Friday, March 26, 2010

Less About the Outer Beauty and More About Beauty of Life

This weekend seems to be going a little differently then I thought it would be. My parents were in Mexico for the week leading a mission trip when we found out that my Grandpa had died. He has has Alzheimers for the last year and it was very hard too see him deteriorate and forget us and things in his life. I have to be thankful that I got so many amazing years with him. He was able to come to every major school event even though he and my Grandma live five hours away. So it is both a sad weekend and a happy one because I know he is no longer in pain and unable to remember things.
The funeral is tomorrow so for today I am just hanging out at my Grandma's house and people have been coming over. I should be seeing more extended family this afternoon. I decided that a good distraction is heading over to the local drugstore and ransacking their makeup department. They have Jordana brand makeup and I am addicted to their Nail Brightener nail polish. If I am too lazy to do several coats of a color I put the Nail Brightener on and it looks like my nails are perfect with no discoloration! They look like professional artificial nails which I love.

I think I have several bottles at home but who knows? I may need some more! I also left all of my nail stuff at home - a stupid idea since my nails look awful and I will go crazy if I don't get some polish on soon.

Another cool thing about the Jordana brand is that I can try out funky makeup colors on the cheap and then if I like them I can go find a higher-end brand that has longer lasting colors. Jordana is a good brand but I find that much of the makeup does not last long on your face.

So I am just trying to get through the weekend. I am excited to see my little cousin (who is just about to turn 1!) who is an absolute cutey! I get to meet my cousin's fiance (though this is not the reason I thought I would be down here for when I did finally meet him)

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

I have been working on trying every product known to human-kind that even remotely claims remove acne scars. Right now I have the Mario Badescu (love him!) Whitening Mask, exfoliators, Egyptian Magic Cream, and I have BioOil specially made for scars coming in the mail soon! I hate hate hate my acne scars. Most of them are around my chin and mouth meaning that anyone talking to me is going to see them. They are all I see when I look in a mirror and it really just kills any desire to even do my makeup in the mornings. So I have set out on a campaign to find something that gets rid of the scars left over from when I have no idea what I was doing with my skin. The worst part it that since I am so pale they stand out even more especially on days when they are really red. Grrrrr.

The thing is that there is nothing that gets rid of them immediately. It takes time for them to fade so I am going to make sure that anything I try I use for a long bit of time to really see if it works. And while I am at it I am going to find a better skin care routine. I just don't feel that my Proactive is working well anymore and if I am going to spend a ton of money I want the product to work all of the time! I have had thoughts of switching to Mario Badescu which I have heard great things about. So I will keep you posted on that!

So I took a test online today to find my "RealAge". RealAge calculates the good and the bad things that you do to your body and finds if your body is functioning younger or older than your birth age. So things like smoking, not eating healthy, and being really stressed will cause your body to age faster and possibly lead to you dying sooner. Things like moderate exercise, healthy eating, and better relationships will help you age slower resulting in a lower RealAge.

I have no idea the specific science to figure out your exact age. All I know is that my body is almost 10 years older than I really am. 10 YEARS!! That is awful! So in RealLife (birthday age) I am 19. But in RealAge I am 28.8! Nooooo!!!!

The nice thing is that they do break it down by category and give you things that you can do to bring your RealAge down. So in the spirit of feeling better I am going to try them!

Most of the things that they say are just simple kinda "duh" things. Floss, eat veggies, take a multi-vitamin - good stuff to do! I do have some things that I already do - the main one being that I NEVER EVER EVER take prescription medicine. I really dislike the pharmaceutical industry and distrust everything about it. (I'm going to stop there or I WILL go on a rant - and we don't need that!) Even when I am sick I refuse to take medicine for it unless they are all natural. In the past this has caused some issues in my house. I have been doing this for about a year and at first my parents thought I was going crazy! Not use the medicine that a DOCTOR gives you!?!?! Awful! Horrible! You're going to die! The reaction from my friends was the same. I got people giving me lectures and even getting mad! When I explained my reasons (That taking medications doesn't really fix the problem - it just takes care of the symptoms) I pissed off a lot of people.
***Note*** This is not something to go into without research and guidance from someone that knows about all-natural remedies. Especially if you have to take a necessary medicine like insulin for diabetes (though I have heard there are natural remedies for this too - but it is at your own risk!)

My dad being the nosy person he is decided to take a look at what his daughter was getting into. He was worried and mentioned it to the chiropractor that our family practically lives at (Since my parents got in a really bad car crash its a must for them!) Well our chiro actually is way into natural medicine (Score!) and helped explain some things to my dad. So now my dad is a firm believer in all-natural! I actually got away from the more natural for the last few months. I still don't take medicine but I have not been taking the suppliments that I should and just not doing the things that will make me feel better. So this RealAge thing is a good wake-up call! I need to get back to trying to get healthy!

I have to be honest - I am not a healthy person. But I am fortunate that I have an interest in health as well as beauty and I just need to put that interest to work!

So those are the two things - acne scars and being "old" - that are bugging me right now! I will give it about a month with both things and then I will do a follow up blog to see if anything has changed. If I get really brave I may start posting body deets like weight and stuff to motivate me (eep!! I'm not sure if I am THAT brave!)


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