Archive for the ‘skin deep’ Category

I’ve heard them called saggy, baggy, flabby, wiggly, and jiggly.

I’ve also heard them called bat wings or angel wings, although there’s nothing angelic about them!

You know what I mean - that flap that hangs from your upper arm and wiggles when you wave goodbye.   One of my sisters had a teacher with arm flab that quivered impressively when she wrote on the chalk board.  The teacher’s first name was Valeria so my creative sister named that body part valeria as in, “Wow! Look at that lady’s valeria!”

Whatever you call it, today I’d like to offer 2 tips for avoiding saggy arms.

1. Don’t lose weight too quickly.  When you lose weight too quickly your skin doesn’t have time to adjust and conform to your new shape.  Also, people who lose weight too quickly are more prone to gaining it back.  If you continuously re-stretch your skin, it eventually loses it’s elasticity and is unable to tighten up any more.
2. Exercise to build muscle. Skin that’s filled with nice, firm muscle won’t be as jiggly as skin filled with gelatinous fat.  And when you diet away your arm fat, exercise to fill that space with muscle rather than let it go to flab.

Of course there’s no way to eliminate all the motion unless your arm is completely made of bone!  But you can create a healthy, firm sway rather than settling for quivery, saggy arms!

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The emergency bra – this was just too good not to share!

I wonder if Victoria’s Secret will be selling emergency bras any time soon?

Share this article and brighten someone’s day!

For beautiful skin, avoiding these 4 things is more beneficial than trying to correct with lotions and creams after the damage is done!

1. Stress Everyone has some stress in their daily lives but excessive worrying or long-term stress stimulates the production of chemicals which can cause your skin to thin or some skin conditions (such as acne) to become worse.  Try exercising regularly to keep your stress levels under control.
2. Missing sleep This is somewhat related to #1 above.  Stress-induced hormones are at their lowest levels during sleep so the more hours you can spend sleeping, the longer your skin has to relax and recover.
3. Alcohol Drinking alcohol dehydrates your whole body including your skin.  Dry skin is not beautiful skin!
4. Sun This category includes the artificial sunlight in tanning booths. According to Harvard Medical School, photoaging, or overexposure to sunlight, is “the single biggest cause of damage to the skin.”

For me, tanning is a public service. I live in the Great State of Texas where the summers are hot and wearing shorts is a given.  But, in my natural exceedingly  pale condition, my exposed legs would blind innocent bystanders by the dozens!  Hence, I tan.

But I also don’t want to become dry, spotty, and wrinkly, much less cancerous.  I’m sure you don’t either!

So what are our options for safe tanning?

Spray On Tan You can go into a salon and walk out with an instant beautiful glow in less than an hour.  The tanning tech helps you select the best shade for you, then simply airbrushes you.  She sprays on the color evenly without missing any spots, which would be hard to do if you tried to spray it on yourself.  Bring your swimsuit to wear during this process unless you want to stand in your undies or in the buff.  I have not tried this method but I have friends who swear by it and they say the spray does not stain fabric.

Self-Tanning Lotion Back in the day, self-tanning products were like smearing orange food coloring on your skin.  They went on streaky and looked way more orange than tan.  But now the tanning ingredients are added to moisturizing lotions so they go on evenly, although you have to be careful not to miss any spots.  My only complaint about self-tanning lotions is the smell.  Some smell better than others but they all have, in my opinion, an unpleasant odor.  To deal with this, I usually apply the lotion to my legs (I only use it on my legs) about an hour or two before I go to bed.  After my morning shower the smell is gone,  just leaving my nicely browned legs.  It doesn’t stain my sheets but, if I’m not doing laundry that day, I do leave the bed unmade to air out any residual aroma.  Once or twice a week is all it takes.

What about tanning beds?

In my opinion, tanning beds are not a safe option. You are still using light rays to change the appearance of your skin, and any skin color change, including tanning, indicates damage. I’m sure you’ve heard of UVB and UVA light rays.  The UVB rays do the visible damage to the surface of your skin.  The UVA rays penetrate more deeply into the skin and kill living cells below the surface.  While  modern tanning beds have eliminated most of the UVB rays, they mostly emit UVA rays, which are the ones that do the deep tissue, cancer causing damage.

One more thing:  sunless tanning products do not provide any sun protection so you still need to use sunscreen whenever you are going to be exposed to the sun.  If you will be swimming or sweating, re-apply your sunscreen at least every hour.  Stay safe!

Please leave a comment about your experience with safe tanning and consider sharing this article with your friends and followers.  Thanks!

Getting your skin ready for summer

During the winter months I get really lazy about skin care.   For example, I tend to go weeks at a time without shaving my legs. My rational is twofold: (1) my hair is very pale and doesn’t show unless you’re really close, and (2) my legs are always covered by pants or tights in the winter.  But I knew I had let shaving slide for too long when, one morning after toweling off after my shower, I could feel that static electricity feeling tickling my shins!  Rather than using conditioner on my leg hair, I broke down and shaved.

But now the first warm, sunny days are appearing and I want my skin to be healthy and ready for unwrapping.  Here are some things you can start doing now to have summer ready skin.

Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize! If you don’t do it already, get into the habit of moisturizing after every bath or shower.  Apply body lotion from your shoulders to your finger tips, and from your hips to your toes.  If you’ve been using a heavier cream on your face during winter’s dryness, you probably want to switch to a lighter weight lotion.

Exfoliate. When I used to live at the beach, my daily barefoot walk in the sand kept my feet smoothed and polished.  But now that I’ve moved inland I have to remember to use a loofah or exfoliating scrub.  Exfoliating the rest of your body occasionally is also a good idea, especially your elbows and knees.  Be sure to follow up with moisturizer.

Use sunscreen. Any skin that will be exposed to the sun needs to be protected.  Depending on your activity level and the length of time you’ll be outside, you might be able to get away with simply using a moisturizer containing sunscreen.  But if you’ll be swimming, sweating, or just soaking up the sun for long periods of time, you’ll need an actual dedicated sunscreen product, and you’ll need to reapply it regularly.

Hydrate! Drinking plenty of water moisturizes your skin from the inside out!  Staying hydrated also helps protect you from heat stroke.