Welcome
Sections
GreenVitals Bookstore
Powered by Squarespace
GreenVitals Info.
Interactive Community


GreenVitals Search
Favorite Green Sites
Archives

Cosmetics

Tuesday
Aug242010

Rejuvenating Your Appearance: Matching Your Year-round Sunscreen to Your Skin Type

DateAugust 24, 2010 Author Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis

Cartoon courtesy of greengenie.ca.

We feel good when our skin looks good and healthy. Sun damage can have the opposite effect. The good news is that no matter how much exposure your skin has endured, there are steps you can take to rejuvenate it.

With the basics of improved nutrition to create new healthier cells and some sunscreen, everyone’s skin can look improve. Briefly, for improved skin and overall health, the best advice is to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables you eat, as well as whole grains, and less red meat. Limit processed foods. This is common sense advice, but it makes a world of difference.

When it comes to sunscreen, that’s a little more complicated. First, you have to understand what the sun does to different types of skin, then you can go about using the sunscreen that best meets your needs.

Click to read more ...

CommentPost a Comment | Print ArticlePrint Article | | |
in | tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Friday
Apr162010

Lily Organics: Nourishing the Skin With Ingredients Straight Off the Farm

DateApril 16, 2010 Author Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis

Yarrow is a natural astrigent and toner.

With the continuing movement to preserve our planet, many of us have also started to reawaken to something that people have known for millenniums - everything that we need (with few exceptions) for good health and beauty comes from nature.

This philosophy is nothing new to Lily Morgan, president and owner of Lily Organics skin care company, who believes that “the quality of a product is determined by its freshness. It’s all about the ingredients; what they do; how fresh they are; and where they are grown.  It’s what we have committed our company to.”

Creating a formula. Photo by Lily Organics.

Lily Organics’ skin care products are formulated using a combination of natural ingredients which the company purchases, and organic ingredients that are both purchased and grown on Lily Organics’ USDA certified organic farm.

“When we first started out, we couldn’t get many of the ingredients that we wanted certified organic, so we started growing our own,” said Ms. Morgan, who began formulating skin care products in the early 80’s for a very personal reason - her own severe acne.

“Having bad skin was such a motivator. I tried everything and nothing worked. I started to compare the ingredients in the products from the drug stores and the more expensive department stores, and started to notice that the ingredients were primarily the same. Besides that, when I looked up the definitions of the chemical ingredients, I couldn’t see how they would improve my skin,” she added.

Click to read more ...

CommentPost a Comment | Print ArticlePrint Article | | |
in , , | tagged , , , , , , ,
Monday
Mar152010

Using Beauty Products With Phthalates While Pregnant Could Affect Baby

DateMarch 15, 2010 Author Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis

Every woman wants to be beautiful and we all have different opinions about what beauty is. It can be a couple of things - looking good, being healthy, or helping others. These are the things most of us try to do everyday.

Photo courtesy of Sciencedaily.com.

This post - like many others that I write - is about what’s in the things we buy, and how they might affect us, our families, or unborn children. As part of that, I came across a study which found that higher prenatal exposure to phthalates seems to contribute to behavior problems in children between the ages of four and nine.

The study, Prenatal Phthalate Exposure is Associated with Childhood Behavior and Executive Functioning, was conducted as collaboration between Mount Sinai, Cornell University, and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Phthalates are part of a group of chemicals that are known as endocrine disruptors that can interfere with the body’s hormone system. Phthalates are a family of compounds found in a wide variety of consumer products, such as nail polish to increase their durability and reduce chipping; and in cosmetics, perfumes, lotions, and shampoos to maintain fragrances.

Click to read more ...

Comments Off | Print ArticlePrint Article | | |
in , , | tagged , , , ,
Thursday
Dec312009

Research Finding New Properties of Vitamin C Supporting Youthful Skin Renewal

DateDecember 31, 2009 Author Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis

Photo courtesy of vitamincskin.com

Everyone’s always looking for healthy ways to look better. Well, here’s some research that might make you consider increasing your citrus intake, and maybe adding some beauty products containing vitamin C to your regiment.

In a collaborative study, researchers from the University of Leicester in England and the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology in Portugal found a form of vitamin C that helps promote wound healing and also helps protect the DNA in skin cells from damage.

The findings were published in the journal of Free Radical Biology and Medicine. On a technical note (and I will try to keep the jargon to a minimum), a free radical in medicine is commonly defined as an atom or molecule that has at least one unpaired electron and is therefore unstable and highly reactive.

In animal tissues, free radicals can damage cells, and there are theories that they can contribute to the accelerated progression of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and age-related diseases.

In the vitamin C research, Dr. Tiago Duarte said the study analyzed how the human dermal fibroblasts (large flat cells in the connective tissue that secrete collagen and elastic fibers) are effected by “sustained exposure to a vitamin C derivative, ascorbic acid 2-phosphate.”

A researcher with the IMCB, Duarte added, “We investigated which genes are activated by vitamin C in these cells, which are responsible for skin regeneration. The results demonstrate that vitamin C may improve wound healing by stimulating fibroblasts to divide and by promoting their migration into wounded areas.

“Vitamin C could also protect the skin by increasing the capacity of fibroblasts to repair potentially mutagenic DNA lesions.”

Click to read more ...

Comments Off | Print ArticlePrint Article | | |
in , | tagged , , , ,
Friday
Nov062009

White Tea Outperforms 22 Other Plant Extracts as Best Wrinkle Fighter

DateNovember 6, 2009 Author Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis

Photo courtesy of islandteashop.com.

Many synthetic cosmetics try to cover up skin damage, but the truth is that the best way to give ourselves a clean youthful complexion is to feed our skin with the nutrients and anti-aging compounds that nature has already provided us with.

Mankind has yet to outdo Mother Nature in this department, as the scientists at the School of Life Sciences at Kingston University, London, found out at the end of a recently concluded study. It found that out of 23 plant extracts, white tea has the highest concentrations of antioxidants that minimize wrinkles.

“We’ve carried out our tests to identify plant extracts that protect the structural proteins of the skin, specifically elastin and collagen,” said Professor Declan Naughton, who led the university team that worked in conjunction with Neal’s Yard Remedies, a maker of natural and organic bath and beauty products, which provided the study with all of the plant materials that were tested.

Click to read more ...

Comments Off | Print ArticlePrint Article | | |
in , , , | tagged , , , , ,
Page 1 2 3 Next 5 Entries ยป