Beauty Dunkle

With today’s on-the-go lifestyle, many women want face makeup tips to help them achieve a natural look that’s easy and fast, yet with enough polish to make it perfect for any business or personal daytime occasion. Natural face makeup is all about the colors you choose and where you put them.

Makeup Tips for the Natural Look

As Helga Surratt, President of about Faces Day Spa & Salon of Towson, Md., says, “Applying makeup for a natural look is easy with practice.” Follow these face makeup tips for a flawless finish to your makeup application:

• Start with a clean and moisturized face. This is your canvas.
• Use concealer for coverage. “To hide imperfections without adding color, use a concealer that has a yellow undertone,” Surratt says. Your concealer should be one shade lighter than your foundation or tinted moisturizer. Dot the concealer wherever you have a spot to cover and carefully blend it in with the rest of your skin using a makeup sponge.
• Choose the best base makeup for you. For the sheerest and most natural look, use a tinted moisturizer after your concealer and gently blend with a makeup sponge under your jaw line.

Eyeliner, eye shadow, and mascara are standard tools in any makeup kit. But makeup pros know that using an eyelash curler can further enhance your eyes by making them look wider and brighter. Inexpensive and easy to use, an eyelash curler is also safe if used properly. Read on for information about types of eyelash curlers and step-by-step instructions.

Eyelash Curler Options

There are two types of eyelash curlers — the conventional clamp-down kind and the newer heated eyelash curler. “Although manual or heated curlers can be used to curl the lashes, the effects are only temporary, from day to day,” notes lash stylist Twanna Smith, owner of Glam Eyelash and Brow Bar Salon in Duluth, GA.

Traditional eyelash curler.

This curler is metal and has the same kind of handles you’d find on a pair of scissors. The handles open and close a clamp that, when squeezed tight for a few seconds, produces the curl. The curling end has a rubber pad to protect delicate eyelashes from the metal clamp. The curler works by crimping your lashes up toward your brow, making them look longer and more pronounced. “Look for an eyelash

Summer is a wonderful time of year, but the sun and heat can take a toll on your skin, hair, and body. That doesn’t mean you should stay indoors — with a little care and a few precautions, you can enjoy summer to its fullest.

1. Try a Self-Tanner

Ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun are very damaging, especially UVA rays. They not only burn your skin and cause premature aging, but can also lead to skin cancer.

So, instead of lying for hours in the sun, get that sun kissed glow with a self-tanner. Many salons offer spray-on tan services, or you can purchase an inexpensive self-tanning lotion at your local drugstore. Gradual self-tanning moisturizers keep your skin smooth as they help you control just exactly how bronzed you become, and they are less prone to streaking. Just remember to exfoliate before you apply self-tanner to remove any dry skin that could pick up excess color and lead to an uneven appearance.

2. Slather on Sunscreen

Many dermatologists recommend using a sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 30. The Skin Cancer Foundation points out that tests demonstrated

Are you tired of waging a war against wrinkles? Scott Gerrish, MD, of Gerrish and Associates, PC, a non-surgical skin care specialist with offices in Virginia and Maryland states, “Don’t give up yet. There are steps you can take to lessen and even reverse one of the biggest signs of aging: wrinkles.”

9 Simple and Smart Skin Care Steps to Reduce Wrinkles

1.Avoid sun exposure. Try to wear white or light colors, and wear a hat when you’re outdoors. Also, don’t use tanning booths, which can be worse than the sun.

2.Wear sunscreen. For the best anti-aging protection, Dr. Gerrish strongly recommends, “Apply sunscreen with at least an SPF 15 (sun protection factor) thirty minutes before sun exposure to protect your skin from harmful UVA and UVB rays. Look for one with zinc or titanium oxide in the ingredient list.”

3.Avoid environmental pollutants. Ozone, smoke, and gasoline fumes are just a few of the pollutants that can age skin and cause premature wrinkles.

4.Start an anti-aging skin care program. June Breiner, MD, an internist in Maryland suggests, “Consult with a non-surgical skin care doctor. There are many products available that thicken your skin and

If you have varicose veins or spider veins in your legs, you’re not alone. It is estimated that more than half of American women and one-third of American men have leg vein problems.

These issues can make you feel insecure about exposing your legs, since they can make your legs appear unsightly and older. Fortunately, there are a number of treatments that can remove or improve the appearance of leg vein problems.

Treatment Options for Leg Vein Problems

In most cases, leg vein conditions are not dangerous, so most people choose to treat varicose and spider veins for cosmetic reasons. But in some cases leg vein problems need to be treated, possibly with vein surgery, because they can lead to blood clots, sores, skin ulcers, or painful irritation in the legs.

Whether your want to treat your leg veins for cosmetic or medical reasons, your treatment options include:

• Sclerotherapy. Sclerotherapy is the most common treatment for leg vein problems. In this procedure, a doctor injects a solution into the vein that causes it to collapse; this stops the flow of blood and causes the vein to fade. Sclerotherapy can be performed without

If you haven’t been protecting your skin, it can start to give away clues about your age. Fine lines and wrinkles begin to appear, along with brown spots and rough skin patches caused by sun exposure. Your skin might be producing less collagen, and dead skin cells don’t flake off imperceptibly anymore. If this sounds like your skin, it’s time to turn to anti-aging products and treatments to slow down, reduce, or even reverse the signs of aging and regain younger-looking skin.

Any skin that’s been regularly exposed to the elements can be expected to show its age and needs special care to maintain its youthful look, says Sonia Badreshia-Bansal, MD, CEO and medical director of Elite MD, Inc. Advanced Dermatology, Laser, and Plastic Surgery Institute in Danville, Calif.

Your Anti-Aging Action Plan

At-home and doctor’s office procedures can have a visible impact on your complexion, giving you back younger-looking skin.

1. Protect your skin. The first rule of thumb: Prevent the damage. “The best thing to do to protect your skin is prevention,” Dr. Badreshia-Bansal says. The sun is enemy number one, so you need to wear sunscreen with a sun protection factor,

Your skin is affected by everything from the sun to irritating laundry detergent and cigarette smoke.

And it can show — with anything from redness to wrinkles, and in some cases even skin cancer. But before you resign yourself to the effects of your environment on your skin, consider the five most common culprits of skin damage and find out what steps you can take to avoid them.

1. Sun exposure. The sun is the biggest cause of skin damage, says Faramarz Samie, MD, PhD, director of Mohs Surgery and vice chair of the department of dermatology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. The ultraviolet rays of the sun break down the various components of the skin such as collagen and elastin that help keep your skin looking smooth. These rays also affect melanocytes, which can lead to changes in your skin’s pigmentation. What’s more: The aging effects of the sun eventually show on your skin as wrinkles, age spots (patches of brown spots), and possibly skin cancer.

To avoid skin damage that can be caused by the sun, dermatologists advise staying out of the sun during the middle of the day when

Dry skin brushing tones the skin, reduces the appearance of cellulite, opens pores to release toxins, gets rid of dead skin cells, and aids in the circulation of blood, Piper says.

Beyond healthy skin, “dry brushing stimulates the lymphatic system, which is also known as the broom of the body,” explains Jovanka Ciares, a holistic wellness coach and nutrition consultant practicing in New York City. “One of the lymphatic system’s primary functions is to clean toxins and debris out of your blood and help your body run more efficiently. It also helps your body absorb nutrients better, eliminate residues from the outer skin layers, help redistribute fat deposits, and push toxic matter into the colon” — a claim that has not been substantiated by research.

How to Dry Skin Brush

You’ll need a dry natural bristle brush or loofah for dry skin brushing. Make sure you are dry, too. There’s no single way to do it, but you’ll always want to brush toward the heart, says Piper. She uses this technique:

1. Before using the brush, use your fingertips to pump 3 times on the terminus, which is the indentation between the collarbone and

You may spoil your skin silly with facials, fancy products, and a skin care regimen that would make your dermatologist proud. But there are a few important (and surprisingly simple) steps that can make a huge difference in having healthy, glowing skin.Incorporate these five best skin care habits into your routine and you’ll have smoother, clearer skin in no time.

1. Wear sunblock 365 days of the year

In rain or shine, winter or summer, whether you have ivory white skin or a dark complexion, your skin is always susceptible to sun damage. “You’re consistently exposed to the sun’s rays during daylight hours, even when you don’t realize it,” warns Jeanine Downie, M.D., board-certified dermatologist and director of Image Dermatology in Montclair, New Jersey. “You should be wearing an SPF 30 every day, not only to protect against skin cancer but to prevent fine lines, wrinkles, large pores, and uneven skin tone.” In addition, it’s essential that you reapply your sunscreen every couple of hours, especially if you’re out and about — one morning slathering of SPF 100 won’t last you until sundown!

2. Refrigerate your eye cream

You can get more bang

Among basal cell carcinoma (BCC)patients who dealt with a severely stressful life event in the previous year, those who had experienced childhood emotional abuse were more likely to have poorer immune responses to the disease, researchers found.

In a study of 91 patients with a previous basal cell lesion, those who had been emotionally maltreated by their parents, and who had experienced a recent severe life event, had an interaction between those two factors that predicted the local immune response to their tumors, reported Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, PhD, of the Ohio State University Medical College in Columbus, and co-authors in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Kiecolt-Glaser and colleagues reported that the BCC patients who been mistreated early in life by a mother or father, and had suffered an extremely stressful life event within the past year, had poorer immune responses to their BCC tumors.

At the same time, emotional maltreatment was unrelated to BCC responses among those who had not experienced a stressful life event, the researchers added.

Kiecolt-Glaser noted that stressful events and the negative emotions generated by them, especially early in life, can dysregulate immunity enough to produce clinically significant changes, such

Nearly one in four people developshives at some time or another, and they can be triggered by hot summer weather.

Hives are itchy, red or white bumps, welts or patches on the skin. The condition can be acute or chronic, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

Acute hives, which can last less than a day or up to six weeks, are likely a reaction caused by contact with an allergen such as food, animal dander, insect bite, pollen or latex.

Other possible triggers included medications, heat, stress, exercise, chemicals or viral infection.

The academy says you should consult with your doctor to identify the cause of acute hives.

Most people with chronic hives have symptoms that last longer than a year. Allergies cause only a small percentage of chronic hives. In most cases of chronic hives, the exact cause can’t be identified. This means that routine testing such as general blood counts or screens are not cost-effective and don’t help in planning treatments to relieve symptoms, according to an academy news release.

Hives are not contagious, and most cases get better on their own. Doctors may advise

Skin cell transplants can restore pigment to the skin of some patients with the disorder known as vitiligo, new research finds.

Vitiligo is a skin condition in which melanocytes, or the cells in skin that produce pigment, are destroyed. The result is the skin loses color, often in patches. Vitiligo affects about one in every 200 people in the United States.

In the study, researchers from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit removed a postage stamp-sized sample of skin from the upper thighs of 23 patients. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 60 and included whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics.

Researchers then isolated melanocytes and keratinocytes, another type of skin cell, into a liquid solution.

Next, researchers used a device called a dermabrader to scrape off the white patches of skin, and sprayed the liquid containing the skin cells onto the skin, allowing it to disperse over the entire white patch. The area was then covered in dressings for about a week.

Gradually, the transplant, including the melanocytes, took hold and began to grow. Over the course of one to six months, color gradually returned to the white patches.

On average,

In terms of skin in the game, where you live has a big impact on your skin health. Just in time for the summer, beauty and skin care Web site Daily Glow released a list of the best and worst American cities for your skin.

“Skin health is a combination of environmental, lifestyle and genetic factors,” says Daily Glow skin and beauty expert Jessica Wu, MD. “It’s important for Americans to understand that it is never too late to protect their skin and reverse sun damage – and that even the smallest changes have the power to save and protect their skin for years to come.”

If your town isn’t ranked, here are some of the key factors in your environment that are affecting your skin’s health.

UV exposure: Sunshine year-round might sound like tons of fun, but it can also harm your skin. UV radiation is the main factor responsible for skin cancer, as well as sunburns and premature aging. Some of the most highly ranked cities have long winters and plenty of cloudy protection. Of course, weather isn’t the only factor. For example, cities in higher elevations tend to have more exposure to UV

“Fish pedicures” in health spas can expose recipients to a host of pathogens and bacterial infections, a team of researchers warns.

The practice of exposing your feet to live freshwater fish that eat away dead ordamaged skin for mainly cosmetic reasons has been banned in many (but not all) American states, but it is apparently a hot trend in Britain.

So much so that the British researchers sent their warning in a letter published in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officially known as “ichthyotherapy,” the procedure typically involves the importation of what are called “doctor fish,” a Eurasian river basin species known as “Garra rufa.” The fish are placed in a spa tub, the foot (or even whole body) joins it, and the nautical feeding on dead or unwanted skin begins.

The problem: such fish may play host to a wide array of organisms and disease, some of which can provoke invasive soft-tissue infection in exposed humans and many of which are antibiotic-resistant, according to the scientists from the Center for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) in Weymouth.

For most people, hives are a temporary allergic reaction to an avoidable trigger, such as shellfish or laundry detergent. But for some others, they may come on without warning or explanation and reappear regularly for months or even years. If you have cold urticaria, or cold-induced hives, for example, you may experience an allergic response anytime you’re exposed to low temperatures. This response could range from itchy to life-threatening.

With cold urticaria, the body’s response is similar to some other types of allergic reactions. Instead of being caused by contact with a specific material or substance, however — for example, the latex in surgical gloves and bandages — the hives are triggered by exposure to cold, or even by your skin temperature returning to normal after a sudden drop in temperature, such as jumping into and then getting out of icy water. It’s as if you’re allergic to cold.

“The cells that create hives are called mast cells,” says dermatologist Carolyn Jacob, MD, director of Chicago Cosmetic Surgery and Dermatology. “They release histamine. But we don’t quite understand why the mast cells respond to temperature changes.”

Symptoms of Cold Urticaria

Symptoms of cold

Birthmarks, scars and other facialblemishes may make it harder for people to land a job, new research suggests.

This is because interviewers can be distracted by unusual facial features and recall less information about job candidates, according to the investigators at Rice University and the University of Houston.

“When evaluating applicants in an interview setting, it’s important to remember what they are saying,” Mikki Hebl, a psychology professor at Rice University, said in a university news release. “Our research shows if you recall less information about competent candidates because you are distracted by characteristics on their face, it decreases your overall evaluations of them.”

One experiment involved about 170 undergraduate students who conducted mock interviews via a computer while their eye activity was tracked. The more the interviewers’ attention was distracted by facial blemishes, the less they remembered about the job candidate and the lower they rated them.

In a second experiment, 38 full-time managers conducted face-to-face interviews with job candidates who had a facial birthmark. All the managers had experience interviewing people for jobs but were still distracted by the birthmarks.

“The bottom line is that how your face looks can significantly

The 30-year-old woman arrived at the Henry Ford Hospital emergency room in Detroit out of breath and coughing blood.

It didn’t take long for doctors to figure out why: The woman admitted to having been at a party at a hotel five days prior at which she — and others — received injections of liquid silicone to “enhance” the buttocks and various body parts.

The silicone was not the medical silicone that is sometimes used for implants, but the type easily procured at hardware stores like Home Depot. The fat solvent used to make the silicone had quickly traveled to her lungs and gotten stuck in the airways, resulting in “silicone embolism syndrome,” or clots, in this case, in the smaller vessels in her lungs.

The syndrome, admittedly rare, was first seen in transsexual men wanting to augment their breasts in the 1970s.

“There are two types of side effects [that can result from silicone injections],” said Dr. Angel Coz, the pulmonary and critical care specialist who treated the woman. “Lungs is one of them. The other goes to the brain. The mortality in lungs is close to 20 percent but in the