Beauty and Fashion Tech

The New Science of Perfect Skin by Daniel Yarosh, PH.D.

Daniel Yarosh, Ph.D. is a thirty-year veteran of the beauty business who comes from the development end of the industry. Among his accomplishments are the invention of new ingredients for brands such as Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, and Shiseido. Now he has an excellent book out, The New Science of Perfect Skin: Understanding Skin Care Myths and Miracles For Radiant Skin at Any Age, along with an accompanying skin care line, Remergent, from his laboratory, AGI Dermatics.

I will cover the Remergent line in a few weeks. For now, I want to focus on what I think is one of the best beauty books to come along in a great while—at least as far as skin care and anti-aging is concerned. The book provides a thorough and accurate overview of everything a person needs to know about skin, from protecting it, to treating its problems.

From the get go, Yaraosh tells it like it is, with early chapters on “Cutting Through the Hype,” and a glossary of product ingredients. He then painstakingly breaks down cosmetic products into chapters with explanations of what to avoid and why, and what to focus on for the best results. Each chapter includes specific product recommendations by brand across various levels of cost. Yarosh also provides a wealth of information on skin cancer and sun care, along with antioxidants and wrinkle treatments, including descriptions of various lasers and injections. The book also contains skin care regimes for men and children. Throughout the book, Yarosh does a nice job of recommending products that will do double duty by addressing multiple skin conditions at once—something I am quite a fan of.

Overall, The New Science of Perfect Skin is a book with a great deal of information, written for the everyday consumer. Wonderfully informative, to the point, and easy to read, it is a book that you can pick up, understand, and learn from without any specific scientific background. If you do have some background, you will find it to be a well informed and handy reference tool.

I recommend The New Science of Perfect Skin for any person who is concerned about skin care and who seeks to separate the products that have the most chance of success from those that are unlikely to work. Isn’t that most of us?

By Carleenp Posted in Beauty Tech, Book Reviews, Skin Care | No Comments

Removing Calluses with the Ped Egg

I love my Ped Egg! I seriously think that every callused foot on the planet deserves one!

When I first read about the Ped Egg at Bionic Beauty I wanted to try it. As I mentioned recently, I’m hard on my feet and the callus battle is constant for me. I have had success with various files and tools, but nothing has worked as well for me as the Ped Egg.

The Ped Egg is a little plastic egg with a foot file inside. This is not a callus razor, but is more than a sandpaper or pumice type of file. It generally is similar to a metal foot file, with a cheese grater look to it. Designed to be gentle, you can run it over your smooth skin without a scratch, but on calluses it grates and files them away, and it does so very quickly. The dead skin shavings are collected inside the egg, so there is also less mess. Fine grain file pads are also available for creating a smooth finish.

When I used the Ped Egg, I removed most of a fairly large heel callus in a matter of minutes. I had been doing some preparation using Glycolic Acid from AB Skin Care and some foot cream (read previous article), which also had softened things up a bit. I did find that if I held the egg tilted, too much that the dead skin would fall out, so to keep the skin in the egg where it belongs don’t tilt your egg too much! I finished off my feet with the file pad, added some moisturizing cream, and my feet were ready for a new pair of summer sandals!

The Ped Egg is available at PedEgg.com and other online sources, such as at Drugstore.com.

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By Carleenp Posted in Beauty Tech, Foot Care, Skin Care | 3 Comments

Kill Calluses and Soften Feet with AB Skin Care Happy Feet

I am a foot killer. I wear shoes that rub, I cram my feet into Irish dance shoes and pound them around for hours on end, and sometimes I cram them into ice skates. The result is dry heels and nasty calluses. But I have found a few fixes. One of those is AB Skin Care Happy Feet.

AB Skin Care is a line created by Dr. Craig Austin, M.D. that focuses mostly on glycolic acid products. They also have some great sunscreens (read review). Because Glycolic Acid is a great exfoliator, it works quite well at assisting in callus removal. At 20% Glycolic, AB Skin Care’s Happy Feet has a nice concentration of it. The packaging is also quite nice, with individual use wipes.

I combined Happy Feet with a bit of Lac-Hydrin Cream (read review), which also contains the exfoliator lactic acid. I rubbed an AB skin care wipe on my calluses and let it dry, then rubbed in the Lac-Hydrin. Another option, albeit more expensive, is to seal in the glycolic with a touch of Creme de la Mer. For a cheaper option, Profoot cream (read review) also works well.

This combo did a good job of softening my calluses. When I combined it with use of a Ped Egg, my calluses basically disappeared. What is a Ped Egg? Well, it is a wonderful little tool for callus removal. Watch for my review of it here tomorrow!

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Update: Read the Ped Egg review.

By Carleenp Posted in Foot Care, Skin Care | 12 Comments

MAC Volcanic Ash Exfoliator

MAC Cosmetics has come out with one heck of a good exfoliator. MAC Volcanic Ash Exfoliator is truly wonderful stuff, and I predict that it will make my best of 2008 list at the end of the year. I find the MAC product description to be quite accurate, so here it is:

A highly effective, dual-purpose, foaming and exfoliating scrub blending natural Volcanic Ash with fine sugar crystals from the islands of Vanuatu. Adds moisture: leaves skin feeling soft and comfortably clean. Mineral-rich. Good for absorbing skin’s natural oils. May be used on any part of face or body. Rinses off with warm water.

The scrub is pretty coarse, which I like, but the foaming action tones it down a bit, It also leaves the skin feeling moisturized–something I find pretty impressive for a scrub. The one odd point though is that it is black in color. So it seems a bit weird scrubbing this jet black goo all over your face. I suggest avoiding use of it while wearing white or with white washcloths. I don’t know if it would stain and I wasn’t keen to test that! Personally, I use it in the shower.

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By Carleenp Posted in Skin Care | 3 Comments

New E-Book! Leon’s Anti-Aging Beauty Secrets

A fellow Splendicity beauty writer has come out with a really great e-book full of all natural anti-aging secrets and recipes. Leon’s Anti-Aging Beauty Secrets by Leon Rao is full of information, from suggestions for an anti-aging diet, to recipes for various skin care serums and lotions.

The diet chapter contains some great information and chart of antioxidant foods that I found quite handy. There is also neat list of various ethnic anti-aging foods. But what really shines are the multitude of recipes in this book. There is a section on Ayervedic recipes and then additional chapters coving cleansers, toners, masks, exfoliators, serums and more. There is even a recipe for lip balm and a chapter dedicated to an eyebrow and eyelash booster.

Throughout the book, Leon explains the purpose of the ingredients and provide clear direction for each recipe. For the do-it-yourself makeup and skin care fanatic, this book is a must have.

The e-book is 60 pages in color pdf format and is now available for $15—a great price for the wealth of information provided. Visit the purchase page to view chapter summaries and order.

By Carleenp Posted in Book Reviews, Skin Care | No Comments

Redpoint Foundations and Powder: Sheer, Beautiful Makeup

I have been playing with some Redpoint Cosmetics and have been impressed with everything that I tried. In the area of foundations, I tried two foundations: The DermaLift Foundation and the Transformative Dual Foundation. I also tried the HydraBoost Firming Powder.

The DermaLift Foundation is formulated with peptides and moisturizers for anti-aging and is mineral oil-free. The addition of such things is always welcome to me, but what really impresses me about this foundation is how light it feels–yet it still provides sheer to medium coverage.

Dermalift Foundation feels quite a bit like a light tinted moisturizer. This stuff is so lightweight that it simply feels great and blends very well. There are only three shades available though, which is a bit of a downside. But when a foundation is as blendable as this one is, fewer shades are needed because the makeup is more versatile. Nonetheless, I would like to see a few more shades, even though the light shade worked just fine with my fair skin.

Redpoint Transformative Dual Foundation is listed as a full coverage foundation, but I found it to be more medium in coverage. The foundation comes in a compact with two shades for a custom blend. Application is with a sponge. I liked the dual shade option because it allowed me to customize coverage a bit based on areas of pigmentation. It also allows for some use of the foundation as a highlight or contour color. I also found that it was nicely buildable. So,while overall coverage is medium, it can be closer to full with extra application. This is a good one for people who want some flexibility in their makeup.

The HydraBoost Firming Powder is good way to top off your foundation, or wear it alone for some light coverage and shine control. The powder is formulated to minimize fine lines and wrinkles, and feels quite nice. I loved it both as a finishing powder and as a stand alone product. For some reason, this one seemed to help tone down reddness for me a bit better than other powders, so rosacea sufferers might be particularly interested in it.

Redpoint cosmetics are available through the links above and at other online sources.

Want to learn about Redpoint’s lipgloss? Take a look at my review on Girl Gloss.

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