Stretch Mark Removal

Stretch marks usually tend to occur when there has been severe weight loss or pregnancy. There are many treatments and creams out there that promise stretch mark removal an instant cure or something similar over a week.

Do not buy anything until you firstly know the stage of the stretch marks and until you have seen a qualified dermatologist. I have provided a summary of what can be done for stretch mark removal dependant on the colour / stage of the stretch mark.

Stages and possible cures:
1.    White coloured stretch marks: This is a mature stretch mark and is much more difficult to remove as they have been left to scar and age.
Solutions: Dermatologist for consultation; laser treatment (expensive and requires regular treatment)

2.    Red / purple Stretch Mark: Luckily these stretch marks are easier to treat as they are not as mature and aged.
Solutions: Dermatologist for consultation; a high quality retinoid cream can help (but consult Dermatologist before use to understand your stretch mark and any potential side effects) and significant number of people swear that regular use of coconut oil reduces appearance of the marks.

Try to treat your stretch marks as early on as possible (before they age) and visit a dermatologist before applying any strong creams to your skin.

Laser treatments are said to help significantly but can be very expensive and for stretch mark removal will need a number of treatments.

Pretty

Remove Makeup

If you remove makeup from your face before you sleep, it will help maintain healthy skin and allow your skin to breath over night. On the other hand if you don’t remove makeup properly you can end up damaging your skin.

Needed:
•    Facial cleanser (purchase cleansing oil if your skin is very dry);
•    Eye makeup remover; and
•    Quality cotton pads

Steps:
1: Wash hands

2: Moisten a cotton pad with the eye makeup remover and keep placed on your closed eye for 5 – 10 seconds before gently wiping over the lids in an outward motion until the shadow has been removed. (Perform this step on both eyes)

3: For waterproof mascara you may need to use a moistened cotton pad in a gentle downward motion over the lashes. Repeat until mascara has been totally removed

4: Cleanse the remainder of your face paying special attention to the hair line area and the jaw line area especially if you wear foundation (cleansing techniques may vary depending on your cleanser – whether it’s a cream based or foaming wash). Use cream / oil based cleanser if you tend to have dry skin

Do Not:
•    Use baby wipes
•    Scrub your face
•    Over exfoliate or over cleanse
•    Tug or pull your skin with the cotton pad whilst removing eye shadow

Hope this helps and let me know if you have any thoughts.

Pretty

Beautiful Skin

Beautiful Skin Steps:

1
Quit Smoking (or reduce)

2
Drink between 1-2 litres of water daily

3
Good sleep

4
Cleanse

5
Tone

6
Moisturise

7
Eat your greens and fruit

8
Avoid the sun and use a good SPF

Imagine a person is a plant / flower. If the seed is planted in good soil and watered regularly and given the right foods it will grow to look beautiful and live longer than another flower that was not looked after. The same applies to our skin and bodies.

There are other things that you will need to do in addition to this list, however, this will point you in the right direction and a good place to start from.

Please remember to understand your skin first i.e. skin type etc and then buy products that suit you.

Pretty

Removing Blackheads

If you have blackish dots on the ends of your nose, have you ever wondered what they are and how they got there?

Before I went to see the PrettyMePink beautician I already knew that they were most likely called blackheads but had no idea on how they got there or the best way of removing them. I have listed the key parts of what she told me:

Causes:
•    Normally caused by a high concentration of sebum (natural oil) that starts to harden up. The sebum mixed with other bodily toxins together form a thick pasty residue that rises to the skin surface with the head turning black (due to exposure to air)

Treatment Tips:
•    A good pore cleansing strip from health shop (do not leave for over the time specified on the directions of the product) and moisturise the area immediately after (cleanse area before use of strip) – Also do not use too often as it can start to dry out your skin
•    If you go for regular facials, inform the qualified beautician that you would like for them to focus on your blackheads
•    Double check that you are using the correct moisturiser for your skin, for example if you already have an oily skin type and use moisturiser for dry skin then your skin will be getting too much moisture
•    Do not squeeze the blackheads as this can lead to scarring or infection
•    A good facial scrub after steaming the area can help reduce the appearance over time

Get rid of those blackheads, you now have no excuses.

Pretty x

Skin Care Tips Free eBook

PrettyMePink has finally finished an eBook totally dedicated to tips and secrets on skin care. The eBook brings some of the best posts from the website and other never seen before topics relating to skin care on eBook format.

Topics include:
* Lip Care
* Preventing Aging
* Food For Skin
* Understanding your skin
* Deep Cleansing
* Problem Skin and much more

And for a limited time only this eBook will be entirely Free to download from the following link Skin Care Tips (Or click on the image of the book above). You can then save a copy of the Skin Care Tips book to your computer.

It is in pdf format so please make sure you have downloaded Adobe Reader first so that you can view it.

Enjoy

Pretty

p.s. Please only forward onto people / friends you think would actually benefit from the tips in the book.

Aging Skin - Protection

Our oil glands produce sebum (oil) to provide the skin with a natural protection and to keep it well moisturised and protect against aging skin. However, as we get older our glands produce less oil and our skin also becomes more fragile. Sun is also another major contributor to aging skin, the more we protect ourselves the slower our skin will age.

Tips:
1: Give up smoking if possible
2: Daily use of sunscreen would carry a lot of long lasting benefits (70% – 80% of wrinkles are said to be because of the sun)
3: Don’t over exfoliate your face (Don’t apply facials more than every 1-2 weeks)
4: Use a moisturiser that suits your skin type, e.g. If you have dry skin and you use moisturiser for oily skin it will not add enough moisture for your skin
5: Drink water (1-2 litres daily) this will keep you hydrated
6: Reduce sugar intake (helps on many levels)

We could have this section running for 10 pages easy, but we didn’t want to over load you with anti aging skin tips and kept it to the main central tips that would carry the most amount of benefits.

If you can just stick to these 6 simple tips you should notice an impact on your skin. Obviously as is always the case the earlier you can start the better for your skin.

Any questions or comments let me know below.

Pretty

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Skin Pigment Tips

Skin pigment disorder is most likely to occur on the face and can take place at any age. Below I have quickly broken down the causes; types and the possible treatment for skin pigment.

Causes:
•    Body produces too much or too less melanin (this determines skin tone colour) which results in some parts of your skin being either Lighter or Darker than the surrounding skin
•    Things effecting the melanin levels: Race; Sun Exposure; Drug reaction; your Genes
•    The biggest contributor is probably the sun followed by medication (such as contraceptive pills)

Main Types:
1: Hyper Pigmentation:
Parts of the skin become darker than the surrounding skin, body is likely producing too much melanin. Often found around the cheek, forehead and chin area.

2: Hypo Pigmentation:
Parts of the skin become lighter than the surrounding skin, body likely to not be producing enough melanin.

Treatment
•    See a dermatologist to identify the level of skin pigment and clarify type
•    Try to avoid sun exposure. If unlikely ensure that you are well protected
•    Try to identify when the skin pigment started to occur and check to see if you started to take any new or changed medication intake and communicate this to the Doctor or Dermatologist

Do not use skin lightening creams / gels as this is likely to introduce or accelerate any skin pigmentation.

Any questions or comments let me know below.

Pretty

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Eyes Dark Circles

Who likes dark circles under the eyes? Hands up… anybody? Didn’t think so.

No body wants dark circles under the eyes and it is just so confusing with all these millions (okay hundreds) of products to ‘cure’ them, what do we use?

Before you go rush to the shops with your credit card to buy that miracle product, understand what the cause is and what you can do naturally.

Ranked Causes:
1: Lack of Sleep:
Probably the biggest cause of eyes dark circles. Not necessarily going out and having a late night but something may be stressing you out that doesn’t allow for you to relax and have a good deep sleep.

2: Diet:
Dark circles can appear if you have some sort of food allergy, try to identify what it could be (also you could take a RAST test that highlights allergies). Lack of water, vitamins and nutrients in your diet can also adversely affect dark circles

3: Genetics:
The bit that is out of our hands. This is caused by genetic hyper pigmentation where the under eye area may be suffering from a darker pigment than the surrounding area. More difficult to cure and well applied concealer is usually the solution

4: Ageing:
As we age the skin under the eye gets thinner and looses elasticity, therefore showing blood vessels

Tips:
•    Sleep: Try to get to the route of any stress and resolve. If on the other hand you are just a party animal, naughty naughty, just try to catch up on your beauty sleep
•    See a dietician: Identify whether or not your diet lacks any nutrients and vitamins that are needed
•    Drink plenty of water: 6-8 cups a day (helps on so many levels)
•    Massage your eyes (whilst closed and very gently) with cold fingers (run under cold tap)  to stimulate blood circulation and reduce toxic build up
•    Splash cold water onto the eye area regularly
•    Reduce the amount of time spent looking at your computer screen
•    A well applied eye concealer can help reduce the significance of eyes dark circles
•    The old cold cucumber slices on your eyes has stood the test of time and works in most cases

Hope this helps, and remember you must get to the route of the problem otherwise these creams and gels might reduce temporarily but make the problem worse over time.

I personally love splashing cold water onto the eyes just makes you feel fresh and awake.

Pretty

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Skin Acne

Okay we’ve all probably had our fair share of skin problems, spots, skin acne, red patches and the list goes on. According to leading health experts most of us don’t even know that we have skin problems until later on when they are much more visible and harder to treat.

Skin acne is a common problem.

1: Causes & Description:
•    Inflammation of skin because of infection
•    Sebum (oil) created by our glands joins forces with dead skin and blocks the hair follicles. This basically allows for oil to build up beneath our skin until spots erupt.
•    Normally occurs on the face, but can also occur on chest and back
•    Can be started due to: Stress; Bacteria; Excessive Scratching; Hormonal related

2: Skin Acne Treatments:
•    Dermatologist: (may need to be referred by Doctor) He / she may prescribe you with antibiotics that will reduce Acne. But remember that your body may become immune to the antibiotics and the acne that returns after may be stronger
•    Foods / vitamins containing vitamin A are known to reduce oil on the skin. There are also some medication that have high levels of Vitamin A (ask Dermatologist)

Home Remedies:
•    Cleanse face on a regular basis to take away any dead skin. There are special acne related cleansers around that are built specifically for the condition (examples include: Zeno)
•    Most likely to be stress related, so get to the route. Yoga can help and deep breathing exercises

If you do have skin acne, don’t let it get to you. In the majority of cases it is just a short term problem and if treated correctly can be reduced and wiped out.

Pretty

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Skin Tone

Making sure you know your skin tone before you go out and buy those must have beauty products is as important as knowing your shoe size before you buy some shoes.

What some of us do is to assume that we have a certain skin tone and go out and buy foundation only to realise that we may need to buy another as the last one didn’t match our skin.

Skin tones can be broken down into the following 6 types (use this list to identify your skin tone):

Skin Tone (6 Types):
1: Very Light:
•    Tanning: Likely burn / very rarely tans
•    Typical Likely Hair Colour: Red / Blonde
•    Typical Likely Eye Colour: Blue / Green / Grey

2: Light Skinned:
•    Tanning: Sometimes burns / rarely tans
•    Typical Likely Hair Colour: Light / Dark
•    Typical Likely Eye Colour: Blue / Green / Hazel / Brown / Grey

3: Light Intermediate:
•    Tanning: Sometimes burns / usually tans
•    Typical Likely Hair Colour: Brown
•    Typical Likely Eye Colour: Blue, Green, Hazel, Brown

4: Dark Intermediate
•    Tanning: Rarely burns / often tans
•    Typical Likely Hair Colour: Dark Brown
•    Typical Likely Eye Colour: Dark Brown

5: Dark / Brown
•    Tanning: Naturally brown skin
•    Typical Likely Hair Colour: Black – Brown
•    Typical Likely Eye Colour: Black – Brown

6: Dark / Black
•    Tanning: Naturally dark skin
•    Typical Likely Hair Colour: Black – Brown
•    Typical Likely Eye Colour: Black – Brown

Example of the famous orange foundation look: Woman has skin tone of dark intermediate, she then goes to the department store and buys foundation made for very light skin tone. Goes home applies it correctly only to realise that it makes her look orange or chalky, oh dear.

Once you have identified your skin tone there is less chance of you buying the wrong products for your skin, and when you apply the right foundation for your skin tone the difference is amazing.

Any good makeup counter will provide you with a colour spectrum to match your skin type (but doing your research before hand is always a bonus).

What is your skin tone?
Any questions or comments let me know below.

Pretty x

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