live is beautiful

The Importance of Skin

The Importance of Skin Self-Exams Especially during and after Summer,- It is essential that you self-examine your skin at various points during the year. However, it is most important that you keep an eye on any change in your skin during the summer and right after.


When the season changes and we are faced with being outdoors more often, keeping up with skin care should be foremost on our mind. Even if you are at an outdoor barbeque and the sun is high in the sky, just because you are not wearing your bathing suit and at the beach does not mean that you are not at risk.

If you have pre-existing moles or are prone to freckles, it is imperative to keep an eye for any changes in shape, size, or color.

How to Begin Skin Self-Examinations

1. First start by getting to know your body; pay attention to moles, freckles, and spots.

2. Take a good look at these things and get familiar with them. Notice the different characteristics.

3. Take a good look in a full-length mirror to check your skin from head to toe.

4. Using a smaller hand-held mirror, check your back and neck as well.

5. Check your skin every six to eight weeks and make notes of any changes. Any change you see is something you must bring to your doctor’s attention.

The importance of skin self-examination can get forgotten, as most individuals do not think of checking their own skin from time to time to monitor for changes. However, the potential for detecting early skin cancer and treating it are significant if you do regular skin self-examinations.

As with any type of cancer, early detection is key.

Continuing Skin Self-Examination

It is important to continue skin self-exams every six to eight weeks and more importantly, during the summer months.

If you see any changes in the moles or freckles or any part of your skin that looks or feels differently from your initial exam, then contact your doctor as soon as possible.

Visit your skin doctor at least once per year for a full exam in addition to your own self-exams.

The more exposure you have to the sun at an earlier age, the bigger your chances are of reaping the unfortunate results of too many ultraviolet rays. The more diligent you are about skin self-examinations, however, the better your chances of having healthier skin and detecting any problems early on.

So, while it may not be uppermost in your mind, it is important to do your own regular skin examinations.

The Many Ways That Drinking Water Affects the Skin and Body,- We have all heard about the benefits of drinking water, and lots of it, for weight loss and dieting purposes. However, it is just as essential to your skin, hair, and body to drink water in order to maintain good health - especially during the summer months.


One of the biggest benefits of drinking water during summer months is to stay hydrated. Staying hydrated benefits not only your organs, but your skin as well.

The old saying that beauty is only skin deep does not apply when drinking the right amount of water. Drinking the right amount of water helps your body in many ways.

Dark Under-Eye Circles

Sometimes dark under-eye circles are truly from lack of a good night’s sleep or perhaps because of genetics. However, dark under-eye circles are sometimes caused by lack of hydration.

Taking in more water throughout the may possibly reduce those puffy dark circles. If your body is in need of more water, then it will hold onto whatever it has for storage purposes. By drinking more, you can alleviate puffiness around the eye area.

Color, Tone, and Texture of Skin

Take a good, long, hard look at your skin on days when you do not have good color, tone, and texture. Keep a journal if you like, as this will help you to see first-hand the benefits of drinking additional water in the summertime.

When you spend time in the hot summer sun, you will notice that your skin will appear dryer, no matter what you do or how many cosmetics you place on your face. The best moisturizer is water.

Acne

Is it not better to treat your skin properly from the outset than to purchase many expensive acne treatments, which could only wind up drying your skin out over time? By drinking extra water in the summertime, you provide a natural cleanser to your skin and its pores. Water serves as a cleanser and an exfoliator and acne preventer.

Dryness and Peeling

If you are like anyone else, you have had the experience of staying out in the sun too long and being burned - especially on the facial areas. By drinking extra water, you provide a natural barrier for skin so that it is hydrated and moist. Dryness and peeling will heal that much faster the more water you take in.

Since the body is made up of more than 70% water, it stands to reason that it needs water in order to survive and thrive, most especially in the summertime.

Summer Skin Essentials: From the Inside Out,- While it is important to do skin self-examinations and to utilize sunscreen, hats, and eyeglasses during summer months, it is just as essential to hydrate your skin from the inside.




Eating the right foods and drinking the right things is essential to healthy skin that glows from the inside out.

Summertime is a time filled with delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, much of which are full of hydrating water. When your body is hydrated, your skin will reflect that well beyond sunscreen and shade.

Fruits and Vegetables That Hydrate

* Watermelon is an excellent example of a summer fruit that hydrates. Watermelon is capable of hydrating you and your skin for quite some time. It is mostly made up of – you guessed it – water, and contains sodium, magnesium, and potassium. Perfect for hydrating you.

* Cantaloupe is packed with hydration and offers vitamin A, Vitamin C, and potassium.

* Grapefruit – Juicy, tangy, and full of hydrating juices, grapefruit is an excellent hydrator for your skin.

* Celery – Celery is a great snack or in between go-to for when you want to crunch on something that is healthy. Packed with water, it also has vitamins and mineral salts to keep your body hydrated and your skin glowing.

* Strawberries – Strawberries are high in antioxidants but also are great for detox, as are blueberries and cherries are.

* Cucumbers are mostly made up of water and contain vitamin C. Cucumbers are naturally hydrating and perfect for summer salads.

Hydrating Your Skin through Beverages

The hotter it gets, the more water you should drink. For those who do not like the taste of plain water, adding lemon or lime, or both, to your water can make the difference in whether or not your skin is hydrated.

In addition, making your own homemade fresh green tea, chilling it and serving it with ice and lemon is a great way to hydrate that tastes good too. Adding a sprig of mint tops it off making it the perfect summer hydrating drink.

For many women, putting something on the outside of your face seems to be the logical path to keeping hydrated looking skin. However, what you do on the inside first will always make the biggest difference.

Eating your summer fruits and vegetables and hydrating yourself with water and teas will not only keep your body functioning properly; it will also keep your skin glowing like the sun without all the side effects.

How to Create Awesome Summer Skin with Natural Body Scrubs,- It is always a pleasure to have soft sensual skin, but more so in the heat of the summer. Summertime is when you show the most skin and knowing that it is soft as summer is a great feeling.


Not only is having soft summer skin a wonderful feeling, but the process of getting soft summer skin is wonderful, too. Anytime you do a facial or a body treatment, it is a wonderful feeling of indulgence. In addition, who doesn’t need a little feeling of indulgence every now and again?

                                     

One of the best ways to exfoliate the skin on your body is, of course, with a salt body scrub. Sea salt has become extremely popular for this purpose. Here's what you need to make your own.

Sea Salt Body Scrub

You will need:

* ¾ cup of sea salt
* ¼ cup of coconut oil
* 6 to 8 drops of essential oils

Mix the coconut oil with the sea salt until it forms a paste-like substance. Add the essential oil of your choice as a fragrance.

Sugar Body Scrub

* ¾ cup of brown sugar
* ¼ cup of sesame oil
* 6 to 8 drops of essential oil of your choice
* One ripe avocado

Peel and take the pit out of one overripe avocado. Mix the sesame oil and brown sugar with avocado in your blender. Add the essential oils once you have transferred the blended mix into a bowl.

Once either of these mixtures are well mixed, spread it all over your legs, making sure to pay special attention to knees and heels of feet. You may also use a pumice stone to scrape off dead skin from these areas.

These scrubs are great for knees and hands as well. Always secure a small area to be certain no allergy or irritation exists before placing sugar or salt scrubs mixed with essential oils to any part of your body.

Many ingredients can go into mixing and matching your own body scrubs. For example:

* Refined sugar
* Brown sugar
* Sea salt
* Kosher salt
* Essential oils such as sesame oil, vitamin E oil, lavender oil
* Honey, avocado, kiwi, coconut milk

Once you know your body and what you are not sensitive to, the world is your oyster when it comes to all-natural, homemade body scrubs.

Experimenting with homemade body scrubs in the summertime gives you more options than you might have in the wintertime. Explore, enjoy, and have fun finding the right summertime body scrub just perfect for you.

Getting Your Skin Summer-Ready before Summer Hits,- We all know that dreaded feeling of wanting to look summer perfect before summer hits. We all have equally good intentions – to work out, wax our legs, prepare our shopping list for sunscreens with moisturizers and, perhaps, to lose a few pounds.



While all those good intentions are great, a little work may be needed in order to really be prepared for healthy and attractive summer skin way before summer hits.

Preparation is really key in getting your skin summer ready. Nobody can expect to wake up one July morning and magically have the glowing summer skin they always dreamed of.

A Little Spring Cleaning for Your Skin

When springtime hits, it is important to take a good look at your cosmetics. Chances are that you are using what is left over from your winter stock. Take a look at your moisturizer. Perhaps it is time to replace that moisturizer with either of these:

* A tinted moisturizer
* A sunscreen that contains moisturizer

Next, take a look at your skin. Has being indoors created a dry, dull appearance? Start by either purchasing, or making at home, all-natural facial cleansers that contain things such as cucumber and/or sea salt. These things will prepare your skin as it cleanses it while waiting for summer.

Check your cosmetic colors as well. Typically, many women utilize winter colors that are a bit heavier and darker than they would during the summer months. See what needs replacing or, better yet, what needs recreating.

Light summer makeup in corals and pinks are wonderful choices for the summer. More natural is better when it comes to summer makeup.

Increase your intake of water now so that when summertime hits, you will not be overdoing your hydrating techniques.

Sun and Your Skin Now

Begin by stepping out into the sun a few minutes each day, either during your lunch hour or by taking a walk throughout the morning before hitting the showers.

Of course, any time you go out into the sun, it is important to wear sunscreen. A sunscreen with moisturizer is even better.

Also, be sure to purchase proper eyeglasses and headwear so that it is not too much too soon. Starting out with a little sunshine every day allows your skin the opportunity to get accustomed to the sun once again after a long, hard winter.

This will provide an excellent base for your summer suntan.

By preparing your skin in spring a little each day, you give your skin a leg-up on looking healthy, beautiful, and radiant way before summer even starts.

You pick up the magazines each day, and you’re bombarded with health and fitness information.
Advertisements and articles that are designed to impart much needed information to the reader
about the state of fitness and health in America today, and what we as responsible citizens
should do.  I want you to stop, and think for just one moment.  How do you determine your
current fitness and wellness levels?  Does your regular doctor impart this information as you visit,
does he inquire each time you go if you believe yourself to be fit and well?  Probably not.  Nor
does he give you any method for determining the status on your own.  Fitness centers abound in
this country, and most are staffed with counselors who can test your fitness level.  What about
your wellness level?  Are they one and the same?  They are not one and the same, yet they rely
heavily on each other to keep you healthy.
 


Thanks to the advances in modern medicine, the average person’s life span now exceeds
seventy years. If you stop to think, that’s quite a long time to walk around on this earth. Along
with the wonderful life expectancy increases, however have come the detrimental effects of
overeating and unhealthy eating.  It seems that as we advance in one area, we regress in others.
This doesn’t have to be so, however.  Reaching a place of responsibility, where we combine our
physical health, with our wellness enhances those extra years of life.

Being fit and being well are totally different conditions.  Your wellness rating is dependent upon
your immune system, and what vitamins, supplements, and nutrition you provide for your
immune system.  Fit people can sometimes be unwell.  And well people can sometimes be unfit.
However, when you do combine the two, and use sound principles based on clean living,
exercise, and healthy eating, you attain a state of equilibrium where you are both fit and well. It
is comparable to the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang.  The balance that must exist in the
whole relies heavily on the balancing of the halves.

  The wonderful state that is attained however, when we are both fit and well, is one of
the joys of being alive.  The energy levels that we experience are beyond compare, and the
happiness we feel during our moments of physical triumphs, help us to put life in perspective.
That’s an accomplishment we pass along to our children in the example that we set before them.
We are true practitioners of the philosophies that we preach.

  The example we provide for our family, our children especially, speaks volumes to them
about their own responsibilities in maintaining their health.  Being healthy is a true combination
of wellness and fitness, body and mind.  Our spirit, soul, or inner voice is a benefactor in this
experience, also.  Truly well and fit minds and bodies are better followers of their spirit, and

spend more energy on the wellness of their spiritual aspect, also.  Spirituality is a way of assuring
ourselves of a renewing, and rebirth of ourselves as caring humans.  Wellness encompasses our
state of being, mind, and health.  It is a condition of the whole.  The joining of wellness and
fitness in our life is a condition of the mind, body, and soul.