What Makes Your Skin Beautiful?

 

Here is what’s strange: although I live here in LA where the beauty industry has so much to offer, so many people ask me, ME, a girl who’s NEVER had a facial (I can’t afford getting it, time wise and moneywise!) and who also doesn’t buy $300 creams (same reason here: spending this kind of money isn’t in the current budget and even $100 cream isn’t an option), what to do to look the way I do! But if you think about it, it actually makes sense to me….

Like I’ve mentioned before, I believe that beauty and health go hand to hand and we can’t really be healthy if we mess with what’s natural for us. And I think that this is why so many much wealthier than me women come to me asking what to do to be beautiful. They rely too much on technology and on strangers who “treat” their skin without having a good clue about what their skin really needs.

They ignore whatever their Mother Nature has given to them and think that burning, cutting, altering and scrubbing their faces and bodies will somehow help them see their better selves in the mirror. I think that an especially dangerous case make those who think that these kinds of procedures can fix all the careless mistakes that they make every day that damage their skin and their health. (You know what’s really ridiculously funny? We have a Tanning Salon here in Studio City and it’s located NEXT DOOR to a place where they inject Botox: it’s very convenient, though: first you get your damaged – then, right there, they make you think that you can go and fix it!) But sadly when the folks develop this kind of thinking what they end up getting is a huge disappointment.

 

So, to summarize my thoughts and my philosophy on skincare, here is what I don’t believe in:

1. Giving yourself up to the merci of a person in a salon who has a basic knowledge, but doesn’t know it all about YOU.

2. I think it’s pure BS. You eat fries – you get pimples and get fat. You will never get obese on lettuce. You bake your skin in the sun – you get tough, burned skin and wrinkles (well, some sooner than the others, but I wouldn’t recommend finding it out for yourself as to how far your genetics will go to protect you).

3. Spending tons of money on THAT cream or on a bunch of bottles (that you supposedly need to exfoliate, cleanse, smooth, nourish, etc. every single day) without thinking about how this cream’s texture or those bottles’ ingredients will affect YOUR skin.

4. Being a lab-rat for some new technology that in years from now may be proven as actually harmful for you.

5. I definitely don’t believe in thinking that you can fix it all with Botox or, even worse, at a surgeon’s office. It’s almost like thinking that there is a magic wand to fix your bad credit. Nope. You gotta work for it
   by paying your bills on time.

And here is what I do believe in:

1. This belief derives from me thinking that it’s so important to stay true to one’s Nature: if it doesn’t FEEL good – it can’t be good for you! I think that the best way to really get in touch with your Nature is to start listening to your own body. Through feelings of pain, discomfort, irritation it lets you know what’s good for it. When I feel my skin burning in the sun – I feel the burn and I know it’s bad for me without even reading a Sun-Danger article. If you drink to the point that you have a hangover next day – that doesn’t feel good and so – yes, it damages you from inside out and your skin only shows what’s going on inside your poor body! If you exfoliate your skin or burn it with all sorts of acid treatments or whatever else they do in the salons to “reveal your soft baby skin” I believe that in the long run it leaves your skin damaged and that’s definitely not good for it. And if you keep harassing your body like this over and over again the damage will accumulate making it more difficult to reverse it. And it’s not like I’m condemning the facials. It’s just that I believe that it doesn’t make sense to think that something that doesn’t feel good could make you look good!

2. Common sense. I am a big believer in Common sense. It’s actually my motto when it comes to taking care of myself. We all have it. But our minds get so messed up with all those adds and celeb advice (the celebs in most cases are paid to give a certain advice) that we become their pray and that makes throw what really makes sense out of the window! That’s just sad… Here is one important thing that my common sense tells me: steer clear from the extremes. Like I will never say that we should all start making our own creams, stop trusting anyone or stay in doors all day. I will also never say that it’s not worth learning about the new technologies or scientific research. All I’m trying to say is I think it makes sense to always give a deeper thought to what the adds or the sales people at the counter tell you and to always take your own body’s responses into the account.

3. My simple understanding of chemistry and biology. That one actually derives from #2 – from common sense. Oil seals water, right? Knowing this simple and indisputable fact has been helping me keep my skin moist at all times as I’ve been using facial oils long before they’ve become the “Thing”. The cells regenerate. Your own nature can help you erase your mistakes if only you give it a little more TLC. This one may help you if you think that the surgeon’s office is your last resort. No. Your own nature is your best friend.

4. Everyone’s skin is different, and it’s not as simple as just knowing what your skin type is or what the general concern is: only YOU know exactly what’s going on. I think it’s very important to be your own observer, to learn about YOU, and to take full control over what’s going on so that you can take care of the problems when they just appear. When I saw pimples forming on my forehead I started thinking: why? Promptly I fixed the issue. I have identified the little “crow’s feet” developing around my eyes due to my skin’s dryness. Right away I started thinking: what can I do to stop this (besides never smiling, of course!) Finally I found a very rich and sticky around-the-eyes balm that smoothers the “smilies” right away. Knowing that my skin regenerates helped me find the hope that those little lines will soon smooth out. And you know what? They did. It’s like it’s easier to fix a crack on the road before it becomes a crevice – it’s easier to start thinking about what you can do with the little lines appearing on your face than trying to fix them when they become deep wrinkles.