Moisturizing Hands

Moisturizing Hands

One of my beauty obsessions is how to keep my hands moisturized. Not only for beauty purposes, but health too: Working in an office, dealing with paper, typing all day, using antibacterial gels, can ruin the delicate skin of your hands. I can tell you I've used tons of different products and followed all sorts of moisturizing routines to keep my hands in shape. Today I found this Birchbox video, which show a few tricks I do and can be handy to someone looking to improve its beautifying routine.

Moisturizing Hands

On my side, I very much like Eucerin products overnight, specially the Intensive Repair Extra-Enriched Hand Cream, with Alpha Hydroxy Acid (AHA), which will help gently exfoliate your skin. Then I slip on white cotton gloves to sleep with. I don't know why white cotton gloves are so difficult to find, mine are from The Body Shop, in London, bought some 15 years ago, and they do not carry them anymore. I recently bought some Bamboo fiber gloves, from EcoTools, but I didn't like them, funny thin texture, too short, and if they don't fit my extra-small hands, I can't see it fitting anybody else but a child. Just finally found some at Walgreens, will have to try them now - Walgreens 100% Cotton Gloves. 

During the day, I try to use hand creams with SPF, but again, they are difficult to find. The one I love the most is from AVON Renew line, SPF 25, but they are not reliable, as AVON is continually discontinuing good products. (Go figure their marketing plans!) Now they have a new version of it, but I can't comment on that as I haven't tried it yet, although I found a review at Beauty Reflexions blog. If you are curious, here is the link from AVON website.

If I'm travelling, or somehow my hands get neglected for a long time, I use a heavy Eucerin cream from the round jar, with some Argan Oil added to it, and double it on my feet too. Put on cotton socks and gloves, then have a good night of sleep. Everything wakes up restored and almost brand new. 

Of course I add some extras to my hands routine, lots of products specifically targeting nails and cuticles, as they all work together. So I have a number of Julep products on my bedside and a Cetaphil bottle at the bathroom sink. All I can say is, I have a lot of fun with all that, lots of compliments from my husband, and soft hands that don't crack or itch anymore, either summer or winter. Anything on my quest for moisturizing hands as effectively as possible.

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Bald Women

Bald women is a subject that really worries me, because I don't want to be one of them one day. A few years back I didn't even think it could be possible for women to be bald, let alone, common. Until my hair started to thin exponentially, daily, leaving my pillow, my bed, my floor, covered in hair. Everything changed about my hair on my initial years in London. From beautiful, long, shiny, wavy, healthy, it became dry, brittle, frizzy, lacking luster, plain ugly. Until the day I noticed I was losing it.

I did try going to the doctors in London, but the only thing they say is "You're stressed out. Take some paracetamol". Seriously, instead of receiving a Doctor title, they should be called "Paracetamol Prescribers", (but this is a post for another blog). The point is, only after arriving back in Brazil, my gynecologist ordered a complete hemogram and found out I had some hormonal imbalance. She prescribed me a particular type of anticonceptive pills and it worked! My hair stopped shedding around the house.

Then I got married, my husband and I wanted to have a baby and I had to stop the prescribed pill. After 6 months my hair started to shed again. I didn't want to be one of those bald women. What could I do now?

Although I didn't believe a shampoo could help with thinning hair, I didn't have many other options. Shampoos anti-dandruff helped a lot but not 100%. My scalp is oily, so maybe relieving the excess sebum which cause dandruff had a part on it. I used Neutrogena T-Gel, which is mild and leaves hair in a nice condition, but my favorite is Neutrogena T-Sal, which is a lot more potent and seems to have worked better for me.

My dermatologist adverted me about using 2-in-1 shampoos. A HUGE no-no. Anyone with thinning hair, dandruff or any other scalp ailments should never use a 2-in-1 because it is damaging to the scalp. Use 2 separate products, being very careful to not let any conditioner on the scalp, only at the length of the hair.

Those anti-dandruff shampoos were an improvement after I stopped the pill, but what really works, and unfortunately is only found online - at least here in the deserts of New Mexico - is the Avalon Organics Shampoo, which you can find here.  As far as thinning hair is concerned, all I want is to keep my strands on top of my head, not on the floor, the pillow, around the bathtub. If that shampoo can do that, I'm sold!

I bought this Avalon shampoo but was very skeptical of its effectiveness. And lots of reviewers complained about the smell. My own thoughts about it:

• it has a fresh, herbal scent. I like it. I think it's a matter of taste only.
• as it's a treatment shampoo, I prefer to leave it on for a few minutes before rinsing out. I shampoo twice: first and very quickly using a deep cleanse Neutrogena shampoo. Then I apply Avalon to my scalp, massage, wrap my hair in a bun, and go about my shower routine, soap, shaving, whatever. I only rinse it out after at least 5 minutes. It gives a nice tingling sensation while it's on. Then I rinse it really well, apply a deep conditioner only to the length of my hair, and rinse it abundantly, with tepid/cold water. 

Please, whoever has thinning hair should NEVER wash it with hot water!

The same is valid for any other scalp problems, or anyone really.

It works for me. Hair feels fuller, shinier and manageable. Use a gentle wooden comb, specially while it still damp. The difference is clearly noticeable. At least to me.

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How to Use Dry Shampoo

I mean it. No, this is not a tutorial or anything like that. I don't know how to use dry shampoo. I've been trying a few formulas lately, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So, I credit my failures to application, and not formula.

The point is, I don't like showering at the gym, I prefer at home, but most times I need to run some errands after working out, so a dry shampoo is the most practical alternative at those moments. I have 3 different ones I've been trying: John Frieda and Batiste Dry Shampoo, bought at drugstore.com, and Serge Normant, received in my first Birchbox.  I noticed though that when I spray totally carelessly, just throwing my head down and going crazy on the spray, it worked better. When I did at home, calmly with all the time in the world, meticulously, it looked and felt awful.

I've found those before and after pictures on the internet. Click on the picture to go to their original posts:

Gaby's BeautyBlog
Really? How does she achieve that?

Blog Tea Cups & B Cups
How do they do that???

I've managed to achieve beautiful bouncy hair with all three, but I also achieved an oily mess, gunky blob with all three. So, in search for some explanations, I've found this article at Birchbox blog that might help, and the posts from where I collected the pictures above (click at pic captions). As they say, practice makes perfect, maybe I should just try a little longer...

Any tips?

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Sole Society

Do you know the website Sole Society? No?!! Here is a great opportunity for you to try it.

Sole Society is a shoes and accessories club, from where you can buy great items without breaking the bank. So on my last purchase they gave me a code to share with my friends, but it is only valid until May 8th.

Click on this link to have 20% off your first purchase


This offer is only valid until May 08, 2013 4:16am (PDT). See terms. 

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Filtro Solar Sem Parar

Filtro Solar sem parar

Gente, eu sou branca. Muito branca. Imagina a pessoa mais branca que você conhece. Pois é, eu sou mais. Nasci em Niterói, no Rio, e passei os finais de semana da minha infância na praia ou na piscina. Mas eu fui criança na década de 70, filtro solar não existia. Todo mundo levava a praia uma aberração argentina chamada Rayito de Sol. É claro que isso não poderia prestar na minha pele. O resultado é que eu vivia queimada, vermelha, rosa, roxa, inchada, descascada e desidratada, porque é óbvio que eu nunca obedecia meus pais no quesito "sai do sol, menina, senão você vai se queimar".

Enfim, em 1985 ou 86, eu vi pela primeira vez o que viria a ser meu primeiro produto de beleza: o filtro solar, que ate hoje uso sem parar. Não tinha nem spf marcado no rotulo, era uma linha de praia d'O Boticário com óleo de canela, óleo de urucum, óleo de coco e filtro solar. Só de ler o nome FILTRO SOLAR, mesmo sem saber do que se tratava, sabia que foi feito pra mim. Comecei usando no meu rosto todos os dias pra ir a escola, no corpo todo para ir a praia, e continuo usando até hoje, com SPF muito mais alto que o original 8.

Nunca fui uma grande usuária de maquiagem, sempre achei que filtro solar+pó de qualquer espécie +Rio de Janeiro=Lama no meu rosto+roupa suja de pó colorido. Usava batom e lápis de olho, e tava era muito bom. Queria mesmo era garantir a integridade da minha pele. Maquiagem diaria, soh depois de morar em Londres, trabalhando como vendedora de cosmeticos nas grandes lojas de departamento da cidade. E mesmo assim, morando e trabalhando na Smoke City, usava meu filtro solar religiosamente, todos os dias, sem parar.

Hoje em dia moro no deserto, no Novo Mexico, bem abaixo do tal buraco da camada de ozonio. Preciso dizer que ainda uso filtro solar diariamente? Ateh o meu batom e o creme das maos tem spf.

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