Feed on
Posts
Comments

Make Facial Toner for Oily Skin

Aug 13th, 2011 by

Combining 1 tsp. of apple cider vinegar, 1 tbsp. of witch hazel and one cup of water into a container will produce a great facial toner for people with oily skin, or oily areas. Soak your cotton facial pads and apply all over or where needed. The apple cider vinegar will help to balance your skin’s pH levels and the witch hazel will absorb the excess oil that your skin produces.

Merchants Circle

apple cider vinegarNatural astringents like apple cider vinegar and witch hazel extract will not only restore your skin’s pH balance and reduce breakouts, they will also keep your skin smooth by minimizing your pores.

Look for alcohol-free witch hazel, even though you may have oily skin. The reason is that alcohol is so drying it can cause your skin to respond by stepping up its oil production, so you can find yourself with more oily skin than when you started. Witch hazel often comes with 14% alcohol content. Something to consider. Check out the rest of the post at the Merchant Circle link above.

Posted in Astringent Pore Minimizers, Best Ingredients | Comments Off

The 3 Top Reasons For Using A Facial Toner

Aug 11th, 2011 by

hydrosolsBeautiful skin is simple, once you start using products on your face that are right for your skin. For example, I have found no need for different creams for different parts of my face or for different times of the day or night. I only need one cream. It just doesn’t need to be complicated. Surprisingly though, women who use lots of different products often do not use one of the three kinds of products that I consider absolutely basic to beautiful skin – and that is a facial toner. Here is why I believe you really should be using one.
Facial toners, provided they are formulated correctly, can do three important things for the complexion:

First, a facial toner will shrink your pores and smooth your skin. Most toners contain astringents – chemical compounds that cause skin to contract and tighten. When the skin tightens, the pores shrink, and your skin becomes smoother.

Second, smaller pores do not just look better. They also provide less room for oil, makeup and microbes to lodge. Combined with the deep cleansing and antiseptic properties of many toners, this can result in skin that better resists infection, giving you a clearer complexion, with fewer break-outs.

facial tonerThird, a facial toner can restore the skin’s pH balance after cleansing. Cleansers tend to be highly alkaline. They wash off the oils we produce that keep our skin moisturized and push our skin’s pH to the alkaline side of the scale. This compromises our “acid mantle,” our first line of defense against invading microbes. Skin should be slightly acidic. A toner, if it is pH-balanced correctly, will reset your skin’s pH right away, so your natural defenses are not compromised, resulting in fewer flare-ups.

Depending on the ingredients, there are other beauty benefits you can expect from a facial toner, including protection from sun damage, reduced lines and wrinkles, soothing of troubled spots, and improved elasticity.

Toners are ideal vehicles for ingredients you might not use on your face every day, such as green tea extract, or apple cider vinegar.
When these are blended with hydrosols like rose water and orange blossom water, the result can be a delightful experience – and a therapeutic one. Toning becomes something to look forward to, as you refresh your face with heavenly scents, and you see and feel your skin tighten and your pores reduce. Plus you can find toners that contain cucumber extract, calendula flowers, and other healing herbs that calm and heal the skin.

The right toner can work wonders for your skin, and is a basic component of my “beautiful skin is simple” routine. Who would be without one?

Posted in Best Products, Hydrosol Pore Minimizers | Comments Off

Pore Minimizer Booklet

Aug 9th, 2011 by

Page through this online booklet to learn about safe and effective pore minimizers…

Because the effects of any minimizer will be temporary, you are going to be using your pore minimizer every day. So you need to be sure it is free of chemicals that are harmful to your skin, and that it is formulated for your skin type.

The key is to find an all-natural pore minimizer that suits your skin. The booklet describes 9 natural products you can use for making pores smaller.

Posted in Best Ingredients, Hydrosol Pore Minimizers | Comments Off

Pore Minimizing: The Basics

Aug 2nd, 2011 by

Beautiful skin is simple, once you use products that are right for your skin.

If you suck on a lemon, or drink a red wine with lots of tannins in it, you will experience “astringency” when the inside of your mouth puckers up. It is caused by chemicals that make your tissues contract – in this case, tissues on the inside of your mouth. The same chemicals are often used to minimize pores. They are known as astringents, and their basic quality is their ability to contract tissue, causing pores to minimize. And like astringents that you drink, their effect is temporary.

When you realize that minimizing pores is going to be a long-term project, it becomes more important to avoid harsh chemicals in the products you are going to be using every day. I have always favored natural products.

Some astringents, like alcohol, can be very drying, which seems helpful if you have oily skin that is breaking out, but repeated use of drying chemicals on oily skin can actually result in even greater output of oil, leaving you worse off than when you started. And if you have dry skin, alcohol is not a good option at all. So it is better to use natural astringents like witch hazel, cider vinegar, and rose water, that you can vary according to your skin type.

Aside from the appearance factor, large pores are vulnerable to infection and irritation. Again, natural astringents can provide protection from breakouts because they contain antibacterial and anti-fungal properties. Cider vinegar is a case in point. In addition, they are slightly acidic and help to restore the skin’s acid mantle by balancing the skin’s pH, a first line of defense against infection.

A good facial toner made from astringent hydrosols will balance the skin’s pH, minimize pores, and be an enjoyable and refreshing part of your daily routine.

Tags: , , ,

Posted in Astringent Pore Minimizers, Best Ingredients, Hydrosol Pore Minimizers | Comments Off

Getting The Most Out Of Your Toner

Jul 5th, 2011 by

If you are using a botanical toner to minimize your pores, then keeping it in the fridge is a good way to bump up the benefit you get from it. I use a toner based on witch hazel and rose water and I find keeping it cool makes a big difference to how well it minimizes my pores. This technique works year round, but now we are into the warm weather, it is all the more helpful.

Posted in Hydrosol Pore Minimizers | Comments Off

Calendula – An Ingredient To Look For In Pore Treatment Products

Jun 7th, 2011 by

Calendula is one of the very top ingredients to look for in products designed to sooth troubled skin. It has a bright golden-yellow flower that is colored that way by the presence of nineteen different carotenoids –  powerful anti-oxidants that can work wonders in minimizing free radical and sun damage, while helping to fight off fungus and viral problems.

For anyone with problem pores, products containing calendula can add extra healing power. When you clean out your pores, it’s good to have calendula wash through them, disinfecting and healing them.

I infuse it in witch hazel and in sesame oil (separately, of course!) before using those ingredients in my toner and moisturizer. You can find calendula creams in which the whole point is to deliver calendula’s potent compounds directly to the skin. I like to include it in my everyday skincare products to make sure I get it onto my skin as a matter of daily routine. Prevention, after all, is so much better than dealing with problems!

So look for products containing calendula whenever you can. It’s a time-honored solution and it can certainly be helpful along side pore minimizing astringents used in the treatment of large pores.

Tags:

Posted in Best Ingredients | Comments Off

Acne Freak Skin Care

Jun 5th, 2011 by

This looks like a good blog to follow. I checked out their post about pore minimizing products, and the advice, especially about focusing on lifestyle, looks really good. Here’s a quote:

Start off by handling your lifestyle. Whenever you head out in the sunshine make sure that you apply some protection to reduce the results of the radiation. You should be consuming a well-balanced and nutritious diet for several different reasons, but skin care is undoubtedly one of these. Most importantly of all ensure that you hydrate often with water and not with caffeinated drinks. The skin is surely a beneficiary at this point. Acne Skin Freak

Check out the rest of the site for a ton of information about how to deal with skin problems. I’m a big fan of “inside / outside” approaches to skin care. Our appearance is a lot about what we eat, and, in my opinion, beauty foods are for real!

Posted in Best Products | Comments Off

Sesame Oil For Deep-Cleaning Clogged Pores

Jun 5th, 2011 by

Sesame oil has anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial properties that can add significantly to the health of your pores and skin. It also binds well with fat-soluble toxins to draw them from deep in the skin to the surface where your cleanser can get at them. Plus it has a super-high vitamin A and E content that can help your skin to combat free-radical damage, reducing the appearance of fine lines and the emergence of wrinkles.

I infuse organic sesame oil with calendula flowers. I let them soak together for weeks before using them in my moisturizer and exfoliant. I recommend you look for it in whatever skin care products you plan on using.

 

Tags: , ,

Posted in Best Ingredients, Blocked Pores | Comments Off

Clear Blocked Pores With Jojoba Oil

May 29th, 2011 by

You can safely use jojoba oil to clear blocked pores and add luster and silky-smoothness to your skin, no matter what your skin type. Just massage a tiny amount of it onto your skin and let it work its magic.  It will absorb quickly, without any greasy feeling. It’s especially useful for dry skin, but even people with acne can benefit a lot from it. That’s because jojoba oil has a chemical structure that is very similar to the oil, or sebum, that we produce naturally. It absorbs easily and deeply into the skin, and helps to dissolve the oils that can clog our pores.

It can help to minimize pores, too, if used regularly.

It is technically a wax, not an oil, and has a very stable chemical structure that makes it easy for even sensitive skin to deal with. Plus jojoba oil has strong antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

So from one product you can get:

  • Smoother skin
  • Unclogged pores
  • Minimized pore size
  • Fewer breakouts and eruptions

People also report major help with acne, eczema and psoriasis symptoms.

Jojoba oil has become very popular with manufacturers of skin care products. Customers have heard about how good it is for their skin and look for it in the ingredients list. However, rising demand has caused its price to go up quite lot and sometimes you only get a token amount in commercial products. It’s usually best to buy organic jojoba oil on its own in, say, a 4 oz bottle, rather than get it in a blended product, unless you know there is a decent amount contained in it. The good news is that a small amount of pure jojoba oil goes a very long way; you need only use tiny amounts of it to give your skin a big boost.

 

Tags: ,

Posted in Best Ingredients, Best Products, Blocked Pores, Large Pores | Comments Off

Dealing With Large Pores

May 25th, 2011 by

Pores are usually bigger in the center of the face, on the nose, and on the forehead. Unfortunately, these are the areas that make those huge pores attract your attention every time you check your reflection. The Daily Glow

My experience has been that, while you cannot permanently reduce the size of your pores, you can easily minimize pore size on a daily basis just by using the right astringent facial toner. It should only take 30 seconds, morning and evening, to get it done. As the facial toner becomes part of your routine, you’ll notice that large pores become visibly smaller.

At the same time, it’s important to keep your pores clean, and to avoid inflaming them. As the post at the above link makes clear, redness and blemishes attract even more attention than large pores, so it’s important not to make things worse! The right natural exfoliant can help enormously with this.

Large pores can be dealt with. They need to be kept clean, and they can be minimzed routinely with a good facial toner. It’s just a matter of simple everyday care with the right products.

Posted in Astringent Pore Minimizers, Large Pores | Comments Off

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »