If you suffer from acne, there are several skin care steps you can do to alleviate the outbreaks and help prevent future outbreaks. This article will give you information that will help you whether you are teenager or an adult suffering from acne.

One of the main daily routines to help with acne breakouts is washing your face or outbreak areas twice a day. It is vitally important to keep your skin clean. The way and the products you use to wash your face is also important.

Wash your face GENTLY at least twice a day and after any strenuous exercise that has caused perspiration. Do not SCRUB your face or skin. This actually can cause more harm than good and can even inflame your pimples.

Use a very mild soap like Neutrogena. Do not use anything that makes your skin feel overly dry. It is not necessary to use an astringent, yet if you do, only use it where your skin is very oily. If you visit a dermatologist, he/she should be able to recommend the best soap for your particular acne symptoms.

Do not excessively handle your skin. Your hands have bacteria on them and can cause the acne to get even worse. In other words, DO NOT pick at your pimples. I know that it is very hard not to do, yet it is very good advice. Only a doctor, with special instruments can effectively “pick” at pimples in a way that will not cause more inflammation and excessive scarring.

Use a special sunscreen that is at least spf15 and is non-comedogenic, non-oily, which means it does not clog pores. A good sunscreen for acne sufferers is Neutrogena SPF 45 Sunblock with Parsol 1789. You should always try to avoid tanning and sunburn because both could cause acne pimples and acne scars to become even more noticeable.

Shaving with acne can be tricky. It may be wise to invest in a good electric razor. Alternatively, if you use a safety razor, make sure you use a good shaving cream that really softens the hair follicles and skin. Try not to nick the acne pimples.

If you choose to use base makeup, it is recommended you choose a makeup that is oil free (and again) non-comedogenic. There are acne cover-ups that are available that also have acne medication. One product that is my favorite is Clinique’s acne cover-up. It can cover up even the worst outbreaks.

Taking these few extra steps with acne skin care can make a world of difference in your flare-ups.

By Michelle Dixon, Copyright 2007. Michelle Dixon writes about many different types of health and fitness subjects. If you would like to acnetreatmentz.com learn more about acne and the top acne treatments then you may wish to visit acnetreatmentz.com Acne Treatmentz.com, a website all about acne, acne causes, the latest treatments and more.

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Tags: acne, dermatologist, Hair, makeup, perspiration, scars

Everyone wants fresher, smoother, younger-looking skin. But is the solution to be found in any of the countless products being sold in stores and online? Here are some sensible suggestions for better skin that don’t involve strange ingredients.

Shun the sun
Sun exposure is the number 1 cause of skin damage. Even if you don’t use any skin care products, protecting your skin from the sun will greatly improve the health, and therefore the appearance, of your skin. Use a waterproof sunscreen and lip balm everyday, each with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 15.

Eat your vegetables
Your mother was right. Eating right does make you look better. Fruits and vegetables contain the vitamins you need for both health and beauty, including antioxidants that slow aging and keep your skin fresher and smoother.

Drink up
Getting plenty of fluids helps keep your skin clearer and softer. Drink 6 to 8 glasses of fluid a day, and make sure that you drink mostly water and unsweetened fruit juice. Beverages high in caffeine, such as coffee, tea, and cola, are diuretics, that is, they cause you to lose fluid through the urine. Beverages high in alcohol accelerate the aging process and put you at risk for diseases of the liver.

Moisturize
Use a moisturizer on your face and a lotion on the rest of your body. Think of it as giving your skin a drink from the outside. Simply getting your skin wet won’t do the trick; you have to lock the moisture in. After bathing or washing, gently pat your skin dry with a towel. (Leaving your skin to air-dry will dry your skin much too well, and you don’t want that.) Then apply a thin coat of moisturizer or lotion. Moisturizing after bathing or washing will help your skin hold on to the moisture it received during your bath.

Your skin care regimen doesn’t have to consist of products that are expensive, high-tech, or loaded with obscure ingredients. Just make sure you use them properly and regularly. If you don’t know enough about skin care products to be able to tell which ones you should use, see a dermatologist.

Bear in mind that skin care products work differently on different people. One skin care product may work well on another person but be unhelpful (or worse, harmful) to you.

Come clean
Cleanliness is the most basic component of beauty. Make sure that you keep your face and body clean. Wash your face at least twice a day and take a bath everyday. If you wear makeup during the day, make sure you remove all of it every night.

Get your beauty sleep
It’s not just a turn of phrase. Getting adequate sleep does make you look more beautiful. Late nights put your skin at risk for dryness, wrinkling, and sagging.

Get physical
Regular physical exercise will improve your overall health and make your skin look better. Exercise helps clear your body of toxins, makes you feel happier, and gives you a youthful glow.

Stop smoking
Cigarette smoking increases buildup of toxins in your body, affecting the appearance of your skin as well as your general health. Quitting smoking now will translate into a host of health (and beauty) benefits for you in the long term.

Loosen up
Reduce stress in your life. Improve your methods of coping with stress and let go of minor annoyances. Frown lines don’t happen by accident. They settle in after a lifetime of making faces.

Remember, beautiful skin is not about the products you use. Living a healthy life and maintaining a positive outlook are the keys to looking better.

Tags: antioxidant, dermatologist, makeup, quitting smoking, sleep, smoking

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It seems lately you can’t walk past a cosmetic counter, open a magazine, or turn on the TV without hearing about Mineral Makeup. Mineral Makeup has become the “It Factor” in cosmetics today. With so much hype about minerals it certainly is not easy to make a decision on which brand to purchase.

Mineral Makeup actually has been around for quite some time. The original founder and creator of mineral makeup, Dianne Ranger, developed the first mineral makeup product line in 1976. Now, thirty years later, there are dozens and dozens of companies touting “mineral” makeup.

So how to you choose which mineral makeup brand is best? The best way to compare mineral makeup brands is by the purity of the products and the performance of the products.

PURITY


Purity of the product ingredients is crucial in deciding which makeup brand to choose, because purity is truly the whole concept behind mineral makeup. The entire motivation and therefore creation of mineral makeup, was to find an alternative to putting any unnatural or unhealthy ingredients on your skin. This means the products should be free of fragrances, dyes, chemicals, oils, talc, fillers, binders, or heavy preservatives.

THE COSMETIC GIANTS


One of the fastest and easiest ways to cut through the mountains of products claiming to be mineral makeup is to quickly determine if the product line is coming from the large, slick, well known commercial brands we are all so familiar with. Why should that matter? It’s quite simple really. We already know that these companies have dozen of brand name lines, rolling out dozens of new products each year touting the latest and the greatest. But what you may not know is that cosmetic companies are really more marketing companies than they are makeup and skincare companies. The largest portion of costs goes into the advertising and packaging of these product lines. Only a minimal amount of money is actually invested in the product itself. To them it really doesn’t matter what is in it or what it does, because they already know they are going to get you to buy it.

That being said the cosmetic giants understand that the new word they must buzz is “mineral”. Products are spilling off conveyor belts with ”mineral” stamped across their glossy jars this very minute. Rest assured that these products contain only a miniscule portion of “minerals” and the rest is chocked full fragrance, chemicals, and fillers.

THE NICHE PLAYERS


After we have wiped out a majority of the newcomers to the playing field, we are left with a handful companies that claim to do just mineral makeup, using only minerals. As mentioned earlier a true mineral makeup is free of oils, talc, alcohols, dyes, binders, fillers and heavy preservatives.

The first thing you must do is check the ingredient list. Makeup companies should display the ingredients of their products on their website. If you can’t find the ingredients listed anywhere on their company website, there is a very good chance that they don’t display the ingredients in their “pure” “100% natural” makeup products, because they are not completely pure or natural. A makeup company should also proudly display a drug fact panel on its container. (If there isn’t a drug fact panel, it may have ingredients they don’t want you to see.) Check the active AND inactive ingredients. Most companies will still have some form of preservative, filler, or talc. Here are just a few examples of ingredients that would mean the product is not a true pure mineral makeup: zinc stearate (binder), stearic acid (oil), magnesium silicate hydroxide (talc), glyceryl polymethacrylate (filler), glycerin (solvent), squalane (oil), ethyl macadamiate (oil), isostearyl neopentatoate (filler), ascorbyl palmitate (preservative), rice starch, just to name a few.

PERFORMANCE


Rather than needing a degree in chemistry to decipher an ingredient list, you can also compare mineral makeup products by evaluating their performance. In other words how does the makeup look, feel, and wear.

Coverage: Mineral Makeup is not absorbed into your skin, yet lies on the surface of your skin. Apply different brands of makeup to the inside of your arms and determine the coverage you get. You should get great coverage without it looking like you have makeup on at all.

Color: True mineral makeup reflects light, and the color appears as if it comes from within. Compare the colors. They should not look flat, chalky or grey. They should look translucent, almost glowing.

Application: Apply another layer of color to your arms using a brush. The product should be incredibly easy to blend. You should not be able to detect the second application from the first.

Wearability: True minerals are not soluble in water, which means you can swim or perspire without reapplying. Try placing both arms under running water. Does the product stay on and maintain full coverage?

SPF protection: Does the product have an SPF rating? To claim SPF rating there must be a drug fact panel on the label. Anyone can claim to have an SPF rating, but unless the packaging has a drug fact panel, the SPF has not been tested for stability.

Texture: Are the minerals micronized (which means to pulverize into small particles)? If they are properly micronized the particles will be undetectable when rubbed together between your fingertips. The minerals will also feel “cream like” without having any additives.

Quality: Loose or pressed minerals should NOT have any black flecks in it after use. Pressed Minerals should maintain its consistency until the pan is empty. If black flecks are visible, the minerals were not micronized properly.

To find out more about the gold standard of mineral makeup visit MineralMakeupUSA.com MineralMakeupUSA.com

Nancy Wells is a professional product scout, traveling throughout the US and abroad in search of extraordinary beauty and wellness products for men and women that improve their life by delivering real solutions. Nancy Wells is an owner/operator of spas both in the US and internationally. She actively consults new and existing medical, day, hotel, and resort spas on all phases of their spa business. She is the President of MineralMakeupUSA.com MineralMakeupUSA.com

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“A Comfortable Hospital Stay” may seem like an oxymoronic title: no one can truly be comfortable in a place where pans are used as toilets. But, for most of us, hospital stays are unavoidable. From the appendix that erupted to the birth of a child, chances are people will find themselves in the hospital at some point in their lives. While sometimes these stays aren’t planned, many instances involve knowing ahead of time, granting the patient with the ability to bring along a few items to make the hospital more hospitable.

Pack Toiletries
Packing for a stay at the hospital is similar to packing for a stay in a hotel, only you don’t need to bring your swimsuit. The toiletries you typically use - a toothbrush, eye contact cleaner, the retainer you wear when no one is looking - should all be packed. While you might be tempted to bring hair dryers and curling irons, you won’t need them, nor will you need to tote in your entire makeup line. The hospital gowns, in themselves, are enough to keep everyone radiant and beautiful.

Bring Books
There’s not a lot to do in a hospital. There’s no live band to watch, no sports team to cheer on, and when the nurse asks if she can bring you anything, she will never come back with the beer you’ve requested. While some people might find this lack of activity boring, others find it as a welcomed rest from the hustle and bustle of every day life. Still, for those who want to escape the confines of the hospital walls, they can always use books as means to get away. Trading their IV for imagination, a hospital stay is one of the best ways to catch up on all the books you’ve never got around to reading.

Pack Comfortable Clothing
While there will be times during your hospital stay when you will be forced to don a hospital gown, for a lot of your stay you will be able to wear some of your own clothing. While you might be tempted to bring your Armani suit or Prada evening dress, just in an attempt to offset the fashion crimes committed by a hospital gown, leave those at home and instead only bring comfortable clothing. Sweat pants, flannel pajama bottoms and boxer shorts are great hospital clothes. In addition, bringing your own socks, slippers and bathrobe might make your outfits feel more comfortable in more ways than one.

Bring Insurance Information
Some people may think forgetting an insurance card will cause them to be placed in the hospital basement, tended by a nurse who has an uncanny resemblance to the Grim Reaper. But, in actuality, it will just cause a lot of delays, and a lot of extra work. Be sure to bring your insurance information, a photo ID, and any copays you owe. Take care of all of this right when you arrive, allowing the hospital to take care of you the rest of the time.

Miscellaneous
Bringing extra items that remind you of home may increase the comfort of your hospital stay. This doesn’t mean a person should carry their plasma television into their room, yelling, “I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT IT,” but bringing things such as pictures of loved ones, plants, and stuffed animals can provide a sense of solace, and a sense of home.

Hospitals aren’t fun. From the needles to the catheters, there’s a whole lot of poking and prodding of all the wrong kind. Then, there are the hospital beds. They may be adjustable and have protective railings on the side, but they aren’t made with a whole lot of comfort in mind. The polar opposite of a Natural Latex mattress, they make for nights of tossing and turning. While the hospital staff will probably frown on you admitting yourself with a Natural Latex mattress tucked underneath your arm, sleeping on a hospital mattress can only make you appreciate the comfort of a latex mattress even more, giving you even more reason to get well and do it soon.

Jennifer Jordan is a senior editor for foamsource.com foamsource.com. When she isn’t sleeping on a FoamSource mattress, she concentrates on living as comfortably as possible.

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Tags: Hair, makeup, sleep