10 Top Secret Uses for Moroccan Argan Oil!

*  Wrinkle Fighter/Moisturizer - a few drops a day keeps the wrinkles away. Use instead of a face cream for moisturization day and night!

*  Stretch Marks - soften away the stretch marks with a daily dose

*  Crow's Feet - dab a little around the eyes every day

*  Make-up Remover - massage in a little argan oil and wipe the make-up away

*  Cracking Lips - protect lips with a few drops of argan at night

*  Strengthen Nails - massage nails with a drop of argan a day

*  Protect Cuticles - massage argan into cuticles to prevent splitting

*  Condition Hair - apply argan to hair wait 30 minutes and shampoo out

*  Control Fly Aways - using fingers run a few drops of argan through hair

*  Soften Bath Water - add a few drops of argan for luxuriously soft skin

Whew!  That's a lot of bang for one little bottle!  I absolutely LOVE using Argan and another oils on my face instead of a cream.  Light enough to use during the day under make-up, even loose minerals!  Remember a little goes a long way!

Have you tried face oils?  Tell us what you think!

Safer, Cheaper and Easier than a Facelift or Chemical Peel!

Get that glowing, even tone complexion by applying vitamin C to your skin!  See what Dr. Oz has to say about it:

Dr. Oz consulted with the nation’s top plastic surgeons to find alternatives to popular cosmetic surgical procedures. Safer, cheaper and easier than a facelift or chemical peel, these secrets can help drop a decade from your face.

Vitamin C is critical for your body and plays an important role in maintaining healthy, resilient skin. While young skin is full of vitamin C, aging skin naturally loses this nutrient over time. Other factors like exposure to UV light, pollutants and cigarette smoke compound the decline of vitamin C, contributing to signs of aging. The good news is that you can fight back by replenishing your skin’s vitamin C levels to help to combat and even reverse time’s effect on your face.

Wrinkles

One of the most powerful functions of vitamin C is its role in the production of collagen, a protein that gives your skin its elasticity. As you age, collagen breaks down and wrinkles begin to form. Stabilizing your skin’s levels of vitamin C can help to counteract wrinkle formation by increasing collagen production.

Age Spots

When it comes to treating age spots, you don’t need chemical peels and lasers – it turns out that vitamin C can have almost the same results! Age spots are essentially sun damage, and vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant, shown to reduce the number of sunburned cells as well as reverse age-related damage to skin. While it’s not a replacement for sunscreen, vitamin C protects against and may repair UV damage like discoloration and fine lines.

Your Anti-Aging Rx

Taking vitamin C through a supplement or food is beneficial to your health, but to specifically target signs of aging on your face, topical vitamin C is best. In fact, applying vitamin C to the skin can be 20 times more effective than taking it orally. Topical vitamin C is sold in a wide range of products from serum to lotions. Look for products that contain between 3% and 10% of vitamin C and include the active ingredient ascorbic acid or L-ascorbic acid. Pay extra attention to the packaging – all antioxidants, including vitamin C, are vulnerable to deterioration in the presence of air and light. Unless the product is in an airtight and opaque package, don’t buy it!

Apply topical vitamin C once a day, ideally after you’ve exfoliated in the morning to utilize vitamin C’s sun-protecting properties. On rare occasions, topical vitamin C can cause some mild dryness or flaking. Counteract this side effect with a moisturizer. This topical nutrient is safe to combine with all your other skin care products and even works synergistically with other antioxidants. For a super powerful anti-aging punch, combine vitamins C and E together.

The length of time from when you start using vitamin C until you see results varies with each person. While some people see changes as soon as 2-4 weeks, it may take others 6-8 weeks to see a difference. After around 6 months, you’ll reach the maximum benefits.

Try Perfect C Serum from MyChelle and get ready for all the compliments!

What’s Wrong With High SPF?

Theoretically, applying sunscreen with a sun protection factor – SPF – of 100 would allow beachgoers to bare their skin 100 times longer before the sun burns it. Someone who would normally redden after 30 minutes in the midday sun could stay out for 50 hours.

But for high-SPF sunscreens, theory and reality are two two different things. Many studies have found that people are misled by the claims on high-SPF sunscreen bottles. They are more likely to use high SPF products improperly and as a result may expose themselves to more harmful ultraviolet radiation than people relying on products with lower SPF.

The reason: People trust these products too much.

There are four key strikes against SPF values greater than 50:

1. Marginally better sunburn protection – Sunbathers often assume that they get twice as much protection from SPF 100 sunscreen as from SPF 50.  In reality, the extra protection is negligible. Properly applied SPF 50 sunscreen blocks 98 percent of sunburn rays; SPF 100 blocks 99 percent. When used correctly, sunscreen with SPF values in the range of 30 to 50 will offer strong sunburn protection, even for people most sensitive to sunburn.

2. Poorer balance – The chemicals that form a product’s sun protection factor are aimed at blocking ultraviolet B rays, which are the primary cause of sunburn and non-melanoma skin cancers such as squamous cell carcinoma (von Thaler 2010). Ultraviolet A rays penetrate deeper into the skin and are harder to block with sunscreen ingredients approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration for use in U.S. sunscreens.  Scientists know less about the dangers of UVA radiation, but the general consensus is that it is less obvious than UVB damage but possibly more serious.

A sunscreen lotion’s SPF rating has little to do with the product’s ability to shield the skin from UVA rays. As a result of the FDA’s restrictions on ingredients and concentrations, U.S. sunscreens offer far less protection against UVA than UVB, particularly those producrts with the highest SPF.  Because UVA and UVB protection do not harmonize, high-SPF products suppress sunburn but not other types of sun damage.

3. Consumers misuse high-SPF products – High-SPF products tend to lull users into staying in the sun longer and overexposing themselves to both UVA and UVB rays. Imbued with a false sense of security, people extend their time in the sun well past the point when users of low-SPF products head indoors. As a result, they get as many UVB-inflicted sunburns as unprotected sunbathers and are likely to absorb more damaging UVA radiation.

Philippe Autier, a scientist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is affiliated with the World Health Organization, has conducted numerous studies on sunbathers and believes that high-SPF products spur “profound changes in sun behavior” that may account for the increased melanoma risk found in some studies. In two studies Autier confirmed that European vacationers spent more total time in the sun if they were given an SPF 30 sunscreen instead of an SPF 10 product (Autier 1999, 2000).

4. High-SPF products have greater risks to health – High-SPF products require higher concentrations of sun-filtering chemicals than low-SPF sunscreens. Some of these ingredients may pose health risks when they penetrate the skin, where they have been linked to tissue damage and potential hormone disruption. Some may trigger allergic skin reactions.  If studies showed that high-SPF products were better at reducing skin damage and skin cancer risk, that extra chemical exposure might be justified. But they don’t, so choosing sunscreens with lower concentrations of active ingredients – SPF 30 instead of SPF 70, for example – is prudent.

The sunscreen industry has defended high-SPF sunscreens as a way to combat consumer misuse (Ou-Yang 2012). Numerous studies show that sunscreen users apply just one-fifth to a one-half the quantity of sunscreen the maker recommends. When someone applies only 25 percent of the ideal amount of SPF 30, the sunburn protection on the skin is actually only 2.3. Someone who applies SPF 100 sparingly can wind up with a functional SPF as low as 3.2.  In the real world, these products are less effective than T-shirts, which generally have and SPF of 5.

EWG believes that manufacturers should stop selling high-SPF products altogether. Only then can consumers have clear, straightforward information about what’s in the bottle and how to use it to protect themselves.

The FDA has long contended that SPF higher than 50 is “inherently misleading” (FDA 2007). Australian authorities cap SPF values at 30;  European and Japanese regulators at 50 (Osterwalder 2009b).  In  2011, the FDA proposed a regulation to prohibit labels higher than SPF 50+,  but the agency has not completed work on this rule and put it into force.

High-SPF sunscreens are popular – and lucrative.  Sales of high-SPF products have been on the rise for at least a decade, so it’s no wonder that sunscreen makers are fighting to keep selling them. About 1-in-7 beach and sport sunscreens in EWG’s 2013 database advertises SPF values higher than 50+.  That’s virtually no change from the proportion of high-SPF products in last year’s sunscreen database.

source: EWG

Detox Your Skin!!

The key to any skin/beauty regime is consistency – the skin is made up of several layers and it takes time for skin to adjust to new climates. If you follow the main “musts” your skin will be vibrant and glow year round.

Eat well: The old adage “you are what you eat” applies to not only our body but skin. What is lovely about spring and summer is that nature’s skin detoxifiers abound in red and blue, in the form of berries. Try eating what is in local, in season and fresh. Not only will you feel better but you will look better.

Fruit Cleanser Strawberries, rich in vitamins A and C, they are great for your skin and I love using them in recipes.

3T honey 3 large ripe strawberries 1T almond oil or you can use sunflower or apricot oil. Mix ingredients in a bowl and use to cleanse skin. It not only cleanses but moisturizes.

Exfoliate: Get rid of winter skin with a gentle exfoliator, stay away from harsh scrubs and chemicals that can damage your skin. Remember your skin is shedding cells every minute, think of it as spring cleaning, sweeping away winter. When I was a child my mother would exfoliate with cornmeal which is the reason I created our award winning grits & honey scrub. What customers love about it is that it is not only an exfoliator but a moisturizer as the honey leaves your skin soft and supple. To this day her skin glows and I know it is from her routine of exfoliating and moisturizing.

HollyBeth

If you haven't tried HollyBeth's Organics - you don't know what you're missing!  She hand makes all her products with lots of love here in Georgia and is certified organic!  Now through 4/21/13 use code HB20 at checkout and save 20% off all of her luxurious products!

Don't Be Fooled!!

At this point, we all realize that most personal care products on the market contain toxins that could be potentially hazardous to our health. We’ve all heard the outrageous facts about how little control the government has over ingredient regulation, but did you know that there is less regard to product marketing?

It’s not enough to simply commit to using organic or non-toxic products anymore. In terms of regulations, skin care companies are not held to any standard when it comes to product marketing. Companies can create a compelling infomercial about the amazing benefits of antioxidants in their “natural” product and never once mention the slew of carcinogenic toxins lurking in the rest of the formulation. Or they can use misleading claims on their product packaging. 

The industry has made the term “beauty secrets” endearing and playful, but we think otherwise. What secrets are beauty companies keeping from you? Is it that they put lead in their lipstick? Is that they’re testing their products on animals? Is it that their cosmetic line contains Bismuth Oxychloride that could be the possible cause of your acne? You can no longer take commercials, magazine editorials, or product marketing at face value. In this confusing, and often times overwhelming industry, you must ask questions, do your own research, and ask more questions to become your own expert.  We each have skin that is unique to us, so who better to be the expert about you?! 

Be Wary of Natural Marketing Claims

Many products on the market will use words like “all-natural” to describe their product, but while it might sound healthy, it doesn’t have any indication as to what is inside. It takes only one plant-based ingredient for a product to be called “natural.” We urge you to remove “natural” from your vocabulary, because poison ivy and lead are “natural” ingredients and definitely not something we want to rub on our skin. Instead look for products that use the words “organic” and “non-toxic.”

Look Beyond the Hero Ingredient

There are always trends in the marketplace and right now the buzz-worthy ingredients are CoQ10, Antioxidants, Moroccan Argan Oil and Hyaluronic Acid, to name a few. Commercials, print ads, and product packaging call consumer attention to these hero ingredients (and for good reason), but say little about the rest of the product formulations. It’s important that you look beyond the hero ingredient, because the rest of the formula could be doing more harm than good or be keeping the great ingredients from doing their job.  Recently saw a product that was simply called Moroccan Argan Oil. However, when I read the label it took quite some time to find argan oil listed in the ingredients.  It was WAY down on a LONG list of other not so "natural" ingredients!

Beware of Clinical Testing Claims

Not a skin care commercial goes by without some sort of clinical testing claim. There are numerous reasons for a company to tout claims like “clinically validated” or “clinically proven results,” but their most important job is to instill confidence in the consumer. But what do we really know about clinical tests? The simple answer it not much. Companies are not required to share the documentation or findings of their studies. Nor are there standards in which a trial must be performed. They can use as few or as many people and over any duration of time.  It’s most important to remember that our skin is unique to us. What might work for one person, or 100 people studied, may not work for you. Again, it is up to you to be your own expert about your skin.

Be Skeptical

Not everyone dishing out advice or “facts” is an expert. I like to keep up with other products and how they are marketed so I routinely peruse the aisles of some well known retail stores. When I asked for their natural and organic lines they quickly showed me several, however, when I read the ingredients it was far from it!  The salesperson just shrugged off my concerns. The same goes for television interviews, magazine articles, and product reviews. No matter how confidently something is written or said, make sure you do some research before you take it as proven fact.

But how do you determine if a marketing claim or something you read is not the whole truth? Reading ingredient labels is a great place to start to see if you notice a red-flag ingredient. You can also research your product on the EWG’s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database to see how they have rated the product in terms of its toxicity. 

Before spending you hard earned $$$$$ make sure you know what you are getting!!

The beauty of our B Green Mud Mask is that you can customize it to fit your specific needs. If your skin has been taken advantage from the wind, sun, or smog, pick the ingredients that are best suited to replenish necessary moisture and nutrients, like avocados, bananas, yogurt, and olive oil. A simple 20-minute application will allow the Mud Mask’s French Clay to absorb any toxins from the skin and the extra fruits and foods will bring an instant boost of moisture to the party! 

Some mixing ingredients and their benefits: Mix 1 Tbsp of the B Green Mud Mask with a combination of mashed avocado (moisturizing antioxidant that promotes healthy cell function), banana (said to help soothe psoriasis and eczema, reduces inflammation & irritation, diminishes wrinkles), yogurt (evens out skin tone, contains lactic acid which smooths rough skin and prevents the signs of aging, dissolves dead skin cells), honey (moisturizing antioxidant, protects against damage and promotes wound healing), olive oil (plumps and moisturizes skin) or water and apply a thick layer on top of clean skin. Leave on for 10-20 minutes and rinse off with water.

Order online and check out with code:  BGreen20  and get 20% off this great mask today through 3/24!!

If you've tried it or have a fun recipe to share we"d LOVE to hear from you!!

There are many reasons to make the switch to non-toxic products, but for some people it is acne that motivates the switch. While we know that acne can be caused by a myriad of factors (hormones, environment, and so on), we’re big believers that non-toxic products made with natural and organic ingredients do make a difference in clearing your skin. However, it should be known that not all natural ingredients are good for your skin. 
One big time offender is Bismuth Oxychloride. By definition Bismuth is a natural mineral, but did you know that it is a byproduct of lead and copper processing? It is also labeled as a “skin irritant” on its Material Safety Data Sheet. To top it off, its primary use is in the manufacturing of fishing anchors and shot gun pellets. We can’t imagine that the same ingredient could ever be soothing, calm, or even beneficial for skin.  If you look on the periodic table of elements, you'll find bismuth with an atomic number of 83. It neighbors lead, tin, antimony and polonium on the periodic table - Heavy Metals.  Bismuth does occur naturally in the earth but in very small amounts. Most of the bismuth produced in the US is as a by-product from refining lead, tin, copper, silver and gold ores.  Bismuth must be refined and combined with other elements to produce bismuth oxychloride in order to be safely  used in cosmetics.  Doesn't seem as "natural" as some would have you believe!

Skin irritation from bismuth oxychloride is not unusual. According to the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) bismuth oxychloride poses a risk of being potentially irritant to humans when it comes in contact with the skin or eyes.  It's a very heavy element, which makes it irritating for many people. The heaviness can result in clogged pores or irritated skin.  Those using mineral makeup with Bismuth Oxychloride have experienced clogged pores, papules, pustules, whiteheads, extreme blackhead problems, itchiness, irritation, dryness and more! Mineral makeup made with it has finer granules with a lighter feel.

Bismuth Oxychloride is commonly used by makeup companies because it adds an attractive pearlescent shimmer, adheres well to the skin, and has a good “slip,” which means that it has a silky feel. Many resources, including the FDA, deem it safe to use because Bismuth is labeled as non-toxic on the periodic table. It is also affordable, which keeps prices low.

After watching an infomercial (I won't mention any names but I think we all know which one I started with) on loose minerals I too jumped on the bandwagon!  In the beginning I absolutely LOVED them, however, over time and with continued use my skin was getting dried out. I tried many other brands with no luck.  I thought that there was an age limit to using loose minerals that I had passed!  I preferred using loose minerals to liquid foundations so started doing some research and learned of potential risk of irritation caused by Bismuth Oxychloride.  I finally came across Mineral Hygienics and noticed a difference as soon as I opened the container.  The granules were much finer and lighter!  So when I opened Keeping it Natural I chose to carry them as my premiere loose mineral makeup.  

If you have had a similar experience with mineral cosmetics check your ingredients.  If yours has bismuth oxychloride try one without it - like Mineral Hygienics.  Afterall, you have nothing to lose and a healthier, more radiant complexion to gain!

As an incentive we'll give you 15% off your purchase of any Mineral Hygienics item now through 1/31!  If you're in the area drop by 220 E. Clayton St, Athens, Ga. or shop online at www.keepingitnaturalbodycare.com and use code MH15.