Ruby, diamond, gold! Skincare products are now more frequently advertised with these type of luxury ingredients. And then the asking price for such products is easily a couple of hundred euros. Better still La Prairie retail one product at 1,000 euros.
Parabens are deemed to be safe, found in food and cause very few allergic reactions. This all sounds very positive so far, so why the controversy? You only have to surf the internet to see the negative comments about parabens. Paraben free products are also on the increase. So why is this?
Last week I wrote about the benefits of using of a mask in ‘put on a mask’. Although a mask is not an essential part of your beauty regime, some people enjoy relaxing with a mask on now and again… It’s just a pity that the quality of the masks quite often vary ( and that is putting it finely).
If the magazines are to be believed then your ‘skincare regime’ is not complete without a weekly mask. I’ve personally never had enough patience for them. Besides I’m always a bit scared of being caught out by the rest of my family with a strange white face. Some people do swear by them.
You only have to google “pore-minimizer skincare” and you receive more than 50,000 responses. If there are so many products around that reduce enlarged pores, then there must be at least some that do actually work? But unfortunately, this is also such a good example of how we as consumers are sucked in by these claims. Enlarged pores cannot be reduced with normal skincare products. It’s high time we take a deeper look into this topic.
“There are many things that we know we know. There are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also things that we don’t know that we don’t know. And this last category grows each year.” This statement applies to many things in life, but also especially to do with the safety of cosmetics. How can we be sure and guarantee that ingredients in cosmetics are safe if we don’t ask ourselves what effect daily use has, on children, pregnant women and from long term use. Safety is a relative term that has been demonstrated many times throughout history. Remember a certain type of phthalates which were once safe but are now no longer permitted to be used in cosmetics. “At that time we didn’t know that we didn’t know it, but now we do know it”. Therefore today more information about Oxybenzone.
A lily white skin. You can find many stories in history books about this ‘ideal’. It was not only in the Georgian times, when wigs and white faces were fashionable, that people strived for a pale smooth face, but even long before this.
Dead skin cells form the outermost layer of our skin. They protect us, but can also make our skin look dull and uneven. Despite this, what we actually want is to have a radiant and even complexion.
One in five consultations with the Cosmetic Dermatologist is about pigment spots. Pigment spots can be stubborn and can make you look (maybe even more so than wrinkles) older than you actually are. If you see all the “enlightening” products available on the shelves you ‘ll be fooled into thinking that these annoying spots are simple to get rid of.
Last week my husband went on an annual trip with his “old” student friends. On his return (because, of course, we missed him so much…) the kids were waiting by the door to greet him with their banners, drawings, practiced dance routines, etc. When he eventually arrived home the children didn’t gave all their usual screams of joy. It was only our eldest, after a few minutes of silence, who dared to make the remark: “Papa you’re so red”. It turned out he’d spent a day on a sailing boat and hadn’t noticed anything due to the cold wind. Seriously burnt! After some harsh remarks (I write about the dangers of the sun daily, and this happens…) I did give him a few tips.