The Secret to Saving Your Skin, Your Health, And the Planet

We can treat our bodies the way we would like to see the planet treated. Here are ten ways to feel, and live, that relationship:

1. If a Natural Solution Makes Sense, Use It. Often, this means making an effort and allowing one's patience to kick in. For example, it may take a month or two for a great skin care regime to reveal its benefits. While the skin is repairing, it will appreciate the tender care you are giving it. This is one case when time really is on your side.

2. Don't Declare Chemical Warfare on Your body. It is very easy, and tempting, not to read labels, and it's often downright perplexing to decipher them. On the other hand, maybe it is not so hard. Lists of good ingredients, as well as lists of the nasty ones, now abound on the Internet. Learn to trace ingredients back to their testing sources. Fairly-sourced articles will provide a map of scientific documentation. Does this mean you will become a "consumer nerd?" Maybe. But you will also be able to pass on some important findings to your friends, and that's heroic.

3. Learn to Appreciate Natural Fragrances. Artificial fragrances may be temporarily hypnotic and yummy, but they may also contain telltale toxins that can accumulate in the body over time. There is a basic joy in getting a whiff of a product scented with an essential oil - like the enlivening cheer of tangerine. Try an earthy facial scrub made with pure ingredients like delicately fragrant cornmeal, which is very centering.

4. Look for Botanicals. The history of beauty is one long stroll through the garden. Plant species are going extinct each day, particularly in areas such as the world's rainforests. Few have a real sense of what we are destroying in the name of progress. Discovering the wonders of botanicals gives our skin its own garden experience. It also awakens us to our need to protect flora and the precious gifts plants bring us.

5. Cherish Our Oceans and Their Treasures. The world's oceans need our help to stay clean and healthy. As with botanicals, we have just begun to explore the life-affirming and healing harvest of the seas. Fortunately, those great ponds of blue existence still remain available to us in sustainable ways - as long as we consciously care for them. Look for precious marine ingredients in crèmes, cleansers, and serums, including those derived from seaweed and varieties of algae.

6. Cruelty-Free Skin Care Helps Create a Cruelty-Free World. We are often cruel to ourselves when we indulge in products of questionable quality. Yet, today, the marketplace offers us choices that allow us to purchase beauty products with 100 percent confidence in their integrity. Humanity's planetary cruelty is evident in the fevers of climate change. We can take animal experimentation out of this cruel equation, and lead the world back to balance. Look for the Cruelty-Free "Rabbit" logo before purchasing.

7. Science Refines the Gifts of Nature. Many of our world's environmental problems have been caused by thoughtless, and even reckless, science. It is time for all science to become both proactive and visionary. Luckily, such forward thinking is illuminating segments of the cosmetics industry, through the creation of cutting-edge cosmeceuticals, making the gifts of plants more readily available, without damaging their intrinsic nature.

8. Do Earth-Friendly Products Cost More? How Can I Afford Them? Sometimes they cost more upfront. However, the bigger picture offers a much different long-term picture. By investing in natural products, one may possibly avoid catastrophic disease - or even minor illness - associated with a villain's list of ingredients that constitute most skin and body-care products. Illness is very expensive, and feeds on our life-force. Earth-friendly products also cherish and protect the planet and its cumulative inhabitants. Can we put a price on that? Look for Internet deals that bundle your favorite products, and enjoy significant savings.

9. This Plan Is Asking Me to Be Perfect. And I'm not! A green lifestyle requires intelligent effort. It requires us to think about what we are consuming, how we consume, and the repercussions of that consumption. Unless you created the product yourself, and live alone in a bubble, everything you consume has some echo, both locally and globally. Perfection is unrealistic for most of us; however, we are all capable of making small, combined changes that will also surge across this small world.

10. Is Your Skin Care's Packaging Earth-Friendly? Companies that package their wares in harmony with the Earth let you know. This information can be found on websites or on the packaging itself. Those who don't take this extra step remain silent. If your favorite products aren't packaged responsibly, you are adding to the Earth's pollution.

The secret to saving your skin, health, and the Earth is self-education and conscious consuming. Every day is a new opportunity to experience the manifold beauty of this path, as we watch small changes add up to huge improvements

Onion for Healing Acne Scars

Onion is the essential taste giver in some of your favorite dishes. But, did you ever think of using it topically to treat your acne? Perhaps, you're frowning at the very thought of it! Yes, it makes you cry and is not a pleasant smelling thing to apply on your face, but you're sure to disregard that drawback, once you understand that it's pretty much effective in treating acne scars. Now that you're keen on learning that magic formula, let's get into the details!

What are the positive attributes of onion to help your skin? It has antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties that have helped in treating some internal ailments. From something as simple as fixing your appetite, to reducing the risk of colon cancer, onion has remarkable medicinal properties. Onion juice is known to give positive results in treating scar tissue and also influences collagen production. But, before you begin to treat your acne scars, make sure that your acne is under control. There are several ways to control your acne, be it applying topical lotions or adopting an acne diet. Treating from inside out is always better.

Acne scars generally appear in two forms - raised over the skin, and depressed, i.e. saucer-shaped. They form when damaged skin layers under the epidermis, i.e. the outermost skin layer, result in the production of excessive collagen fibers, which in turn, disturb the skin pattern and show as scars. Onion extract controls collagen production and is particularly useful in clearing keloid scars - a type of scar caused by collagen buildup over acne, resulting in a raised area. At the same time, onion extract stimulates collagen production when applied on depressed scars, making the skin more resilient and reducing the depth of the saucer-like scars.

An onion mask effectively heals your acne scars. Grind one peeled medium-sized onion in your food processor to make a paste, and mix it with 3 tablespoons of oatmeal that is already softened by pouring boiling water over it and keeping aside for five minutes. Make sure that the oatmeal is still warm. You may also add honey if it is not thick enough. Apply it on your face, leave for five minutes and rinse off with warm water. The mix will stay fresh for a week in your refrigerator. Alternatively, mix a tablespoon each of onion juice, carrot juice and olive oil with the yolk of one egg. Apply the mix on your face and wash after 20 minutes. It has a noticeable toning effect.

The brownish acne marks left behind by pimples eventually fade, but they are also likely to become stubborn scars. You must remember that squeezing or picking your pimples increases the risks of scarring. Acne scar treatment depends on the extent of your scars. Severe scars may require the intervention of a dermatologist, who may suggest remedies, ranging from the simple chemical peel to the expensive and complex laser resurfacing. So, if you wish to take a wise approach, it's important to understand that acne is chronic, starting at puberty and continuing into adulthood. Whatever natural acne remedies you try, make sure that you're committed and consistent!

4 Beauty Tips For Women To Stay Healthy And Beautiful Through The Ages

Beauty tips for women is an ongoing search, and one great temptation if you can afford it, is to use surgery to help cover up your natural aging. Sadly, there are many reports from women who feel that they now look worse after their expensive plastic surgery than they did before. Rather than taking a chance of an operation gone wrong, there are lots of tips and techniques that you can use to keep yourself looking and feeling beautiful rather than opting for an operation. In this article we will examine some beauty tips for women that will allow you to wear your age with pride and confidence.

Beauty Tips For Women #1: Diet

Diet is perhaps one of the most important beauty tips for women towards having and maintaining a healthy look. Consuming lots of fruits, vegetables and protein-rich foods does more than just benefit your general health. A diet like this also helps to prevent weight gain and increases your energy levels to keep you active during your day. These types of foods also have the benefits of encouraging strong healthy and shiny hair, strong fingernails, and results skin that has a healthy radiance.

Beauty Tips For Women #2: Water

Never underestimate the importance of drinking enough water daily which makes it one of the top beauty tips for women. There are numerous benefits of avoiding dehydration, one of them being the effect it has on the appearance of your skin tone. Many common beverages such as pop, coffee and especially alcohol actually help to dry out your skin and encourage the growth of wrinkles. To avoid these dehydrating effects that may lead to wrinkles, it is important to drink lots of water and use a daily moisturizer. A simple but effective combination to reduce the occurrence of wrinkles. Smokers and sun worshippers also run the risk of seeing premature wrinkles, so it is essential that sun screen be worn on hot summer days, even when cloudy. Giving up smoking will not only discourage wrinkles, but may allow you to live longer as well, which for some of you may be the best one of these beauty tips for women in this article

Beauty Tips For Women #3: Regular Exercise

Any listing of beauty tips for women would not be complete without mentioning the need and importance of regular exercise to maintain good health and good looks as we all age. Keeping active is the key, whether you enjoy simply walking or more strenuous activities such as jogging, swimming, cycling or sports such as soccer, hockey, baseball, tennis, skiing, and the list goes on and on. All of these activities will help to keep you healthy and feeling good about yourself so that you will not even consider any type of surgery to deal with aging. Another spin-off of regular exercise is the hidden benefit it also has on your mental state and how you feel about yourself.

Beauty Tips For Women #4: Age Acceptance

Our final point in beauty tips for women is all about age acceptance. Learning to live with their age is something that many people refuse to accept. Often this age denial results in these people making complete fools of themselves in public! As an example, women in their 50s trying to dress like 20-year olds wearing tight clothing and bleached hair, when clearly they do not have the figure or appearance to pull it off. Certainly not one of the beauty tips for women that we want to encourage!

Instead learn to dress and behave in ways that are expected for people your age. Embrace your age and looks rather than trying to be someone you obviously are not, at least not for the past 20 years. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with wearing fashionable or trendy clothes or for that matter dying your hair to cover up the grey, but don't end up looking like a clown in the process! You can look and feel young at heart without being the centre of attention for the wrong reasons.

Aging is a natural process that everyone must deal with. Sadly many people refuse to accept this fact and rather than learning to live with it and look at the positives, they spend their days, and sometimes large sums of money, trying to cheat nature. Rather than searching online and reading book after book on beauty tips for women and looking for the magic pill for eternal youth they should pay attention to the basics.

Simply eat healthy foods, drink lots of water, engage in a regular exercise routine and learn how to be beautiful by following these basic beauty tips for women. This will help you to look and feel great about your current age, whatever it is now, and will be in the future. I hope that you have found these beauty tips for women useful