Fabulously Cheeky

I’ve just spent the last week studying sunscreens. My son has such light skin, he just keeps burning, even when the bottle states SPF 90-100. How is this possible? How do all those chemicals work, anyway?

Take Banana Boat’s baby formula – it would probably come as a great surprise that a baby formula would rate 7 (red) in the cosmetics database. It contains retinyl palmitate, which is a form of vitamin A that should never be used in the sun, since it can actually stimulate tumor growth when exposed to sunlight.

Oxybenzone is another chemical that shouldn’t even be used on children at all, since it is a hormone disrupter…
Next, there is octocrylene, which breaks down and produces free radicals in sunlight, (free radicals are unstable molecules that can damage normal skin cells and turn them into cancer cells) and avobenzone, which also breaks down in sunlight and produces unknown chemical compounds (all FDA approved, of course!).

In addition I can also mention two toxic pegs, and two different parabens. Need I say anything more??? Would you put this sunscreen on a baby, or in a toxic waste dump? I certainly wouldn’t touch it…

So, what is the alternative? Photostable zinc and titanium mineral sunscreens? They may be safe to use, but who wants to look like Casper the Friendly Ghost? If you are like me, you would like to be safe, without the ghosty look. So, how would you know what to buy?
With a jungle of choices out there with more or less of a hefty price tags? How do you know what to choose?

Here is a hint: I just came across this awesome natural sunscreen review (with pictures!). This woman has put so much energy into her reviews that I want as many people as possible to know about her work. So, make sure you go and check out her natural sunscreen reviews!

Tags: safe sunscreens

As you all know, I’m not into chemicals, lazers, surgery or botox, even though I am born hopelessly vain and would like to preserve some youthfulness as long as possible. So, I’m always looking for alternative, more natural ways to keep the skin nice.

Recently, I discovered two very simple methods that I wanted to share with the rest of you. The first one is a very simple massage that I learned years and years ago from a shiatzu teacher. He used it on people’s back, to increase circulation. I just remembered this, and thought to myself, “Why not use it on the face?” So, I tried it over the last week or so, and it works great and feels good, too.

The technique is simple, and you can practice this on your thighs first. To get a feel for it, grab one hand around the wrist, and shake it. Keep the wrist on the hand that is shaken loose. It will flop back and forth. This is the right way. Now, try both hands. Lift your arms up and down, wrists flopping, and every time they come down, let the fingertips hit your thighs lightly. This is very different from pushing the fingertips into your thighs – they hit the thigh with just the weight of your floppy hands. It feels almost like heavy rain on your skin, and after doing it for a while, your skin starts to feel warm and glowing. The tempo should be quick, tap, tap, tap…

Now, you are ready to try it on your face. After cleansing and spritzing the face with toner, while you are waiting for the toner to dry a bit, tap your face with your fingertips. Make sure you tap every inch of your face, forehead, nose, cheeks, etc, and pay special attention to the area below the eyes.

One reason why we get bags under the eyes is lack of circulation which causes liquid to accumulate. By tapping this area, blood starts flowing, and liquid will drain.

When applying eye serum or concealer, the same thing applies. Instead of smearing and stretching the skin, just apply a dot of serum, and tap it in with the fingers.

You’ll quickly see the effect of this, because not only is it good for the skin, but the face is also full of acupressure points that will keep you healthy and give your skin a fresh glow.

This little ritual only takes minutes to do while you are waiting for the products to penetrate the skin, but you’ll notice the effect within days. So, it is well worth your time and effort. Just look at it as a new way of loving yourself more. Remember, skin care is all about pampering and loving yourself – so here is your chance…

I’ll give you the other tip tomorrow.
Visit my website for natural cosmetics products

Tags: Natural face lift

It is a fact – women love cream in jars! They look so cute in your bathroom, and you can see and smell the cream! However, natural face creams should never be in jars, unless the cream contains no water. Water equals mold and bacterias, which is bad news for your skin.

The reason why producers of toxic skincare products can get away with selling creams in jars is that they are full of parabens, sometimes 3 or 4 different ones. This is what it takes to deal with the daily contamination you cause by putting your fingers into the cream. It doesn’t matter if you wash your hands first – you are still going to contaminate the cream, and only parabens are strong enough to keep the bacterial growth at a level that doesn’t pose a health risk.

When it comes to natural cosmetics products, parabens are a no no, and we rely on natural preservatives, which don’t work like parabens. Parabens are anti-bacterial preservatives that actually kill bacterias in the cream, while natural preservatives work in a different way. Basically, natural preservatives work by making the cream unappealing and uninhabitable to the bacterias. However, this only works if the bacterial count is low. If you keep contaminating the cream on a daily basis, the bacterial count will eventually reach levels where they help each other stay alive, inspite of the natural preservative in the cream.

I tested this with lab tests before I chose what type of packaging to offer the product in. One of the products I tested was a jar of natural face cream that I used as a tester at a farmer’s market. All day long, people were taking out small amounts of cream with a stick and wiping it off on the back of their hands. After I got home, I tested the cream that was left in the jar, and even though nobody actually put their fingers in the jar, the cream was so full of bacterias that it shouldn’t be used on the skin at all.

This is when I changed my packaging. Now, I put thick creams, like the natural face cream with chamomile, and the chamomile body lotion, in recyclable airless containers instead. Yes, they are made from plastic, which is unfortunate, but at least they are recyclable, and the cream stays uncontaminated. I also tested one of these containers after using the cream for over a month, and it contained no bacerial growth.

Because I am comitted to creating products that are good for your health, I couldn’t possibly keep selling it in glass jars, since natural creams preserved with natural preservatives WILL end up getting contaminated. Keep this in mind, if you use natural face cream in a jar. NO JARS! Also, keep in mind, that if you have a problem with pimples and break outs, check to see if your face cream is in a jar. If so, that is part of your problem – you may be putting contaminated cream on your face that gets into your pores and causes infection!

So, be aware of the packaging, and stay away from jars, unless the product is just a waterless balm.

Tags: natural face cream

This is the conclusion I came to yesterday when looking at antiaging skincare products! I went to Sephora to see what other companies charge for their products, and what they actually have listed on their labels, and what I found was very disheartening! How are people supposed to know what product that is worth the money that they shell out? Do you actually get what you pay for? Not necessarily…

First, you have to understand what the FDA rules for labeling are. The rule is that the company has to list the ingredients in order of how much is in the product. What this means is that you have to list the biggest amounts at the beginning of the label, and smaller and smaller amounts towards the back. Most companies use synthetic preservatives in a concentration of 0.5% or less. Therefore, if a company lists active ingredients after the perservative, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that you are being scammed.

Unfortunately, a company only has to add one drop of something to a formula to be able to put it on the label, and they don’t have to tell you how many percent of an active ingredient they actually did put into the product. It all comes down to how much profit they can make, of course, since they don’t want to disappoint their share holders, not to mention the fact that women are so easy to dupe…

The truth is, the only way to tell if the product you are paying for is worth its price, is by looking at where, on the label, the active ingredients are listed. You’ll be hard pressed to find a product that have active ingredients, such as peptides, hyaluronic acid, biofermented sea weed or micro algae extract, listed in the first third of the label, but that is where it needs to be if you actually want the product to make a difference on your skin.

When they test the effect of peptides, like argireline, the tests are often performed and found to work at 10% concentration. This is why, if a company puts in 0.5%, the product isn’t going to make a visible difference no matter how long you use it, even though they may be using ingredients that have been tested and found useful as antiaging actives. The problem is, these antiaging ingredients are unbelievably expensive, and if they were to put the proper amounts into their products, it would cut into their profits quite a bit. So, instead, they just put in a little bit and count on people’s ignorance, because they know that most people don’t bother to read the labels…

After reading numerous labels yesterday, I found that most of the labels were written in unpronouncable chemical language, and the active ingredients didn’t even show up until the last two lines on the label, often after the preservative. This is why I came to the conclusion that these companies are run by thieves and scoundrels! That is what I call it, if someone charges from $100-$200 for 1/2 oz of products that only contains a tiny percentage of active antiaging ingredients.

So, the next time you are shopping for an antiaging serum, don’t look at the price as a guide for how good the product is – look at the label. If you can’t read any of it, know well it is full of poisons. If the peptides and hyaluronate are listed at the end of the label, you might as well save your money and find a cheap solution in Walmart instead.

Obviously, I can see the need to create an alternative antiaging product, made with a generous amount of active ingredients and no poisonous chemicals, since there doesn’t seem to be anything out there that is worth its price. So, this is my next project – to create an antiaging peptides serum that contains enough peptides and other goodies that it will actually make a visible difference on you skin over time. In fact, the whole first part of the label should be all active ingredients.
If you want to sign up for email updates so you can be notified when this product is ready for sale, CLICK HERE

Tags: antiaging, argireline, biofermented sea weed, peptides

I just read somewhere that the aging proces happens twice as fast after menopause! Bad news! It has to do with a slow down in cell production. The result is that the skin becomes more susceptible to environmental damage, because it doesn’t have the same ability to repair itself as it used to have. This is why most signs of aging has to do with environmental influences.

Younger skin renews itself so quickly that it easily recovers from environmental abuse, but it is a fact that menopausal skin must be protected and pampered if you don’t want it to just shrivel up.

In the medical world, they use extreme measures to deal with this issue. They use acid peels that are strong enough to stop your heart if the acid enters the bloodstream too fast (but of course, they don’t tell you that), or they mechanically grind off 2-3 layers of your skin (with steel brushes) so you can basically grow a new face, or they use lazers to “resurface” your face.

All this nonsense puts your whole body into a state of emergency where your whole life energy goes into growing new skin. But, this is not a good thing! To put the body into a state of artificial emergency basically puts the whole system out of balance! The energy has to come from somewhere, so where was it actually taken from? Are your inner organs going to end up sick because energy was taken from them to make you a new face? Definitely something to consider…

In the body, nothing is just a “local” problem – everything is connected and must be seen as a whole. So, what is the energetic price that you pay to have your face regrown? No doctor is going to tell you the answer to that question, simply because it doesn’t concern them… – so you must make your own decision based on your gut feeling and natural inner wisdom…

The other thing the docs love to give you is retinol creams that increases the cell turnover. It burns, it stings, it makes your skin irritated and inflamed, it makes your skin peel and it makes you more susceptible to sunburn. It also upsets the natural balance, by forcing the skin to make more skincells to get rid of the skin that is damaged from the retinol. What if the increased cell production eventually turns into skin cancer? Skin cancer also has increased cell production… – again, you must carefully make your own decision…

What if the time has come to accept that there is beauty at any age, and that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty? This doesn’t mean that we should just stop taking care of our skin because we are going to get old and wrinkled no matter what. No, there are still things we can do naturally that will make a difference.

Using a gentle natural face scrub is one way to stimulate the skin to make more skin cells without having to upset the whole energetic balance of the body. Another thing we can do is to moisturize with a natural face moisturizerthat contains hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid holds water on the skin and helps increase the water levels in the skin cells. This in itself is enough to decrease the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, since a lot of wrinkles are caused by lack of moisture. And to top it off, we need to use a protective barrier natural face cream for dry skin that prevents the moisture from evaporating.

Using natural cosmetics, the goal isn’t to grow a new face, or to look like you are only twenty for the rest of your life – the goal is to take care of the skin that you already have so you can preserve your natural beauty a little longer. Forget about tight, wrinkle free faces where the skin has been pulled so tight that it can be difficult to even close the eyelids. Looking at cosmetic surgery pictures, that isn’t my idea of young! All it says to me is “desperate!”

Don’t be desperate – just live your life to the fullest, and be young at heart…

Tags: natural skincare

Dum question, I know, but the term “moisturizer” is often used to describe highly different types of products. Sometimes oils are referred to as “moisturizers” and other times watery serums are referred to as moisturizers. Often times, you’ll find that a moisturizer actually contains both oil and water. So the question is, what is actuallly more moisturizing, oil or water?

The answer is easy – the skin needs both. As we become more mature, we start producing less natural oil on the skin. Since the natural oils work as protection that seals in natural moisture, the natural sealing of moisture will no longer happen. The result is that the natural moisture on the skin will start evaporating, and we end up with dry skin and wrinkles.

However, it isn’t as easy as it sounds at first. If you just add more moisture in the form of water, it will quickly evaporate. And if you add more moisture in the form of oil, nothing will evaporate, but the water levels in the cell tissues won’t increase either, so even though the oil keeps the skin soft, the skin will still be dry underneath (lacking in watery moisture).

Skincare companies have tried to come up with solutions – that is why they often recommend heavy creams for dry skin. But, the truth is, that heavy creams tend to stay on top of the skin and create a barrier, but they don’t increase the water levels either.

This has been a puzzle for me for a long time. I kept thinking that there MUST be a better solution! And then I got a completely new idea – products that you can layer on the skin! Now, this makes much more sense!

First, apply a thin, watery serum, such as the natural face moisturizer, that will seep into the skin cells and increase the water levels, and then, apply a heavy cream, such as the chamomile natural face cream or moisturizing oil on top, to seal in the moisture that you just added and keep the skin soft and protected. This makes so much sense to me, I’m surprised that other companies haven’t done it yet!

So, I have basically created a completely new concept in natural skincare – products that can be layered depending on each individual’s skin needs. Basically, each product has its own purpose, and you just pick the ones that you feel your skin needs each moment. This can vary depending on weather, temperature, seasons and of course, hormonal changes and age.

I also found a great article about skin moisturizers today, so please click if you want to check it out.

Go to Green Beauty Cosmetics to learn more about the benefits of natural cosmetics products that can be layered according to individual skin types

Tags: skin moisturizer

Living in Colorado, the air is definitely starting to be a bit nippy, especially while walking the kids to the shcool bus in the morning. So, I always make sure I do my face before I go outside.

Cold, dry weather is a veritable skin killer! It freeze dries your skin! Younger skin has enough natural oils in their skin to be able to handle the cold better, but when you start getting mature skin, it is a totally different story.

As we get older, we produce less hyaluronic acid and less oil. This means, drier skin with less protection. If we don’t add moisture and oil, the skin gets easily damaged and even more dry, and wrinkles are the result.

Wrinkles and lines aren’t just from old age, they are mainly from environmental influences.

My grandmother, who is now 95, has the most beautiful skin, almost wrinkle free. She used to spend tons of money on cosmetic products, and we were all laughing and thinking she was a bit silly to do so. However, at 95 you can really see the effect of her daily pampering. Her own daughter, who is 65 and a sun worshipper, has more wrinkles than her 95 year old mom!

To me, this really shows the value of good skincare habits. So, how do we best take care of the skin in the winter?

The most important product to put on your skin is a natural face moisturizer that is thin enough that it can penetrate deep into the skin and increase the moisture levels in the skin cells. A good moisturizer should contain hyaluronic acid, a natural component of the skin that can hold 1000 times its own weight in water. This works like a sprinkler system that will help keep the skin hydrated, and it can be used on any skin type.

Tags: natural cosmetic products, natural face moisturizer

When I sell my natural cosmetics products to local people, most people don’t even look at the toners. Everyone seems to know that we should cleanse and moisturize the skin, but why use a toner?

In my green cosmetics line, I offer two different toners that have two different purposes. The Rosewater toner is my daytime toner. It is made with alcohol free witch hazel which tones the skin and closes the pores. You have no idea how hard it was to find a witch hazel that was actually alcohol free! Alcohol may remove traces of soap from your skin, but it dries out the skin in the process. This is why there is no alcohol in any of my toners.

To bind moisture to the skin, I added hyaluronic acid, which is the best moisturizing agent on the market. And, then there is the sun-issue – to combat sun damage, I added 6 different antioxidants, including acai, gingko, roiboos, green and white tea and olive leaf extract.

The other toner was made as a night time toner, or a toner for extra sensitive or difficult skin. The apple cider toner balances the pH and naturally dissolves dead skincells since it contains malic acid from the apples. To calm inflammation and irritation, I added extract of chamomile, marshmallow and plantago.

All you need is a light spritz of toner before you moisturize, and all the goodness in the toner becomes sealed on the skin under your moisturizer.

If you would like to read a very informative article about 6 reasons why a toner is a must in your skincare routine, CLICK HERE.

Tags: alcohol free toner

Here is another great article I came across today about how much toxic chemicals are actually used in the skincare products we use on a daily basis. (CLICK HERE)

One of the things they are talking about in this article is the use of a preservative called BHA, which is a carcinogenic and can also harm your liver. The bad news is, that BHA isn’t just in skincare ingredients – it is also used in almost every box of cereal on the shelf in the supermarket. Go and check out the cereal you just ate, and you’ll see what I mean. Usually, the only kinds of cereal that don’t have BHA are organic types, and also General Mill’s regular honey cherios and kix. Everything else is downright nasty!

The same goes for cat and dog food. Why do you think that so many older dogs develop tumors and cancers? This is not a natural thing for a dog, so it has to come from the food. And if you read the ingredients, you’ll see why…

I used to work in a hospital in Norway before I came to USA, and many of my friends there died from cancer from chemical exposure while I was there, which was only for about 2 years. Therefore, I am passionate about giving people enough information so they can make educated decisions about what they put in or on their bodies, and making my own non-toxic natural cosmetics line as an alternative to toxic skincare products was my contribution to the world.

For anyone who don’t know that I am the owner of a green cosmetics line called Green Beauty Cosmetics, here is a LINK to my website, in case you want to check out a healthier alternative to all the poisonous products that are hiding behind pretty labels…

Tags: toxic cosmetics products