It’s the fastest growing trend in the skincare and cosmetics industry – natural, organic makeup.

Next time you’re in a department store, take a look for yourself. As you walk the aisles, start to count the number of products and brands promoting natural, organic, biodynamic, mineral-based, plant-based and petrochemical-free skincare and make-up products.

Just a few short years ago, many of these products didn’t exist!

In fact, just last year, the Natural and Organic Makeup industry in the United States grew to a $350 million dollar industry – up $68 million two years earlier – a 24% increase.

So to say that Natural Organic Makeup sells well is an understatement.

But is Natural Organic Makeup Really Effective?

Critics of Natural Organic Makeup point to the low-allergenic, low-irritant, plant-and-mineral derived formulas and ingredients in many cosmetic products and raise a good point.

If these products are so gentle, how can they possibly be effective?

After all, reading the ingredients listed on many of these products, some of the skincare products sound like a recipe for porridge or some other kind of sweet paste that you could just as easily spoon into your mouth as you could rub into your skin!

“Enriched with Natural Honey, Oat Extracts and Vanilla Essences”? – It sounds delicious!

And to be honest, the critics of natural organic makeup have a point!

Many of the formulations used are truly too gentle to be truly effective – the nutrients that they prescribe will help you to improve your complection and soften your appearance will often feed the parasites that live on your skin much more than feeding your skin cells themselves!

And many of the mineral makeups that claim to be able to be absorbed by the skin – the particles inside the make up (although tiny) are still too large to be absorbed by your skin.

So it’s important to avoid the hype and sales pitches that many of the skincare and cosmetic houses are so good at delivering, and look at the products based on their individual merits.

Yes, it’s good to avoid harsh petrochemicals – make ups that are MADE from crude oil – the same chemicals that you pump into your car to make it run. Some of these carcinogenic nasties have been proven to cause cancers in the human body – and let’s face it, a good make-up is something that you would want to use every day!

(That’s a lot of damage to your fragile skin!)

But don’t discount natural organic makeup and skincare products quite yet!

There are some fantastic, highly effective, natural, organic, skin-safe products around!

You just need to know where to look

Technorati Tags: beauty products, make up, natural cosmetics, natural organic makeup, natural skincare, organic cosmetics, organic living, organic make up, organic skincare, skincare

Dry skin happens more often in the winter where the cold air outside and the hot air inside creates a low relative humidity. It’s easy to treat dry skin cheaply, simply, naturally, yet effective, at home. Xeroderma literally means “dry skin”.

Skin consists of loose connective tissue and elastin. The skin is often known as “the largest organ of the human body”. Skin also receives less blood flow and lower gland activity.

The dermis is structurally divided into two areas: a superficial area adjacent to the epidermis, called the papillary region, and a deep thicker area known as the reticular region. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. The outermost layer of epidermis consists of 25 to 30 layers of dead cells.

The oil glands do not supply enough lubrication to the skin: as a result, the skin becomes dehydrated.

Environmental factors such as exposure to sun, wind, cold, chemicals, or cosmetics, or excessive bathing with harsh soaps, can cause dry skin. Forced-air furnaces make skin even drier. Xeroderma can also be caused by a deficiency of vitamin A, systemic illness, overexposure to sunlight or some medications.

Use bath oils and moisturizers daily. Cosmetics should be used carefully because they may cause allergic reactions like contact dermatitis. Dry your skin gently and thoroughly, patting not rubbing.

Fatty acids are particularly important to people with dry skin. Drink plenty of water, a minimum of a quart a day. Drink freshly juiced carrot juice every day. You want to work from the inside out too. Concentrating on a diet of LOTS of fruits and vegetables (preferably uncooked) and no junk food, should give you an observable improvement within 30 days.

It just takes motivation, a willingness to try it, and diligent application of coconut oil several times daily and at bedtime to see its benefits. Coconut oil is very inexpensive, therefore, a good, cheap home remedy. Also use a thin layer of coconut oil under your make-up to moisturize your skin all day. Use bath oils and moisturizers, especially coconut oil, at least daily.

Sunlight, water and air play an important role in keeping the skin healthy. Dry skin can be converted into healthy skin using natural home remedies. The skin supports its own ecosystems of microorganisms, including yeasts and bacteria, which cannot be removed by any amount of cleaning.

It’s time to call the doctor when all your home remedies do not relieve your dryness and itching. Go to your skin doctor if dryness and itching are preventing you from sleeping. Make sure to call your dermatologist when you have any open cuts or sores from scratching that won’t heal.

Helen Hecker
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/new-thinking-on-natural-dry-skin-care-treatment-119657.html

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Copyright 2005 by Joseph Ben Hil-Meyer Research, Inc.

 

Bruce Berkowsky, N.M.D., M.H., HMC

 

The Human Being Is A Rhythmic Organism

In-built in the human organism’s design is a rhythmic system: an internal organization which coordinates all the rhythmic functions of the body and mind. The primary organs of the rhythmic system are the heart, and secondarily, the lungs. Heart and lung activities are characterized by ceaseless rhythm. Also, whenever a strong feeling is experienced, changes occur in the subtle interplay of blood and breath. The heart and respiratory rates may increase or become erratic. When people recount strong emotional episodes, we often hear expressions such as “My heart skipped a beat,” or “It took my breath away.” Virtually every function of the body exhibits rhythmicity. The maintenance of specific rhythmicity is dependent upon an undisturbed general life-rhythm. In essence, health can be defined as a state wherein one’s life-rhythm is synchronized with the workings of the natural world. On the other hand, disease can be viewed as a disturbance of the synchronization between one’s life-rhythm and the eternal cycles and imperatives of Nature.

Traditional naturopathy is a health/healing discipline that was established in the 19th century. It views disease as the body’s attempt at self-cleansing and regeneration in order to self-heal. The human organism is designed to strive toward health, not disease. Disease is often a defensive reaction brought about by poor lifestyle habits. Therefore, the power to cure disease resides only within the patient’s body, but that innate power cannot fully prevail until wrong living habits stop and the fundamental elements of life and health, in necessary measure, have been set in place, namely: proper diet; pure water; fresh air; sunlight; adequate exercise, warmth, rest and sleep; emotional harmony; proper posture.

As human beings, we have an inherent relationship with these fundamental elements—disease is an outgrowth of a deficiency or excess of one or more of them. Restoration of health in the ill person is accomplished through the same means of sustaining life and preserving health in the well person.

If a substance is not fundamental to the health of the body, it’s also not fundamental to disease treatment. From this view comes the most important therapeutic principle of traditional naturopathy: Disease treatment must be based upon the use of the fundamental elements of life in accordance with the needs and abilities of the patient. Accordingly, Paracelsus, the renowned 15th- to 16th-century alchemist and professor of physics, medicine and surgery observed: “The physician should pass Nature’s examination.”

In 1904, noted traditional naturopath Adolph Just wrote in Return To Nature: “Those who no longer listen to the voice of Nature become the victims of a thousand different diseases and miseries…Humankind can recover and again become happy only via a true return to Nature… [by choosing] the food that Nature has laid before them from the beginning and bringing themselves again into relation with water, light and air, earth, etc. which Nature originally designed for them.”

Adolph Just is not suggesting that human beings forsake the comforts of modern existence, only that they reestablish their primal relationship with the life-sustaining elements of the natural world. For instance, instead of viewing diet as a form of entertainment, it should be seen primarily as a means for optimal survival. In this regard, Plato aptly stated: “Through your stomach come all your ills.”

In the 19th and early-20th centuries, naturopathic doctors developed many creative, highly effective therapies using Nature’s life- and health-giving elements. Originally, many of these therapies were applied within the setting of the numerous naturopathic health spas of those days which featured sunbathing, hiking in the fresh air, hydrotherapies, deep breathing, pure water, nourishing food, massage and lots of rest and sleep. However, with the introduction of “miracle drugs” came the misconception that simple naturopathic therapies were somehow quaint and outdated. And the hectic lifestyle of our era popularized a demand for the “quick-fix.”

The use of surgery and drugs (even natural medicines such as herbs and homeopathy) can only act upon the superficial symptoms of the underlying disharmony in an individual if the fundamental elements of life are not restored. And such disharmony may eventually manifest in some other, and perhaps more threatening, form.

Acute diseases such as influenza and colds, especially in children, may recede despite improper management if the patient’s powers of recuperation are still intact. However, chronic diseases such as arthritis and cancer can never be fully remedied by therapeutic fragments but only through restoration of the proper relationship of all the elements of life in organic unity. In 1892, in his book How Nature Cures, Emmet Densmore, M.D. writes: “…disease is but the expression and result of a disturbance of the conditions natural to life. The only useful office of the physician is to restore those conditions.”

Why Do We Get Sick?

Sickness is a state the body adopts because the state of normality can no longer be sustained. It is a valiant attempt by the innate healing power of the body to restore normality; the symptoms produced are evidence of this healing power’s efforts toward restoration. However, when treatment of the sickness does not feature reintegration with the fundamental elements of life, only reduction of symptoms is attainable, rather than full recovery of vigor and vitality—much like dispersing smoke while allowing a fire to continue burning out of control.

In the 1930s, famed Swedish health teacher Are Waerland began his Sun Viking movement. Many of his students experienced greatly improved health and even recovery from serious illnesses. Waerland taught that disease was a disturbance of a person’s life-rhythm, established through millions of years of biological evolution. He told his students to look outside the body to environmental conditions as primary factors that create health or disease. Waerland felt that health could only be produced, and disease eliminated, by restoring the original human life-rhythm which depends upon an unhindered relationship between the human body and the external factors of Nature.

Disease: A Defensive Reaction Of The Body

As a result of poor diet, lack of exercise and other lifestyle errors, the cells of a person’s joints begin to starve for nutrients and oxygen and cannot throw-off wastes. Those cells will now begin to deteriorate. In reaction, the body produces inflammation, a normal part of the immune response, to fight infection and increase circulation. And perhaps the body will deposit calcium in the joints to help stabilize them. Is this a destructive process? Certainly, but it’s also a logical defensive action by the body. Because the normal joint-state is no longer possible, the body does its best to protect itself under the circumstances. Therefore, the most fundamental response to arthritis is not painkillers and inflammatory drugs, but, rather, the introduction of proper nutrition, exercise and the other basic elements of life and health. They are the only things that can once again make normal joint function feasible.

The Two Primary Roots Of Disease

Deficiency or imbalance of Nature’s elements gives rise to the two primary roots of disease: autotoxemia—a level of bodily toxicity sufficient to impair vital functions and propel the body toward disease; enervation—when vital energy is expended in excess of the body’s normal production and falls below requirements for efficient operation.

Autotoxemia stems from poor diet, impure air and water, synthetic cosmetics, prescription drugs, cigarettes and other sources which can result in symptoms such as constipation, weak kidneys, unhealthy skin and shallow breathing. Enervation is primarily due to lack of rest and sleep, continual emotional stress and the habitual use of stimulants such as caffeine and alcohol. These two root factors work in conjunction, creating a vicious cycle. Autotoxemia causes congestion and overload, making the body work harder, and so, increases enervation by using up the powers of life to excess. Enervation, on the other hand, increases autotoxemia by slowing down all vital functions, thus leading to a back-up in normal fluid circulation, and, in turn, waste-removal.

Clearly, good health and the cure of disease depend upon effective bodily cleansing as well as the rebuilding of vital reserves which invariably requires a complete relationship with the fundamental elements of life.

Ancient physicians understood that human beings were inseparable from the natural universe. Disease was considered a result of people being alienated from Nature. They used fundamental elements such as fresh air, pure water, sunlight, natural diet and exercise not only to quell symptoms in the short-term, but to reintegrate the patient with Nature in order to sustain health in the long-term.

Hippocrates maintained that disease must be treated in accordance with natural laws. Also, when the great 17th-century physician Thomas Syndenham (renowned as the “English Hippocrates”) lay dying, he told his weeping pupils that he was content to die as he was leaving behind three physicians greater than he ever was. One of the pupils eagerly inquired, “Three great masters? Who are they?” Syndenham replied: “Water, air and exercise.”

A Health Lesson From The Rosebush

Let us say that during a summer’s walk while taking the fresh country air, you come upon an abandoned farm’s overgrown garden. You spot a rosebush choked by tall weeds and note its thin stems, pallid leaves and frail-looking flowers. Your first thought would not be: This plant looks like it can use some antibiotics and steroids. Rather, you would instinctively know that the first action necessary is to clear the tall weeds so that the rosebush receives adequate fresh air, sunshine and room to grow and expand. You would also conclude that it needs to be properly watered and nourished, and perhaps its trellis should be repaired to lend it a healthy posture. In other words, the most important step to take in bringing this plant back to health is the restoration of the required fundamental elements of life.

The above compelling logic supports the practice of artfully employing the fundamental elements of life as the primary tools for restoring and maintaining health. My own long-time clinical experience has proven to me that while treatment methods such as homeopathy, acupuncture, aromatherapy and herbal medicine are highly valuable, they are of secondary importance, because their full effectiveness is dependent upon the extent to which the fundamental elements of life are provided or denied.

Click here to sign up for Dr. Berkowsky’s free, Nature’s Therapies On-Line Journal

Dr. Bruce Berkowsky
http://www.articlesbase.com/alternative-medicine-articles/traditional-naturopathy-living-in-harmony-with-the-rhythms-of-the-natural-universe-700104.html

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Have you ever wondered why you have yet to find a product containing natural collagen that was manufactured by any of the big name companies that will actually do the job that it is advertised to do?  I used to wonder about that too, but after I began learning more about the human anatomy and the affect that ingredients in skin care products had on us it all began to become clear to me.

What these companies advertise as “natural” is simply not like our own skins collagen.  The reason for this is that medical or cosmetic grade collagen is primarily derived from animals such as cows, pigs, and chickens.  This type of collagen is not really good for our body’s, and can be pathogenic or cause immune system problems.

There is a synthetic variation of this tissue that has the exact physical properties of our own natural collagen which will probably replace the material that is currently being used in both cosmetics products and in clinical procedures, but even this form of collagen is not in any way to be considered an answer to the problems that you are having with the development of fine lines and wrinkles.

The biggest problem that you have with your appearance as you grow older is that your body has initiated a serious decline in the production of your skins collagen.  Collagen being the foundational tissue of our body has a lot to do with the firmness, and fullness of our skin.  Without adequate collagen our skin begins to wrinkle and sag.

The introduction of new natural collagen whether through a cosmetics product or through injections is not what is needed in order for you to look younger.  What your body actually needs in order to solve your problems with aging skin is that it needs the production rate of its own collagen and elastin to be naturally increased.

This kind of increase in your skins collagen had been impossible to accomplish until very recently when a company in New Zealand that specializes in anti aging skin care discovered that a certain combination of rare keratin proteins would actually promote the growth of new collagen and elastin. 

This re-growth of your body’s natural collagen is made possible by the inclusion of Functional Keratin in all of their anti aging skin care products.  This ingredient is complimented by the inclusion of another ingredient, which is a kelp extract known as Phytessence Wakame.  This ingredient has some special attributes of its own.

While this extract has no direct affect on your skins collagen it does raise the levels of hyaluronic acid in your skin.  This is accomplished by de-activating an enzyme in your skin that acts to break your skins acid down.  Once the threat posed by the enzyme is gone then this other structural tissue will aid your collagen in giving you wrinkle free skin.

The best natural collagen for making you look younger is your very own, so products containing Functional Keratin are your avenue to renewing your youthful look. Please take a look at my website now.

Gordon Hall
http://www.articlesbase.com/skin-care-articles/have-you-ever-wondered-about-your-natural-collagen-698454.html

We all want to leave our homes looking nice and presentable. Everyday, before leaving, you usually check on the mirror how you look with your clothes to see if it fits you right. When the ensemble does not work together, you probably hit the closet and dig in for more clothes that work well. After combing and shaving, men are good to go. Women, on the other hand takes a longer time in dressing up. This is because most of them use cosmetics in order to enhance facial features and complement their outfit for the day.

Cosmetic use has been popular since the Ancient times. Different nations have different purposes for using it. It was used for beauty treatment, definition of status quo, protection from illness and many other reasons. Men even used this to enhance their skin. However, despite the many beliefs of people about its usage, it had negative effects on its user for lack of testing of ingredients. Good thing as years add on to reach the modern era, these cosmetics have evolved using the finest substances that can ensure blending for all skin types and most of all, it is safe to use.

One of the most popular cosmetics nowadays is what we call mineral makeup. There are many reasons why you should be using it. This is the most sought after product nowadays for the following reasons:

1. It is all natural as they claimed it to be. Aside from the fact that it is common for giving you a natural look and feeling, this cosmetic literally has eliminated the use of synthetics like perfume, dyes and other harmful chemicals that can possible lead to skin irritation.

2. It has an anti-inflammatory effect on the skin that when you apply it on, your face looks calm. It does not clog pores and it does not create a wrinkly effect on your skin when used for hours. This is attributed to the presence of titanium dioxide and zinc oxide.

3. The substances used in this cosmetic actually have a natural ability to protect you from the sun. However, it may not be enough to protect you from the harmful effects of ultraviolet rays. Therefore, it is still advisable to put on more protections. Looking at it, having at least some protection is better than having nothing at all, right?

4. Unlike other cosmetics, mineral makeup can last longer even without preservatives. Therefore, even if some of the brands are quite expensive, it is still worth buying because you will not be having problems on your skin and, you do not have to buy a new one for at quite some time.

5. The substances used to make these cosmetics adhere well to the skin. It gives you a shimmery and smooth appearance. Because of all of these properties, there is such ease in application and on top of that, it preserves skin moisture better. It blends well on all skin types making it good for dark, light and medium complexion.

Kristy Scott
http://www.articlesbase.com/skin-care-articles/top-five-reasons-why-mineral-makeup-should-be-your-choice-of-cosmetics-for-daily-use-713298.html