Susan Ciminelli

After steaming, apply one of the following masks.

Oatmeal and Raw Honey Mask – Ideal for dry skin, this mask helps soften the skin, moisturizing the upper layers, leaving it vibrant and radiant.

1 cup oatmeal
1 cup filtered warm water
½ cup raw organic honey

Combine the oatmeal and water and allow oatmeal to absorb water.  Mix in the honey.  Leave on for 30 minutes, rinse with cool water

Pureed Pumpkin and Prune Enzyme Peel – This peel is perfect for every kind of skin.  The salicylic acid in pumpkin and prunes helps remove a buildup of oil in the pores and will brighten your complexion.

1/2 cup pitted prunes
½ cup canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

Combine the prunes with 4 cups spring water in a pot and heat on low for 30 minutes. Combine the prunes and pumpkin puree in a food processor and pulse until smooth.  Apply and leave on for 30 minutes.  Rinse with cool water.

Both of these masks are easy to make with products you’ve likely got in your pantry, or if not, the ingredients are super easy to get.

At home masks and beauty products are fast and effective, if you manage to make just enough for one application. Otherwise, your fridge won’t have any room for food, it’ll be so full of cosmetics!

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Home Masks From Susan Ciminelli

Avocados - sxc.hu

Avocado Wrap

3 Avocados
3 tbsp. Of Yogurt

1. Mix avocado with yogurt
2. Apply over full body
3. Wrap feet and hands with a plastic bag
4. Take a rest and relax for ten or fifteen minutes
5. Rinse off

This super hydrating body wrap is rich in Vitamin E and is specially designed for dry skin.

Grand Velas Spa is the crown jewel of the AAA Five Diamond Grand Velas All Suites & Spa Resort and a member of Leading Spas of the World. The spa features 20 treatment rooms, over 80 spa treatments, a high-performance gym and exercise room, spa boutique and a beauty salon.

Stone Spa

From Spa Manager, Javier Pano, from the Stone Spa Barcelona, Spain

Sugar Scrub for Body : Mix olive oil with fine salt in the same proportions (use a spoon) and scrub using whole hand in circular movements.  Good for dry skin

Sugar Scrub for Face : Mix sugar with natural yogurt and scrub carefully in circular movements.  Good for oily skin.

1. Cleanse the skin before scrubbing.
2. Leave on for 2 to 3 minutes
3. Rinse with cool water

Both scrubs remove dead skin cells skin leaving the skin cleaner, smoother and brighter.

The Stone Spa, located in the Casanova by Rafael Hotels , is available to anyone seeking a rarified spa experience that combines pampering with innovative therapies. The spa boasts a treatment menu inspired by the Earth’s healing properties. Gemstones, smooth river stones and indigenous botanicals, culled from wellness traditions around the globe, are integrated into all of the treatments.  Each guest departs with a small stone or crystal, a tactile reminder of their experience at Barcelona’s most transformative refuge, the Stone Spa.

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Exotic Home Treatments

Hang Mioku, a 48 year old woman from Korea, got completely addicted to cosmetic surgery after her first procedure at 28. She moved to Japan and had even more operations.

After so many operations that she was no longer recognizable to her own parents, and surgeon after surgeon refused to do any more work on her, she moved back to Korea, where she was able to find a doctor to give her silicone injections. In a move that seemed innocent at the time, the doctor gave her a syringe so she could self-inject. Good call doc.

Photo: Saigo-Sinopix / Rex Features

When she ran out of silicone, she resorted to injecting cooking oil into her face. Yeah, you read that right – cooking oil. She seemed intent on plumping up her face and thought cooking oil was the best way to go about doing that.  Her face became so large that she was called “standing fan” by kids in the neighborhood.

After being featured on Korean TV, viewers felt bad for her and sent in enough donations for her to enable her to have surgery to correct her own poor judgment. The first procedure removed more than 60g of foreign substance from her face and more than 200g from her neck.

While she told the Telegraph that she too can see the damage she’s done to herself and would like her original face back, I’m not sure that someone who is so addicted to plastic surgery procedures that she would resort to injecting cooking oil will be able to simply go back to her original face and features without wanting to change anything.

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When DIY Treatments Go Horribly Wrong

The expectation is that we’ll begin to de-clutter our bathrooms, cabinets, cupboards and clear the tops of our dressing tables, bringing the focus to just those products we really need and coming to a state of Zen. Our beauty routines will become more efficient – from a time and product standpoint – and we’re going to start expecting our products to last longer.

Indeed, taking this trend another step down the line, we will make sure we use our products sparingly, and finish each product before choosing a replacement. Continue down that same line, and you’ll see more and more women turn to homemade beauty products to replace some of the necessary, but when it comes right down to it, frivolous items.

It’s going to be an interesting year for beauty products, especially as our refrigerators begin to fill up with homemade beauty products such as the recipe below:

Ingredients:

1 cup jojoba or grape seed oil
1 cup brown raw sugar
1 large lemon
3 drops of peppermint essential oil
2 drops lemon essential oil
10 mg vitamin C crystals

Method:

Combine the ingredients in a bowl and store it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Recipe provided by The Green Beauty Guide. Image source Wikimedia Commons

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Austerity Chic: Looking Good for Less

The Contour M and Afterglow Sensory candle set is delectable! Made from natural, paraffin-free cosmetic-grade wax, the massage candle has a low melting point and liquefies into nourishing, high-slip massage oil.  Once you’ve lit the candle, and give it about 30 minutes to melt evenly and to provide enough oil for a good massage, and then drizzle some oil into the underside of the Contour M, where it warms the ceramic to the touch.

Carefully turn the stone over and let it glide across your partner’s body. The Pink Lotus scent is a little overpowering for my personal tastes, but thankfully, JimmyJane offers several other scents, including Fig Leaf, Black Current and Bourbon.

There’s a few tricks to using your Contour M massage stone. Depending on the effect you’re looking to provide, or the kind of massage you want, you can place the Contour M so that the convex side is in contact with the body. This distributes pressure across a larger surface, allowing broader, shallower contact, which is good for broad strokes and is similar to using your palm to give a massage.  By placing the four nodes on your partner, you’re providing a more multi-point stimulation of their muscles, similar to using your fingertips to massage.

Finally, because the Contour M is ceramic, it can be warmed by submerging it in warm water or by pouring a small amount of warm oil from an Afterglow Massage Candle. Warmth, which is relaxing and encourages circulation is my hands down favourite, but others prefer ad invigorating, refreshing massage that a cool stone can provide. You can cool your Contour M by cooling it in the refrigerator or by running it under cold water.

The Contour M is double-fired porcelain, and is biocompatible, durable and easy to clean. The 5 oz. candle burns up to 42 hours, and is a 2.5" cube.  The set is available for purchase through JimmyJane, and retails for $45.

[image provided by JimmyJane]

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It’s not too late for a romantic Valentines

Skin care guru Celeste Hilling of Skin Authority has 10 tips for thrifty skin tips. With more than 15 years researching and developing products to help people get, and maintain, a gorgeous, glowing complexion, Celeste is encouraging people to "open your eyes, mind and bathroom cabinet while keeping your wallet closed!"

So, what’s stopping you? Time for the top ten:

1) Out With the Old – discard your beauty products one year after opening them because bacteria can grow in the bottle or jar potentially causing infections or irritation when applied to the skin. Use special caution with jars you dip your fingers or hands into as those tend to have more active bacteria growth. It’s a good idea to write the date purchased on the bottom of new products so that you know when it has reached the end of its useful life.

 2) Simplify your Beauty – Do you have 20 products on your shelf but don’t know exactly what they’re all for? Simplify to no more than three to four steps in the morning and at night. In the morning, you need a mild cleanser, an anti-oxidant such as Vitamin C and a sunscreen moisturizer. Before you go to bed, use resurfacing ingredients such as AHAs and retinols in addition to restorative peptides.

3) Wash your Face – it sounds simple and it is, cleaning your skin is one of the most important things you can do when you wake up and before you go to bed. Remove make-up and deep cleanse in one step by using cleansers incorporating AHAs, which are antibacterial and remove dead skin cells.

 4) Hands Off – regardless of the urge, keep your hands off your zits! By pushing and prodding, you are actually pushing bacteria deeper, causing more inflammation and potentially scarring the skin.

 5) Stop Smoking – in addition to its negative, carcinogenic effects on your body and overall health, smoking causes premature aging. Cigarette smoke contains more than 4000 toxins, many of which are absorbed directly into the bloodstream and are taken by the blood into the skin’s structure. Smoking also thins the skin, reduces collagen and contributes to an unflattering “apple” body shape in women.

 6) More Sleep, Less Stress – we don’t live in a utopian society, so it’s tough to manage enough sleep to make a difference in our stress levels. As one of the biggest impairments to skin care is stress, ease into a good night’s sleep by turning off the television, taking a warm bath, dimming the lights and practicing breathing exercises.

 7) Sun Protection – the sun is not your skin’s friend. Use sunscreen every day, rain or shine. To determine the quality of a sunscreen, check the SPF number on the label (those with SPF 15 or greater yield the best results), and the active ingredient label to make sure it has UVA-blocking elements such as titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, or anything in the avobenzone family.

 8) Cost Per Ounce – shop for skin care the way that you shop for food, by looking at the cost per ounce. What you’ll find is that products from spas and salons are a great bargain as they include complimentary consultations with a licensed esthetics expert, which you won’t receive when buying products at grocery, drug or discount stores.

 9) Don’t Buy Products Based on Price – while we’re on the subject of money, just because a product is expensive, does not mean it’s amazing. On the other hand, a product that costs less may not be a bargain that will work for you. Instead of shopping by price, evaluate the concentration of active ingredients and ensure any treatment product has a pH below four. The human skin ranges from 4.5-5.5 pH. A product should be below the pH level of the skin for maximum penetration. Otherwise, you might as well be using water!

 10) Free Skin Care Coaching – in light of the economy, Hilling has developed her own Skin Health Stimulus Package. Everyone now has access to a free phone or online consultation with a licensed professional to help them make safer, wiser choices on where to spend their skin care dollar or better utilize the products they already have. Simply dial 1.866.325.SKIN (7546) and say that you want to join the Beauty Workout.

Some of these tips are certainly easier said than done, but even if you reduce some of the environmental, physical and emotional stress you’ve got in your life, your skin will thank you for it!

[image source: Wikimedia Commons]

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Beautiful Skin at a Wallet Friendly Price

Glycolic acid can improve skin texture, tone and appearance; reduces pore size, wrinkles, and acne scarring. It’s also clinically proven to provide anti-aging benefits, preventing & reversing the appearance of sun damage, hyper-pigmentation and discoloration.

All of the AB Skincare products use a medical, pharmaceutical grade glycolic acid, rather than a compound which is what is traditionally used.

I’ve been using AB 10% recently, and while the scent of which hazel it contains for additional toning and tightening puts me off, and separating the individual pads is a little annoying, my skin has been fantastic!

The glycolic acid that AB uses is derived from sugar cane, so it’s all natural. The tiny molecules of glycolic acid is the best of all of the AHA’s (Alpha-hydroxy acids) and is penetrates the skin more easily than other AHA’s like Malic or Lactic acids.  Glycolic acid is a chemical exfoliant that reacts with the upper layer of your skin, breaking apart the dead skin cells. By removing the skin cells that clog your pores, your skin is able to create new cells, and the result is smooth, glowing skin. Basically, glycolic acid is a miracle maker!

There are several other products in the AB Skincare line, and I’ll be looking at AB Happy Feet and AB Sun in the future. AB 10% retails for $95 USD and contains 60 applications.

[image source: AB Skincare]

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Review: AB Skincare 10%

Jan Marini’s Zyme products use Green Papaya as their miracle fruit du jour. According to them, the enzymes used in the cleanser and mask is papain, a proteolyic enzyme found in green papaya. This Papain digests dead skin cells without harming your skin, which is both cool, and also kinda gross. That said, you do see an immediate difference in your skin’s texture, clarity and firmness. I’ve used Clean Zyme a couple of times since receiving it, and I can attest to the texture and clarity for sure, but I haven’t used it consistently enough to comment on firmness.

The Green Papaya Clean Zyme cleanser smells good, it makes your skin feel fantastic after use. Can’t really beat that.

The mask is also pretty fantastic, but it didn’t work nearly the way I expected it would. Instead of it drying the way clay masks do, this one stayed damp on my skin, and got… thinner for lack of a better description.

It did clean off well, and my skin felt great when all was said and done. Add a good moisturizer to this and you’re good to go.

[image provided by Jan Marini]

Tags: green papaya, enzymes, masks

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Review: Jan Marini Zyme Products

Future Natural’s goal is to provide people of all ages, gender and race with luxurious & effective alternatives to conventional beauty products. The site has stocked all of the best, natural and organic beauty brands in the world – from cult classics all the way through to boutuque products. Everything they carry has a common thread – they all use natural or organic ingredients, fair trade sources or  even environmentally responsible packaging.

The site has several categories of products, including a section for gifts, products for men, and travel products. They’ve even got an apothecary section.

Future Natural includes a complete glossary, provides a full disclosure of ingredients and offers visitors the stories behind the brands so shoppers can learn more about the products they’re putting on their bodies.

I got lost in looking around the site – there are so many products available, I wasn’t even sure where to begin!  At this point, the only think I can see that the site is missing is a blog or other interactive kind of sections.

The next time you’re looking for an organic skin care, travel products, fragrances, baby products… you know – basically anything you’d need to care for your body, take a look at Future Natural. You’re pretty much guaranteed to find what you’re looking for.

Tags: Organic Skin Care, Green skin care, eco-skin care, Future Natural, skin care, men, women, babies, travel, apothecary

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Looking for Organic Beauty Products?

That doesn’t mean that I’m not totally interested in seeing if some of these treatments would work for me. The chemical peels, microdermabraison procedures – anything that doesn’t require cutting or injecting anything into my face.

I got a chance to check out the Skin Rx Clinic Microdermabrasion Peel Kit – basically, a do it yourself, home microdermabraison kit. The kit promises that women using the kit can knock out fine lines, acne scars, unsightly brown spots, hyperpigmentation and uneven texture with one quick treatment at home.

The kit combines “double peel” technology of microdermabrasion crystals and 10% glycolic acid to peel away dead skin and promote cell regeneration leaving skin healthy. The crystals in the kit are the same as the ones utilized in doctor’s offices and specialty treatments, and are combined with vitamins A, C, and E and powerful antioxidants to promote and restore healthy skin.

It’s quite interesting – my skin felt fantastic after I tried it out. The kit is supposed to include a 4-headed wand -  a facial brush "wand" applicator tool that rotates for deep exfoliation. I didn’t get a want with my product, but it works equally as well with fingers.

Finally, the kit includes a soothing serum, which is an ultra cooling, soothing gel that uses hyaluronic gel, clinically proven to plump and pump skin with hydration and not oil. This is applied directly after using the crystal/glycolic acid peel,  and combines Canadian Willow Herb and Vitamin K to calm any redness and irritation while acting as anti-bacterial agents to aid skin regeneration and healing. The serum’s Vitamin B12 and aloe components increase your skin’s ability to repair and heal.

I don’t think that this is a product that I’d purchase on my own, simply because I haven’t gotten into specific skin treatments yet. I don’t have a favourite. If you like your microdermabraison treatments, and want to find a quick and easy way to do one at home, you’ll definitely enjoy this.

[image provided by Skin Rx Clinic]

Tags: Home facial, home procedures, microdermabraison, kits

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Review: Home Microdermabraison Kit