When a woman becomes pregnant for the first time, she is literally in awe. After all, she and her significant other have joined together to create a life, and that life – their son or daughter – is now growing within her. Obviously, the woman has to pay attention to her lifestyle, and make all necessary changes in order to protect the baby.
This also becomes an issue with skin care, particularly when it comes to stretch marks. In the last few months of pregnancy, the baby grows rapidly, and the mother’s skin stretches beyond its normal capacity in order to be accommodating. For mothers who did not enact any form of skin care, stretch marks often become the result.
In order to effectively combat stretch marks, right from the beginning of her pregnancy the woman must incorporate cocoa butter into her daily skin care regime. At night (and in the morning too if possible) the expectant mother must gently rub the cocoa butter (which is a lotion that is available in many skin care products) into the skin of her belly. This will nourish the skin, and thus prevent stretch marks.
That being said, it is also important to only use skin products that have natural ingredients in them throughout the pregnancy, and even afterwards if the mother is breastfeeding. Luckily, there are many natural products available. So, in order to have healthy, glowing skin throughout the pregnancy and beyond, the woman should drink lots of water, and, above all things, stay stress free!
By: Beth Ortiz
It happens sooner or later to all of us. We wake up one fine morning, stumble into the bathroom and some old person has the nerve to stare back at us in the mirror, wrinkled and sad. Suddenly want to know, do wrinkle creams work? And if they do, which ones and how soon can I get some.
At some point we all add “wrinkle cream” to our personal care items shopping list and we need to know what to look for. We also need to know what else is involved in anti aging skin care. Before we go further, the answer to that nagging question do wrinkle creams work is a qualified “yes.” Some do great; others waste your time and money.
Before planning exactly what products will best reverse the appearance of aging skin, it helps to do some homework. Beauty and health magazines often report on products to diminish the effects of aging and these are usually objective. You can find them in paper magazine or the virtual one on the internet. Check consumer rating websites and other publications as well.
Be shameless about asking great looking older people for their secrets. And don’t be surprised if their lifestyle is as much the cause as their prize cream for wrinkles. No one minds being told how young we think they look and should be delighted to tell all.
Anti-aging means get plenty of rest, eating a very healthy diet and drinking those eight glasses of water a day. You want to add moisture, protein and antioxidants to your skin. You also want to avoid too much exposure and most certainly need to avoid smoking.
Once you have some suggested cream, start reading labels. Look for natural ingredients and few to no long strings of chemical names. Avoid any ingredients that you know you have sensitivities or allergies to. Don’t confuse cost with quality. Some cheaper brands are great and some extremely expensive ones are miserable.
A good wrinkle treatment will have several desirable ingredients. Some brands may have different formulas for day and night, so be sure the “day” type has a sunscreen. Sunshine or artificial tanning lights can damage the skin which creates new wrinkles and makes the one already there worse.
Creams to make wrinkles less noticeable usually have ingredients to draw moisturizer to the skin. Many products can do this, so any decent moisturizer should work. Other natural oils seal the moisture you do have in the skin. Dehydrated skin collapses a bit and makes wrinkles look worse and your skin needs water to function down to the cell level.
The same antioxidant vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in forms the skin can actually use. These include Vitamin A, Vitamin E, and several minerals. Other food components like flavonoids, carotenes, fatty acids and lycopenes can help reduce inflammation and help to repair the damage that has been done.
To answer for yourself the question do wrinkle creams work, find a mostly natural product with all the right stuff: antioxidants, moisture protectors and sun screen. Use it as directed and use it daily. Eat right, get plenty of rest, avoid too much wind and sun and avoid smoking like the plague. If you are a Baby Boomer, stay that way instead of becoming a Baby Pruner, because that’s the pits!
By: Geoff Hopkins
