We’re all familiar with the notorious “bad hair day”. What we are also pretty familiar with but don’t seem to take much note of is the just plain “bad mirror day”. You know the ones. You wake up and you have several sets of wrinkles that weren’t there yesterday and your skin, which has taken on a pasty or blotchy look just hangs there. Of course, the older you get the worse shockers bad mirror days can be, but the young experience their own version of these things. It’s just as traumatic to be 20 and wake up looking 35 as it is to be 55 and wake up looking 65 (or worse).
If you spent the night before slamming down daquaris or margaritas, the bad morning might not be such a surprise. We all know if we get a bit toasted, that is what our face is going to look like in the morning. Sometimes, though, why we look so awful some mornings just isn’t instantly apparent to us. We may wonder for a few minutes, do some sort of fix or make an attempt to hide the devastation, but in the long run how far do we go in examining why we look so much worse some days than on others?
The truth is that if you are experiencing bad mirror days fairly frequently, it is something you should be taking note of very closely. Your skin is an organ and when it is looking bad, it’s not going to be functioning all that well, either. If your skin is doing poorly, many other organs that you can’t see may be suffering just as badly. The bad mirror day is not something to just blow off and ignore.
When you find yourself frequently waking up badly, you need to start taking notes. There are many reasons that you might be looking worse than usual, or that it is becoming more usual to look pretty bad when you wake up. It’s time to start making a check list for yourself to get to the bottom of the situation. You will want to examine all the things that you can think of that might have a negative effect on your skin so you can see if there is some pattern so you can avoid irritants before the damage becomes permanent.
The first thing to ask yourself is if you drank enough water the day before. Dehydration will take an almost immediate toll on the body. Fortunately this one is easy to fix if you do it right away and don’t allow yourself to repeat the dehydration too often. If your checklist includes a lack of liquids as a usual item, start right there and make sure that you can write it off your list in the future. That may be all it takes to correct the bad mornings. If not, you need to look further.
Lack of sleep is another reason for looking run down that is pretty easy to figure out. Not getting enough sleep once in a while is pretty normal. If you are experiencing lack of sleep too often though, you are putting your whole body in jeopardy. You might need to make some life adjustments to ensure you are able to sleep a bit longer each night. Perhaps you have a job that is too demanding for you and need to find a different company to work for that is not hazardously demanding. Maybe you need to hire someone to take care of a few odds and ends for you that keep you running just a little longer than is healthy. Perhaps your spouse needs to be made to understand that you are having too many demands on your time and you need to have more help or to be left alone to sleep longer. Whatever adjustments would aid you in getting the extra sleep you need should be made. Lack of sleep can do more than make you look like a zombie. It can be deadly.
What did you eat the day before? Did you eat a lot of processed foods or drink soda pop? Write down everything you can remember. You might find a pattern in what you eat and how you look. Processed foods and beverages contain a myriad chemical additives and all forms of sugar and sugar substitutes. By writing down what foods you ate each time you wake up less than prime you may be able to narrow down exactly which foods you are having the worst reactions to and can get them out of your diet before they destroy your whole body’s health. The more of these chemicals and sugars you can cut out of your diet, the more generally healthy you will be and the better your skin will look.
Was your room too hot or too cold the night before your mirror screams at you? If your checklist shows that your room was either hotter or colder than normal when you wake up looking bad, you have an easy solution on hand. A room that is too hot can make eyes puffy and lined. A room that is too cold can just upset good sleep.
Are you exposing yourself to forms of pollution some days that you aren’t always exposed to? When you wake up looking bad, take a washcloth and pour some rubbing alcohol on it and wipe your face. If you are wiping off blackish dirt, think about where you were the day before. If you can avoid going somewhere that always results in black film on your skin, avoid going there any more often than you need to. If you have to go there, make sure to wear a non-toxic makeup foundation when you go. It’s much better to have toxic waste sitting on your makeup than absorbing into your body through your skin. Be sure to wash your makeup off thoroughly when you get home. If you remove brownish residue when you wipe your face, you aren’t getting your makeup off well enough before you go to bed and need to improve your cleansing routine. Even the best non-toxic makeup will still clog pores and keep your cells from breathing freely at night. After you wipe your skin clean with the alcohol, be sure and moisturize with a non-toxic moisturizer. Alcohol is a great cleanser, but it will dry your skin if you don’t moisturize after you clean with it.
Are you getting enough aerobic exercise? Your skin may suffer if you are not. Conversely, if you are exercising daily or most days and your skin is breaking out or otherwise looking bad, your body might be expelling toxins through your skin. Some of the previous points on the checklist will reveal if you are taking in too many chemical toxins. If you can’t correct the problem with better hydration and nutrition, you may have something more serious going on that you need to look into.
Illness can also show up on your skin and if all other points of your checklist don’t show up a problem and you are cleansing your skin thoroughly each night, you might need professional help to find out if you have a deficiency, imbalance, or even an illness you are not aware of in your body that you need to address.
No matter what you do, you will never be able to completely avoid an occasional bad mirror day. By keeping track of your activities though, you can reduce them to a minimum. . A little bit of applied vanity can go a long way in maintaining your body’s optimal health. It won’t hurt your self esteem to look better most days, either.
©2010: Sally Taylor
The question crops up again and again. How should I be removing my makeup. It’s a good question, too, because improper makeup removal can be a disaster for keeping skin supple and healthy.
There are two main mistakes people make removing their makeup. One is that makeup isn’t removed completely. The other is that the wrong products are being used for removal. Both can be disastrous for skin integrity. Both will clog pores and coat skin so it can’t breath properly. Makeup removal doesn’t need to be a science, though and can be done in much more skin friendly ways than skin care product manufacturers will lead you to believe. It can be done more cheaply than they will tell you as well.
Many manufacturers want you to believe that soap is harmful to your skin. Some soaps are, but it is because they are loaded with toxins. If you look specifically for soaps that are toxin free, there is no problem with using soap on your face. Soap and wash cloth are very good and effective tools for cleansing makeup and airborne toxins from your skin. Light scrubbing with a wash cloth will remove makeup, dead skin cells, and many impurities that other methods of makeup removal will leave behind. Always remember that soap is not meant to moisturize your skin, it is meant to clean it. Make sure you rinse soap from your skin thoroughly. You can’t be over cautious washing soap away. All the extra water will do is help to flush pores clean of debris.
To make sure you have not left residue on your skin and to close your pores, wipe your skin with hydrogen peroxide to remove any residue that may have accidentally be left behind. A hydrogen peroxide molecule is actually nothing more than a water molecule with an extra atom of oxygen. The extra oxygen in the peroxide can be absorbed by skin cells and will give them a terrific boost. Peroxide can dry your skin on its own, just as soap and water can, though so you must always – let me repeat that – you must ALWAYS use a water soluble, toxin free moisturizer after cleaning your skin. It is important to make sure your moisturizers are water soluble to ensure they are not coating your skin in ways that defeat the purpose of washing your makeup off in the first place.
Never use a cleansing creams to take off makeup or air pollution residue. These products are sold by making people believe that soap is bad for your skin and that their products will keep skin soft and supple. Cleaning and moisturizing are NOT, and never will be, a single step process. You must clean first, and then moisturize. One step processes will leave residues that will choke the vitality out of your skin rather rapidly. You may think you are just aging badly when in actuality you are just completely smothering your skin cells and clogging pores. Removing mascara should be done before general makeup removal and it takes a little more effort to remove it than face makeups do.
Some mascaras can be removed with soap and water as well. If you are like me, you are using more high intensity mascara than that which washes off with water. I don’t savor the idea of getting caught in rain or some quick emotional outburst and wearing black streaks down my face as a result. There are some products on the market that are built for mascara removal, but most are nothing more than oils you can buy more cheaply or they are a mix of some pretty harsh chemicals. If you are using a mascara that can’t be removed without chemicals, it’s just plain time to rethink what you are doing to yourself. If you need more power than soap and water to remove mascara, use olive oil or coconut oil to remove it. Put a generous coat of the oil on your lashes and let it sit for awhile. Adding some warmth to it by blowing heat from a blow dryer can speed up the process if you are in a hurry to remove it.
When taking the mascara off, do not pull at your eyelashes. If the oil has not worked completely even gentle pulling can pull lashes out. Rub the oil off with a cotton ball or wash cloth. Do not use paper towels or toilet paper to do this as there are wood fibers in paper that can clog pores and otherwise irritate your skin. If light rubbing does not take your mascara off, then dab more oil on your lashes and give it more time to work. After mascara is removed, the residual will be removed when you wash the rest of your makeup off of your skin.
No matter how well you remove makeup, your pores will capture and build up some elements over time. It is important to remember to clear your pores once or twice a week no matter how well you take your makeup off. Once debris does get lodged in pores, washing just isn’t enough to clean them out and the result can be very unwelcome. Steaming can help quite a bit to clean pores out. There are also face masks you can use for more heavy duty clogging problems. Masks that have to be washed off are often more powerful than peel off facials. By using a non-toxic facial periodically with a good facial mask, your skin will keep its integrity for years longer than you may be expecting. That kind of surprise is worth the effort.
2010 © Sals Secrets Revealed
Reading through the vast amounts of literature available about makeup, now and again you will find an article surfacing denouncing makeup as being bad for your skin. The reasons vary from chemicals to clogging pores. While the reasons to “go natural” seem to make sense, many struggle between the idea of health and what they see in the mirror in the au natural state. If you are one of those who struggle between appearance and health, you can relax a bit. Using makeup doesn’t need to be a one way road to self destruction.
The first notorious reason given for not wearing makeup is that many are loaded with ingredients which are not healthy. Many are, but there are also many which are now made with only safe ingredients. The best of these are those which are not tested on animals. Think about that. If a product is being tested on animals, you automatically have a red light. If ingredients are safe in the first place, there is no need to torture our fellow creatures to make sure that it will not harm us. While I strongly advocate these makeups because of my devotion to animal rights issues, it just makes sense to use products that are known to be harmless in the first place. Why would anyone want to take risks like that? Always use products that don’t need testing on animal to determine their safety.
Of course, the safety of the product isn’t the only health issue people see connected to wearing makeup. Makeup covers skin cells and gets into the pores making it hard for skin to breath. There is no getting around that one, however, there are actually times that the coat of makeup on your skin can have some benefit. If you are going into areas such as large cities where the air is polluted, your skin is going to get a coating of pollution. You can check that fact by washing your skin well before going into the city. As soon as you get home soak a washcloth with some hydrogen peroxide and wipe your face and neck with it. Look at the color of the dirt coming off your skin. Dirt is not soot black, it is brown. It’s a safe bet, however, that the residue on your washcloth is soot black.
The black residue on your washcloth is the soot from the city air and is loaded with toxins. These toxins coat your skin and clog your pores just as a coat of makeup will do, but unlike well chosen makeup, they can damage your skin and body. While it is your skin’s job to protect you from these toxins, it is far from a bad idea to protect your skin from them. Putting a coat of makeup over the skin will provide a layer of protection for your cells and keep the toxins out of your pores. Eventually these toxins will leak through, but the makeup buys you some time and protection until you can wash them off. It is still a good idea to clean your skin and pores thoroughly as soon as possible.
If you are going out to areas which are not extensively polluted, it is still a good idea to go without makeup and let your skin get some fresh air and sunlight. By that I don’t mean you should slather your skin with sunblock. Some sunblocks will clog pores just as handily as pollution and makeup, but sunblock is not good for your skin at any level whether it just sits on your skin or absorbs into it. Many sunblocks have ingredients which are much more harmful than any ingredients in makeups. Not only are you dowsing your skin with carcinogenic toxins when you use them, you are also inhibiting your body’s ability to produce Vitamin D. This vitamin is vital not only to healthy skin, but lack of it has been found to be a culprit in the development of eleven different cancers and scads of other diseases and ailments. Sunblock also goes an extra measure to hinder the body’s natural production of melatonin which can cause a whole new array of health nightmares for you. So what do you do if your skin is sensitive to burning?
Take a good makeup foundation with you when you go out. For outdoors recreational use you will want to choose a foundation that has zinc oxide in it. If you can’t find one, you can make your own sun block by mixing your foundation with zinc oxide. Making your own sunblock in this method will allow you to avoid damage from sun without having the painted clown face that zinc oxide on its own can produce. That’s probably not the look you want to achieve on a date to go hiking.
Let your skin get some sunlight so your body can produce Vitamin D and melatonin. You will want at least a half hour of natural sunlight before you put anything on it to protect it from burning. Give your skin as much time to breath naturally as possible before applying the foundation to it but never let your skin burn. Burning causes major skin damage no matter what else you are doing or are not doing to protect it. Make sure you put a good coat of foundation over any areas of skin that are exposed and likely to burn. If you find that the foundation you are using doesn’t work well, you might want to find another that does a better job for you.
There are times that it is better to go without makeup and let your skin breath naturally. Even world class models do not “paint up” on a full time schedule. Sometimes just a coat of mascara can enhance your appearance enough that you can feel comfortable not wearing a coat of foundation for just quick trips out of the house or visits with friends. A quick analysis of the environments you will be going into will give you an idea of whether it is better to go natural or with a layer of makeup on your face. It is a wise idea to spend some time every day without any, but if you have chosen your products well and are diligent about cleaning them off and giving your skin time to breath there is no reason why you can’t “paint the barn if it needs painting”.
2007-2008 © Sals Secrets Revealed
