Beauty Black Magic: Infotone Hydrating Mist

I feel like I may be going a little coocoolala.  I have been spraying plain old water on my face and I have been seeing some amazing results.  Like, results all sorts of potions and lotions couldn't really get a handle on in the past.

I have always been skeptical of the bottled waters sold for the face.  Evian and Avène have cult followings.  Both tout healing and wondrous properties like healing eczema or calming rosacea.  I once used a 100% pure water spray an esthetician forced on me a few years ago and the half-full bottle found its final resting place in the recycle bin.  I just didn't see any difference in my skin with this extra step.

Fast forward to a face that is super-stressed from school drama.  My skin is splotchy and red, with some stress breakouts, to boot.  I don't know what possessed me to order some Infotone Hydrating Mist (stress shop much?), but after about three weeks of using this everyday I have started to notice some great changes in my skin!  My tone has really evened out and become less red and my stress blemishes seem to be healing much more quickly.  I definitely didn't see these kind of results with the elixir that esthetician duped me into buying years ago, either.

So, here I go with the real coocoolala part....Infotone claims, "Each mister contains a non-toxic and 100% natural ceramic bead infused with Aistiva's patented BioT™ technology. BioT™ allows simple spring water to activate skin's natural healing ability resulting in clear, youthful, and glowing skin."  Erm, excuse me?  A magic bead that heals my skin with what?  Magic vibrations?  You also can refill the bottle for up to a year and this bead will apparently fuel the new water with the same magic.

I know.  I am rolling my eyes at myself!  But, damn, if that magic bead hasn't given me some better skin!  If the placebo effect is wrong in this case, I don't wanna be right.

Have you ever had a beauty product or ritual that you are convinced can't work, but does wonders for your skin?  I don't want to be alone in this, people!

Natural Beauty: Lavender Oil

One thing I missed most about Goldteef was getting to dish about my favorite natural beauty discoveries and disasters (don't worry, more to come on that!).  One little epiphany I had was while dealing with my post-finals stress face...which means yicky cystic acne that takes weeks to resolve.  I'm sure my steady intake of treats and sweets didn't help matters much, but I can count on a really stressful time in my life manifesting itself on my face!

Enter soothing and serene essential lavender oil.  I've been using it for years to scent my sweet almond oil or grapeseed oil I use as a body moisturizer, I even have gone so far as to put it in my humidifier at night when I have a cold or need to relax.  I've never thought about putting it on my face!

One evening, after washing my sad and broken-out face, I thought I'd give lavender oil a whirl applied directly to my craters.  Now, before you go slathering essential oils all over your face willy-nilly, be warned that some essential oils are much too strong for direct application (I'm looking at you, tea tree oil!) and must be "cut" with a carrier oil, such as jojoba or coconut oil.  This means I was literally a skin-care-Columbus, applying straight lavender oil directly to my face.

I OOZE adventure, people.

Natural Beauty: Dry Shampoo

Isn't this ad from the 70s ridiculous??  But honestly, I hate the greasies more than you know when it comes to my hair.  I also hate getting up even a nanosecond before I absolutely have to, and sometimes washing my hair just ain't an option.  Enter the holy freaking grail of dirty hair: dry shampoo.

I really like Salon Grafix Invisible Dry Spray Shampoo.  It really is invisible and adds an amazing texture to your hair.  If I'm going to braid my hair, even if it's squeaky clean, I spray this on to help the hair "grip" and stay in place before I start braiding!  A bottle lasts forever and you can pat your back for being a natural beauty and saving so much water;)!

Another cheapcheap option for dry shampoo is an old school fave, Psssssst Instant Spray Shampoo.  While this does leave a white powder on your hair at first, one you work it into your roots, your volume and texture will rival Brigitte's and the white powder magically disappears!  A bottle of this stuff will also last you a million years, so your down to, like, negative pennies per use.

 Batiste has had a cult following in the dry shampoo department for awhile and while I've never used Batiste Dry Shampoo, I have an ALWAYS well-coifed fashionable friend who swears by it!  Her tip is to use it on clean hair from the get-go for great volume and control.  Girl's hair is amaze and this is the next dry shampoo on my shopping list.  Trust.

Natural Beauty: Natural Moisturizers

When perusing the local Whole Foods for an all-over moisturizer I could use in the arid Utah climate I came to two conclusions: 1) paraben-free moisturizers are spendy and/or 2) natural moisturizers are kinda goopy and sticky.  I neither like goopy or spendy, so I decided to move a few aisles over to the cooking oils to see if I could find a better alternative to moisturize my whole body.  I was pleased to discover nature already has my back: there are quite a few oils typically used for cooking (here in the U.S.) that are amazing for keeping your skin moisturized and glowing!

Enter the holy grail of oils, coconut oil!  This versatile oil not only is an amazing moisturizer for your entire body, it's great for your face and hair, too.  Coconut oil has antibacterial properties, so slathering it on a blemish or scrape can actually speed up the wound's healing time.  Coconut oil absorbs rather quickly, so it doesn't leave too much of a residue behind after application.  Coconut oil also naturally smells amazing!

Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, but it quickly melts when applied to the skin.  If you want to use it in your hair, I recommend melting a little in a bowl in the microwave and letting it cool before application.  Coconut oil really has a ton of beauty uses!

Another great moisturizer is sweet almond oil.  It is quite a bit more viscous when compared to coconut oil and is commonly used as a massage oil.  I love it as an all-over moisturizer, except for the face.  With a light hand and applying right after the bath or shower, your skin will be glowing for the rest of the day!  Sweet almond oil doesn't have a smell, which can be considered a good and a bad thing.  If you want your skin to be lightly scented, you can add a few drops of essential oil to the large container of almond oil and mix well.  Be advised that some essential oils can be irritants, so if you have sensitive skin, I'd stick to fragrance free!

The last natural moisturizer I love is grapeseed oil.  It shares many of the same properties as sweet almond oil, but is just a tad "lighter."  I like to use grapeseed oil in the summer, while sweet almond oil is what I use for the drying winter months.  Grapeseed oil is scentless, so if you want to add essential oils for fragrance, that's up to you!

Another way to moisturize we really don't think about is from the inside out!  Taking 2000-6000mg a day of fish oil can up the moisture content of your skin.  Vegans and vegetarians report that taking flaxseed oil can help in moisturizing the skin.  Drinking water throughout the day is also an effective way to keep your skin glowing!

Natural Beauty: Sunblock

Me and the sun have had a rocky relationship over the years.  I was a lifeguard and taught swimming lessons for close to seven years.  While I always wore sunblock, I still managed to get a deep, dark tan.  I also love to ski and, while in high school, I was logging about five days a week up on the slopes.  The story was the same: I put sunblock on, but still managed to cultivate a pretty mean raccoon-tan by the end of the season!

Now I put sunblock on just to go to the office!  My days of reading in the sun or sitting on the back porch for a quick ray or two are gone.  I'm already starting to see the effects of my years in the sun!  I have started to get some pretty dark sunspots and fine lines are creeping their way into the corners of my eyes.  While we all know the ideal situation is to never have gotten a tan, I have tried to be diligent about my sunblock use, so matter what the season!

One of my favorite sunblocks to use on my face is Josie Maran Protect Daily Sun Protection Argan Oil Infused 40+.  It's free of all the gunk I try to keep off my skin and it only uses physical sunblockers to protect from the harmful UVA and UVB rays.  There is some hotly contested research that eschews chemical sunblocks because they are so readily absorbed into the body.  I've been trying to stick to sun protection that is physical and inert (meaning your body can't absorb it!): the active ingredients are zinc oxide or titanium oxide.

I also really like Peter Thomas Roth Instant Mineral SPF 30.  I dislike how sometimes your sunblock can make you too shiny, this I just use as finishing powder after my makeup!  You also don't have tp wait for 30 minutes before heading outside!

What are some of your favorite sun protectors?  We all know a wide-brimmed hat is brilliant for a sunny day, but what are your tried and true methods for protecting your skin?

Natural Beauty: Exfoliation

I was struck one evening by a scary line uttered by my favorite jerk on Mad Men, Roger Sterling, something to the effect of "...after 30 women just seem to lose that glow."  Now, I'm pretty sure Roger was speaking, ahem, euphemistically, but he was pretty spot on in terms of glowing skin: at around the age of 30, cellular turnover slows down, and skin can start to look dull.

We can combat this dulling effect a number of ways, the most important being maintaining a healthy intake of fresh foods and moving around on a regular basis.  Sunblock is also another must in the holy book of great skin, sun damage is the number one aging factor for our skin.  Also, if you smoke, sorry, but you are aging your skin at an even more accelerated rate...if you don't believe me, just think of the people you know who are lifelong smokers.

If you have the basics of keeping your skin looking healthy, now you can move on to exfoliation.  Exfoliation is just a fancy term for buffing the dead skin cells off the surface of your skin.  When skin is younger, this process happens pretty naturally, but as we get older, it can help to give your skin a little "oomph" one or two times a week.

Enter the Boscia Illuminating Black Mask.  This is a crazy, but really effective, way to get some heavy duty exfoliation into your beauty routine.  It's made with clay, pine tar, vitamin C, and witch hazel to help clean the gunk out of your pores.  It also will take the flaky top layer of skin cells with it.  Slather this on, wait 20 minutes, and peel off.  It's like a Biore Nose Strip for your entire face.  The great thing about this mask is that it's free of parabens, dyes, and other artificial crap you wouldn't want to be slathering all over your body.

So try to incorporate a scrub or peel into your routine once or twice a week to help let your beautiful skin shine through!  You won't be unhappy with the results!

Pit Juice Thunderdome!

I have been conducting a real-life science experiment since July.  In my efforts to stop putting crap, in, on, and around my body, I thought a great place to attack would be my antiperspirant.

Since the presence of aluminum in anti-stinky stuff for the underarms has been possibly linked to breast cancer and other heath issues for quite some time, I knew I'd have to give up the ghost of NOT sweating all together.  Antiperspirants actually clog the pores in your underarms, hindering your apocrine and eccrine glands from "sweating" at all, and no sweat means less places for bacteria to grow and start to funk up the place.  Deodorants, allow your glands to sweat, but wage war on the bacteria that try to set up camp in your sweaty armpits.  The only natural options are all deodorants, since one of the functions of aluminum it to stop up those glands from leaking!

SO, the rating system I chose for these natural pit juices is from 1 - 5 Sweaty Bettys.  "1" meaning a Sweaty Betty like myself would need to reapply alllllll day long at every bathroom break possible and I'd still be a stinky mess.  "5" Sweaty Bettys means, while you are sweating, there is little to no stinkage detected and if re-application is needed, it's after working out or a stressful presentation (this happened!)  Points were also deducted for ingredients that could be health no-nos, but have yet to be proven as completely dicey to use.  I used each pit juice for three weeks to allow them to get their mojo started.  Let's get to the Pit Juice Thunderdome!!!

Tom's of Maine - 1.5 Sweaty Bettys
Tom's of Maine Long-Lasting Care gets a whole Sweaty Betty ADDED for it's awesome ingredient list!  Every ingredient is listed and explained on their website, no extra gunk here, like synthetic fragrances.  If you don't perspire, just "glow" as my junior high P.E. teacher told me that's what girls should do, then by all means, get some Tom's of Maine on your pits.

Unfortunately, I was smelly by my second cup of coffee the mornings I swiped this on.

Mbeze Deodorette and Dabber Dust - 5 Sweaty Bettys 
I stumbled upon Mbeze after watching a segment of Kathie Lee and Hoda (don't ask) talking about battling the summer makeup meltdowns.  The cute little deodorettes are a little larger than a lipstick and one little deodorette lasted me about a month.  It's small size is perfect for traveling or just stashing in your purse for touch-ups.  I used the Dabber Dust on top to help with my perspiration-problem, and this magical combo worked like a charm!  My favorite scents were the Once Bitten and Coco Haze.

I used this in San Diego by the beach on a sunny day where I probably walked 5 miles on the boardwalk with no reapplication and my pits were fresh as daisies!  The only drawback to these beauties is the price...While the Dabber Dust lasted about three months, the little deodorette only held on for about a month, and at $10 a deodorette, that adds up.

 Crystal Stick Body Deodorant - 0 Sweaty Bettys 
Should have just gone commando pits with this one.  Smelly and stinky minutes out of the shower.  Ok, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously, save your moolah and skip this one!

GudonyaTOO Stinky No More Deodorant - 2.5 Sweaty Bettys
This was a nice surprise, it was big, you could pick your scent (I loved the Chai), and it worked moderately well.  One Sweaty Betty was deducted for the use of propylene glycol as the first ingredient, which has not been fully investigated for it's carcinogenic potential.

Soap and Glory One Pit Wonder - 3 Sweaty Bettys
This punny line was recently available at Target, but has since been removed from their shelves.  You can still order Soap and Glory items online and I'd say it's worth it to wait for this "Wonder" in the mail!  It was one of the few antiperspirants that went on and dried clear, so it didn't leave a powdery residue on my clothes.  It also has a delicate rose scent, unlike the popular hippie-ish Chai or lavender scents that are used to help "cover up" the stinkified pit in many natural deodorants.

This worked pretty well for me, with just one mandatory re-application at lunchtime.  This also got a Sweaty Betty point deduction for propylene glycol as the first ingredient.

 Bubble and Bee Pit Putty - 2.5 Sweaty Bettys
Oh, how I wanted this Putty to work SO BADLY!  Not only is this made locally here in Utah, it's ingredients are 100% USDA Organic.  You seriously could EAT this stuff and it would be a-ok...except it wouldn't taste so great.  I tried the Geranium & Lime scent and it smelled lovely and citrus-y!

You have to swipe the Putty on and rub it into your armpit, so if you rock hairy armpits, I imagine this could take awhile.  While I appreciated how natural and local this stuff was, I had to re-apply at LEAST twice a day to keep the stinkiness away.  If you aren't a Sweaty Betty like myself or have lots of time and privacy to reapply often, I'd highly recommend this local concoction.

The Body Shop DeoDry Dry-Effect Deodorant - 4.5 Sweaty Bettys
This was the underdog that I bought on a whim during my layover in Cincinatti on my way back from Paris.  You know how the Body Shop gets you, the whole "Buy 3, Get 2 Free!" deal that has your basket filled in no time!  This was one of my "2 Free!" items and I'd thought I'd give it a whirl.

It is GREAT!  I have yet to need to re-apply when using this stuff!  The roll-on is the kind I've been using and it get's and extra half-a-point for being refillable, so less waste!  The fancy specialty to this deodorant is that it uses perlite to keep your pits dryer than the average deodorant.  While breathing in perlite is a big health no-no, this is suspended in liquid form so inhaling the perlite in DeoDry is low-risk.

A half of a Sweaty Betty was deducted for the synthetic fragrance used, but I'm not gonna lie, I loved the Fresh & Floral scent..!


So there you have it!  Pit Juice Thunderdome completed!  It really was a tie between the Mbeze and Body Shop DeoDry, and the super-loser being the Crystal Stick Body Deodorant.  I hope this helps and remember everyone's body chemistry and sweat glands are different, so don't be cross with me if these don't work the same way for you;)!

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