Broke? Or just sick of all your fancy Sephora products? (I'd be happy to give them a good home.) I wrote a piece for Vital Juice Daily about natural masks you can make simply by opening up your refrigerator door. Read it here.

Labels: skincare

Eschewing chemicals for eco-friendly ingredients, Sum Body's soaps and bath products are made from the salt of the earth. Quite literally. Beeswax and clary sage, almond and carrot, cinnamon and dead sea salt - everything on the menu is 100 percent pure. The result is a soap requiring great restraint, lest you take a bite out of it.



(Starry starry night soap. Smells like black licorice on Halloween. May or may not taste that way.)

Labels: skincare

My favorite holiday has arrived. Spa Week, April 16-22, offers spa-y things (that's the scientific term for facials and massages and scrubs and such) for 50 bucks. Check the web site for participants.

Labels: skincare

I just paid my credit card bill. On it was a trip to Sephora that equaled the rough equivalent of two nice meals (with alcohol) in San Francisco. In other words, only slightly less than the gross domestic product of Lithuania. In a good goat year. What did I buy on this pricey excursion? Not a hell of a lot, to be frank. Some lip balm, sunscreen, and a wee bottle of face wash. This just makes me feel stupid and, people, I don't like to feel stupid. Hence, rethinking the skincare approach. This makes me very female doesn't it? To have a skincare approach. To even use the word "skincare." Yes.

Instead of spending piles of cash at Sephora or Kiehl's or any of my other usual haunts that somehow don't include Walgreens because I am a product snob (no one in my tax bracket should be allowed to apply the phrase "product snob", by the way), I turned to my fridge. Everyone has read these articles in blogs and magazines, these "Save time and money by washing your face with ketchup!" kinds of articles, but rarely have I found one that explains why it's a good idea to wash your face in ketchup. (It's not, by the way. Don't use ketchup.)

Honey

Honey rocks. It tastes good and apparently does everything but scrub the bath tub. Impressive results from what is essentially bee vomit. Honey is, according to my internet research, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory. Which means it will clear up existing infections and help skin heal while preventing new messes. It also draws moisture, which we all love, especially when it comes in a $5 squeeze bottle rather than a $45 pot that could also be used to store pennies. Two of them.

You can mix honey with brown sugar or oatmeal for a scrub or mask, or just use it plain as a dual cleanser and moisturizer. Here's what I do, if you care:

I rinse a washcloth with warm water open up my pores and loosen whatever is in there. Which usually doesn't bear thinking about. Then I smear the honey on my face and rub it in. Rinse off with the warm wash cloth and splash on cold water to close the pores again.

For a straight honey mask you do the exact same thing, only, after applying the honey, let it sit for 15 minutes. I've never actually done this because it requires me to sit still for that long.

Here's a whole host of other honey uses.

Citrus

Original source for alpha-hydroxy acids. It's much cheaper to go to the source, my friends. Grapefruit and lemon are best, as I'm not sure you'd want to deal with orange juice. Lemon is a bit harsh, so unless you have a few layers that need removing, use it sparingly on the face. It is good for elbows, knees and hair. Grapefruit is gentle so I use it on my tender, blushing skin. If I've eaten a grapefruit for breakfast, I'll take the rinds with the extra grapefruit flesh into the shower with me. After washing my face, I'll massage in the grapefruit - face, neck, chest. Rinse it off and voila. No mess, no painful credit card bills.

Part II will be coming soon. In the meantime, here are things in your refridgerator you shouldn't put on your face: tabasco sauce, mustard, cheddar cheese. You're welcome.

Labels: bargains, skincare

I recently paid upwards $20 for lip balm. ($22.50, to be exact.) In my (rather weak) defense, Fresh Sugar lip balm is the lip balm of the gods. Seriously. Hera endorses it. Zeus sneaks into her makeup bag, looks furtively both ways, then slathers it on so his lips are moist and plump before dining on ambrosia in the God Hall.

This stuff has SPF 15 (I was feeling insecure about the lack of SPF on my lips) and sugar. Who knew lip balm had sugar? If you're raising your hand, DEAR GOD, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME EARLIER? It appears to have such random ingredients as blackcurrant oil and grapeseed poly-somethings. All I know is that it heals chapped lips right up, smells awesome, and is expected to keep my lips from withering up and falling off.

Labels: skincare

Cara Mia Skin Studio in Larkspur, California, is closing on March 25. I got the mini green herbal peel a few months ago and my conclusion, if you're wondering, is that it's quite awesome. It tingled and crackled and did nice things for my somewhat less than perfect skin. I wrote about it in more (read: paid) depth here.


Green goop on the face. No wonder men don't understand women. How can this possibly be fun? And yet, it so is.

Labels: skincare

The great and mysterious They (you know the ones, they're always saying something) declare (rather smugly) that it's better to give than receive. Perhaps. But isn't it even better to both give AND receive?

I thought so.

Here's an example of how the "one for you, one for me" shopping plan might look. Not that I would know or anything. Ahem.

Your charming younger cousin is always perfectly turned out. Rarely being perfectly turned out yourself, you hesitate to buy her something she would...not scoff at, she's too polite, but perhaps toss in a drawer, never to see the light of day again. Nixing jewelry, clothing, saucy hats and rubber boots. Lip gloss - maybe. But lip gloss is so subjective. There are so many options. Most of which are bound to be too sticky, glossy, garishly colored...or not sticky, glossy, garishly colored enough. So... how about bath paraphernalia? Barring the ever-tacky fistful of cash, that might be the best option.

Prime disseminator of tasty bath products, Philosophy's special blends don't instill the fear of "what if she doesn't take bubble baths?" because these suckers are bubble bath, bath gel and shampoo all in one. Oh yes. And everyone bathes and washes their hair. Well, most of everyone, and certainly the well-turned out cousin.

My seasonal favorite is Philosophy's double rich hot cocoa. What could be more decadent than sudsing up with something that smells just like hot chocolate? (Though it doesn't work so well as shampoo and I found it disturbing to loll about in brown bath water, it's still just delicious as bath gel, therefore....) Buy one of these for me ($16)...



...and one of these for the cousin. Philosophy's Ski House gift box comes with hot cocoa bath/body/shampoo goo, marshmallow body souffle and peppermint lipshine ($35). She will love it. So will virtually any woman who bathes.

Labels: holiday, skincare

Kiehl's devotees know goodness doesn't come cheap. The cash I've spent on oil-free spf 25 and blue herbal moisturizer doesn't bear calculating. Financing a small third-world country would probably be less expensive than keeping my skin from flaking off, erupting in hives, or otherwise leaping from my body in search of a host who's willing to pay what it takes to keep skin happy.

Lovers of this estimable company will be thrilled to know that, until November 27, you can use the code "Friday" to score 20 percent off and free shipping. So go shop. I'll wait.

(Thanks to Delight for the tip.)

Labels: bargains, skincare

Anyone who's ever had a zit should rejoice with me, pausing only to run out and buy some of this stuff. It's not attractive. Your evening bed mate will think you've contracted poison oak and are self-medicating with calamine lotion. But it works. Avoiding the plaguing wretchedness of pimples is worth $17 in my opinion.


I plastered on some of my new bottle of Mario Badescu drying lotion before climbing into bed and, by morning, my zits had decreased by half. I know how fascinated you are by the workings of my zits (read: not at all), but I'm trying to make a point here. I've never experienced that kind of disappearing action from any of the multiple potions I've tried in my years of troubled pores.

Must be magic.

Labels: skincare

We now break from our previously scheduled program of irresponsible internet shopping to bring you a beauty tip. I never proffer beauty tips as I am neither qualified nor interested in anything but shoes. This is the exception.

I've spent a lot of money in my day attempting to keep my face, if not porcelain smooth, at least incapable of frightening small children. Imagine my delight when I realized that all that money was wasted. Yes, wasted. Because, apparently, all you need for a fresh-faced glow is a bottle of castor oil, a bottle of olive oil, and a wash cloth. All of which are far cheaper than your average Sephora trip.

Rubbing oil into your pores may seem counterintuitive. Or downright retarded. But my skin hasn't broken out once since I started this regime o' skincare and I've saved somewhere in the range of 50 bucks in pricey moisturizer.

Here's how it works: Rub generous amounts of castor oil into the blemish prone sections of your face. Rub generous amounts of olive oil everywhere else. Rinse a washcloth in hot water, squeeze it out and lay it on your face to let the warmth open your pours and allow the oil to penetrate. Repeat once or twice. Remove the oil with the wash cloth and splash your face with cold water. (Keep the wash cloths on a steady washing machine rotation to avoid rubbing yesterday's dirt into your pores.) Voila. No soap, no moisturizer - just oil. It's a remarkably good deep cleanser and gratifyingly cheap. I do use sunscreen in the morning and eye makeup remover when necessary, but nothing else.

At this rate, I'll be able to afford these in about two months.

Labels: skincare