Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Bepanthen lips


Ok, so Bepanthen is an antiseptic cream like Savlon - but it's the version for babies. You can buy it in the chemist and in places like Priceline, often Kmart etc will have it in their baby section.

Bepanthen differs from Savlon because it's a lot more creamy, and less harsh. When you get a tattoo, this is what they recommend you put on it.

It's an antiseptic, but it's also somehow moisturising.

I began using Bepanthen when I got a tattoo, so I had a tube around the place for several years (ps you buy one tube and no matter what you use it for you seem to have it forever).
So it's great for tattoos, for rash, for abrasions, all the usual.

I was having a lot of difficulty with my lips - they just kept flaking all the time, or the skin would do that horrible thing where it comes off and kind of nestles in a group at the corners of your mouth. Have you seen that? It looks horrible and you don't notice until you wipe your mouth or something and then you have to think of all the people that saw you like that!

So my lips kept cracking and I was trying lipsticks, lipgloss etc, I even tried not using anything for a while because I figured - guys never use lipgloss and their lips always look fine... I thought (and I still suspect) that when you start using lip chap, your lips stop producing whatever they need to stay moist, and so you need to keep using the chap.
It's a cruel cruel cycle.

Anyway, I was trying everything and nothing was working. Oh I even got benefit lip exfoliant and lip treatment. I would have had to exfoliant freaking every day for that to stop it all. Good stuff but it just wasn't solving the overall problem.

Then I read in a magazine someone saying that they use bepanthen at night. So I put a little on that night before bed.
Didn't really do anything.
Disappointing.

Next night I decided to SLATHER IT ON. So I put a bit more (but not so much that it was going into my mouth and I could taste it).

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!

I've used it every night since, and it keeps my lips in tip top condition for the entire next day. Sure I still need to use lip gloss (I usually use Elizabeth Arden 8 hour lip chap), but I don't have to put it on anywhere near as much, and sometimes I forget for the whole day - yep my lips feel a bit dry - but they never crack and I never get that gross white skin residue.

So Bepanthen - in the long run it's very cheap to buy, and it's an awesome product.

Plus - you can use it on so many other things!!! It NEVER STINGS, so it's great to put on all kinds of wounds.

Love it!!

Aspirin face mask


Ok so this one I heard helps to reduce your pores and keep them nice and clean.

You get about 6 aspirins, a tiny bit of water, and moosh them all together. I use a mortar and pestle, but you could really just do it with a spoon and bowl - it's just a good excuse for me to use that thing as I don't use it for anything else. Though it does look pretty.

So enough water so that you can smoosh that aspirin into a paste.

Then just pop it all over your face (not around your eyes of course).

Leave for 5, 10 mins... however long you want really. Though note that if you leave it for too long you start getting aspirin powder fall off your face.

Then you rub it off your face (it also acts as an exfoliant at this point).

Done.

PS I've heard that if you have really sensitive skin then this is not for you.

As for me - I found it awesome! It really does help with my pores. I usually do it and then follow with some pore strips, or the other way around.

My pores are visibly smaller and they feel "cleaner" and seem to be less oily for a while. It also seems to help me to not get any pimples.

So a thumbs up for me - I do this one maybe every fortnight. It's so easy and aspirin is SUPER CHEAP.

Highly recommended!

Hairspray leave in conditioner

Does this product exist? Cause if so I want to get my hands on it.

I'm pretty lazy when it comes to beauty things - if anything can combine processes, I'm on it.

So how about a hair spray that doubles as a leave in conditioner? Then I can spray away and know that I'm also improving my hair. Go me.

I'll keep an eye out....

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Milia removal


What's milia? It's little lumps on your skin that you get under your eyes.

Sometimes they are caused by high cholesterol, sometimes it's genetic, sometimes it's just whatever? Oh and eye creams can cause them too.

I think I get them through the genetic path.

Anyway at one stage they were really annoying me (they still do but I've kind of given up). I tried to remove them myself - I read on the net that you can poke a hole in one and then kind of "roll it out". Lets just say I was highly unsuccessful in this venture.
So. Next step was to go to a beautician. They do it as part of your facial... before they go ahead and do all the exfoliating, masking etc.
Except when they do it they do it a lot more hygienically then I could! Very light prick and then it comes out - though obviously I couldn't see it coming out. But the girl showed me and it's really just a little round tiny white pea, tiny.
You are just left a tiny bit red there for the day and then it's fine.

So is it worth it?

Depends.

You have to get it done like every month - that really adds up $$ wise. $80 a month adds up.

They say that if you get it done regularly it can get rid of most of them, but then you will need to come back for more facials to maintain that.

Ok so for me that just ended up adding up to too much.

So what I do now is just try to ignore them for starters hahahah, but I also make sure that I don't use eye creams - I use the serums instead - much much thinner. Since religiously sticking to that I haven't gotten any more milia, but it still means I'm stuck with the ones I had.

Verdict? If I had all the time in the world and all the money, sure I'd do it. But I don't.


Thermal straightening / Straight perm

I just had my hair permanently straightened in Sydney at one of the asian salons - if you want the name contact me. Very fancy place and everyone that worked there was SO nice.

Ok so it's thermal straightening and it's permanent. It only stops being straight when your hair grows out.

Basically - the structure of the hair is changed permanently.

The process takes HOURSSSSSS. My appointment was at 10:15am and I walked out of there at 2:30pm. Lucky for me I had a cushiony thing on my chair and got to walk around a bit. And thank goodness I have an iphone so could play games/facebook etc.

So the steps:
1. Light wash (they don't rub your head too hard as that can then make your scalp sensitive for the chemicals)
2. Apply the rebonding stuff - a thickish white cream. All over the hair, probably 2mm from the scalp
3. Steam thingy - like the heat one that they put over your head
4. Check how it's going - if your hair is in bad condition, or you have any bits that have been bleached etc, they will react to the rebonding way quicker than the rest
5. Rinse
6. Blow dry/straighten
7. Apply straightening stuff - another thickish white cream. This time you can't move your head much - they kind of paint it on and have bits of tin foil. It's painted on the hair so that the hair sits very straight on the foil.
8. Rinse, wash etc
9. Soft blow dry - they just wiggle their fingers through it very gently.
10. Very light run through with the straightener.
11. Cut (if you choose to)
12. DONE

So after that you can't get your hair wet for 3 days. Definitely can't wash it. You have to make sure that you don't tuck it behind your ears, or basically do anything with it that could change the shape. No tieing it up, no hair clips etc.

Those 3 days for me - well it poured with rain the night that I got it done - clever me though, I was totally prepared - had an umbrella in my Louis ready to go. Boo yah.

My hair is probably two inches below my shoulders, possibly three. I still have layers in it (which is crap because the straightening looks better with no layers, and you need the weight to kind of hold it down) - so I had to be careful that my hair didn't kind of "sit" on my shoulders, because then it would stay like that. Eww.
So I kept keeping bits coming to the front of my shoulders and bits to my back.

Sleeping is fine, you just kind of don't have to worry about it for that time. I was concerned about it, but meh, I was tired!

I have one layer that ends maybe two inches from the full length of my hair - I kind of knew this one would be annoying - it will tend to kick out a little, but that only really happens at the back so it's not too bad.

Ok so..... I finally got to wash it this morning.

It felt gross when it got wet. Like straw. And after I shampooed, yeh still straw. But as soon as I put conditioner in - voila! It felt great again, and I could definitely tell the difference. It was like when you have GHD'd your hair, then step into the shower and the water is flowing over the straight hair.
It felt awesome.

Then I popped in some leave in conditioner, and lightly blowdryed, just running my fingers through my hair.

OH MY GOD. SO AWESOME.

It is STRAIGHT AS. I love it. And I can part it whatever way I want - it's not like the straightening set it into one style only.
I could have run the straightener over the top level lightly, but I didn't even bother. Go me, it looks great, straighter than I ever could have done it myself.

My hair used to be really wavy - my dad has the white man afro, and my mum has asian straight hair. This resulted with very puffy wavy hair for me. Like out of control puffy. Every time I used to wash it, it would explode into giant 80's wavey hair, but puffy and out of control. It looked terrible. It's not that I couldn't straighten it. However - I had to wash, sleep on it, then straighten it in the morning - otherwise it would be frizzy. Pain in the bum.

I am SO happy to be able to do this quick quick blow dry and I can walk out the door with my hair looking totally 'done'.

$280.

Lets see how it continues after this - I'll update!

*********************** UPDATE - Feb 2011 ***************************

So the salon I went to was:

Kippo - Pitt St, Sydney: It is very fancy with mirrors everywhere.. beautiful place.

I went back again in about November 2011 because my roots had grown back through (aobut 5 inches of regrowth... I really left it for ages).

So what happened with regrowth - it wasn't really noticeable until it got to about 3 inches, and then I could see the difference, there was more body in the regrowth and it just wasn't as smooth and nice. Also if it got wet it just exploded with frizz. It was also quite hard to straighten that bit to match the rest.

I had two days interstate for a conference and it was raining the whole time and I looked at myself with my new "mushroom do" due to the 5 inches of regrowth and thought that's it! I called Kippo on the morning of the second day and they fit me in THAT DAY. Who does that?? Like seriously. I thought it was the biggest long shot ever. And they were SO nice about it. I had a plane to catch that afternoon and they were so mindful of timing.

Look they are just lovely. Hands down just lovely people.

So we went through the process again - it was quicker this time cause of less hair.

Results? Absolutely awesome. Even better than the first time. God it felt good not to have to try so hard with it again. And now? I don't even straighten or blow dry at all!! I just run a leave in through it, then finger comb it into the shape I want... and it just dries beautifully. It's amazing. AMAZING.

Only side comment I would make about having your hair straightened - don't cheap out on products. I use Kerastase masquintense at least once a week, and I regularly give it a "treat" where I leave a treatment in for an hour or so. I also ALWAYS use a leave in conditioner. And I use very good shampoo/conditioner. At the moment I am liking Sebastian Laminates.