SkinAgain Blog

January 21, 2010

Accepting Our Imperfections – Part 3

My sister is eleven years older than me. I remember when I was a little girl, my dad made her a vanity, fancied with nooks and crannies for girly things, a huge mirror and a mirrored top to place fancy perfume bottles on. When my sister would leave in the morning to go to high school, I would play pretend at her vanity. She could probably tell that I got into her stuff, but she never complained.

I watched her take care of her skin and I learned how to take care of mine. I watched as she applied her makeup and I learned you don’t go out of the house without putting your ‘face’ on.

Yes, we called it the ‘face’ – the mask of makeup required for any self-respecting woman to be seen in public. The women in my family have clung to their individual versions of the ‘face’ as if survival depended on it. My daughters watched me do the same, and they too learned to cling to the ‘face.’

And then it happened… woman applying make up

My youngest daughter was in her first year of getting her RVT degree. The early mornings, long hours, tedious homework and late night job to help pay her way through college made the ‘face’ her least priority, and she parted ways with it for a while. Did it change who she is? No. Is she any less beautiful? No. Is she loved any less? No.

Conclusion? Makeup has little bearing on how others see us; it enhances our looks only by making us feel a certain way. And that’s ok.

SkinAgain, will be launching their Mineral Makeup line next month called Oxyplex – Oxygen Complexion, and since we don’t believe you need a mask to look like yourself, it has been carefully planned to be:

  1. Healthy for your skin with no parabens and less mica for low shimmer
  2. Packed with minerals and oxygen boosting ingredients
  3. Easy and quick to apply with great blendability
  4. Simple, all-natural colors that can be used all over the face – eyes, cheeks, lips, etc.
  5. More affordable than the leading mineral makeup brands

Do you apply the ‘face’ every morning and not go out of the house without it?

Please comment and tell us if you have any tricks that make your morning makeup ritual easy and / or fun!

January 11, 2010

Skin Product No No’s

Though we’ve entered a hopeful new decade, there are still skin care manufacturers who put inappropriate ingredients in their products, like parabens.

Consider:

Parabens are used at very low levels as preservatives (typically 0.01-0.3%) in a wide variety of personal care products, including hair care, skin care, and shaving products. Frequently, more than one paraben may be used in a single product.

There is little information on levels of parabens in people; more information is needed. However, studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did find methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, and butylparaben in human urine samples, indicating exposure despite the very low levels in products. In whole body application studies in people, Danish researchers have found that butylparaben can be absorbed through the skin.

The parabens listed below are weak environmental estrogens. They also can support the growth of estrogen-dependent breast cancer cells grown in tissue culture.

Names to look for:

  • Butylparaben
  • Isobutylparaben
  • Ethylparaben
  • Methylparaben
  • Propylparaben

Tell us what you think!


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