ellen Marmur, one of the most surprising factoids I found while reading her work is that milk can be used as a very light chemical peel treatment for senstivie skin. Really? I tend to think that a lot of the home-remedies are more fun and play than effective skin treatments. It was a welcome surprise to learn that Marmur recommends using a washcloth dipped in an whole milk (make it organic for even less chemicals) placed over the facial skin and neck and left for several minutes to get a beneficial affect from the lactic acid. This is a light chemical peel home remedy that is generally safe for all skin types, especially people with sensitive skin or rosacea.

Really?! It’s that simple- milk? I mean, can the little bit of acid found in milk really affect our skin? I guess so, I haven’t tried it because I tend to err on the vegan side and don’t stock milk in the fridge but now my curiosity is nagging. My doubt is that the effect is truly minimal, but a little bit, repeated over a long period of time can mean a lot. Who am I to say that it doesn’t work? I have oily skin in the T-zone so it may not work stellar-ly for me to slough off all that oil, but for dry skin or sensitive skin types, it seems work a try. Cheap too.

Using milk for skin is an age-old treatment. Queen Cleopatra used milk and honey as few of the main ingredients for her skin treatments. Legend has it that she took milk baths to keep her skin looking radiant. Apparently a cleansing milk bath does have not only a light chemical peel effect, other properties of milk are anti-inflammatory that can help moisturize and soothe the skin at the same time.

 

Vibrant Beauty Takeaway: Milk is good for skin and can act like a light chemical peel, particularly for those with sensitive skin. Dip a washcloth in whole milk and place on your face for best effect.

No sweat: Making sure your skin doesn’t get a workout at the gym

Sweat doesn’t cause breakouts. But leaving it on your face does.

By Well+GoodNYC

Perspiring in saunas or hot baths has long been used to purify skin.

But breaking a sweat can cause the opposite to happen—irritation and redness, acne flare- ups and clogged pores—when you leave the salty stuff on your face to dry. And by looking around the yoga studio and the gym, most people do.

“Research shows that most gym-goers don’t shower after a workout,” says New York City dermatologist, Debra Jaliman. “So they’re literally sitting in bacteria both on their bodies and on their skin.”

How to make breaking a sweat good for your body and great for your skin? Clean up, people!

Before your workout
A lot people exercise in make-up, says Dr. Jaliman. This is huge skin-care no-no. “You need to wash your face before you hit the gym or yoga class, otherwise the bacteria combined with the dead skin on your face (we all have it) will clog your pores.”

After your workout
Wash your face immediately after your workout—before you leave the yoga studio, the gym, or the Spinning studio, or wherever you break a sweat. It’s one a few skin-care rules that you should never break. You don’t want a cocktail of dirt, oil, and bodily fluids clinging to your skin, affecting its pH, and clogging your pores. No sink is no excuse! Bring cleansing facial wipes with you if there’s no running water (like in the park), or you know you won’t be able to get to a sink promptly.

No sink? Use Arcona Triad Pads to cleanse and calm your just-hit-the-gym skin

 

HOW TO WASH YOUR FACE AFTER A WORKOUT

(No, we don’t think you’re dumb. We just like to be specific. The main thing is to get the dirt, grime, and sweat off your skin. The rest is icing!)

Use a gentle cleanser. Stay away from cleansers that contain sodium laureth sulfate, an ingredient that can overly dry skin. Try an anti-bacterial cleanser with tea tree oil in it, a cooling gel-based face wash, or a gentle milk-based one that contains calming chamomile or lavender extracts.

Try tepid water. And end with a few splashes of cool (not cold) water. The lower temp can cool your skin, of course, but it can help close your pores, which dilate to help release sweat.

Pat, don’t wipe, your skin dry with a towel. Sometimes toweling off can irritate skin, particularly if your face gets really red when you workout.

Keep reading for more tips here…

Can You Wash Your Face with Just Water?

 

By VIBRANT BEAUTY

Recently reading the book “Simple Skin Beauty” by respected dermatologist Ellen Marmur I was more than surprised to read that the normally washes her face with just water. Really? I mean REALLY dermatologists are usually the first to promote a certain skin careline, often their own. Marmur’s take on washing her face with just water is surprisingly refreshing.

What’s her reasoning? Why would a dermatologist only use water to wash her face in the morning?

Her skin is dry, she says, so there is no need to wash off the excess oils. Instead she uses a warm water (not hot nor to cold) and a wash cloth to gently wash down her face.

The idea behind washing your face with only water is highly dependent on what type of skin you have and whether it would actually benefit from being rinsed gently rather than using a cleanser. Marmur is not suggesting that combination or oily skin types should do this too, in fact in her book she highlights the importance of using some chemical exfoliants like BHA acids and professional chemical peels to help keep the skin healthy and looking good throughout the year.

She goes on to say that what you do to your skin is really dependent on what your skin needs at the moment and tries to dispel the myth of having certain skin “types” and rather underscore the reality that skin can be so many different “types” depending what conditions it is in.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard about this method. When I was going to esthetician school my teacher related a story about how she met an elderly woman with beautiful skin. She asked what her routine was and the woman related that ever since she was young she just rinsed her skin with pure water and three drops of essential oils (for the life of me right now I cannot recall what the oils were- probably should call the teach) and that’s all she ever did to wash her face. Of course, this woman may have had genuinely great skin to begin with, but the story makes me think there’s something to simplicity.

I think if you are experiencing dry skin, or have mature skin then you may want to try the sans cleanser method like Marmur does for herself, but if you have acne, oily or combination skin washing your face without water is not really in your true benefit, although it couldn’t help to see what happens. Maybe you’ll find that your cleanser is actually irritating, and that using pure water is a step in the right direction!

Tip: Never reuse a washcloth as it breeds bacteria after you use it the first time.

How to Make a Facial Mask At Home

By VIBRANT BEAUTY

Making a facial mask at home is quite easy. In fact, once you learn the art, you won’t need to spend thousands of dollars annually on buying commercial facial masks. On the other hand, you will also get the benefitsof natural facial masks compared to the ones that come with added preservatives.

There are several types of facial masks you can make at home. But, the best ones are the aloe vera masks. Therefore, here we are not going to talk about standard facial masks but aloe vera facial masks. If you have always wanted to make some at home, then here are some aloe vera facial mask recipes:

The Basic Aloe Vera Mask:

The first aloe vera mask is the basic one. Remember, the usage of this mask should not be restricted to the face. You can also use this mask your hands and legs. The best time to use this mask is after sunbathing. It will provide a cool relaxing feeling to your skin. Here’s how to make it:

Put 3 tablespoons of aloe vera juice, 2 cucumber slices, 1 tablespoon of aloe vera gel and 2 drops of your favorite essential oil. Mix them up thoroughly until a thick smooth paste is formed. Apply this mixture on your skin gently with a cotton ball and leave it for five to ten minutes. Once it is dry, wash it off with lukewarm water.

Aloe Vera and Cucumber Facial Mask:

We all know how refreshing cucumber is to apply on face. This is the reason why a cucumber and aloe vera facial mask is a dire need in summers. Cucumber will cool your skin while aloe vera will cleanse it. Together they both make a powerful cleaning and hydrating facial mask. Here’s how to make it:

Take 2 tablespoons of aloe vera gel and mix it with half a cucumber in a bowl. The cucumber should be peeled well and sliced thinly. Make sure you remove the seeds from the cucumber slices. Blend both the ingredients well until a thick paste is formed. Apply the paste on your face for 30 to 40 minutes. Wipe it off with a towel or wash it off with lukewarm water.

Aloe Vera and Almond Facial Mask:

This one is a great mask for summer and winter both. It is meant to cleanse and moisturize the skin. Here’s how to make it:

Put two tablespoons of aloe vera gel in a bowl along with two cucumber slices. Mix them well and then add two chopped almonds to it. Blend it in the blender until you get the thick paste that is smooth to apply. Apply this mixture on the face for 15 to 20 minutes and then wash it off with water. The best time to apply this mask is at night time before hitting the bed. Also, this facial mask is meant for people with dry skin. In summer, people with oily skin should this one.