Beauty products and "The Suitcase Test"

When you travel half-way round the world - literally - and realize that you really need to scale down what you're going to carry with you, it makes one realize just which products you really love, rely on, and can't do without. With me, the obvious are Dove soap, which I've used religiously since high school, and Créme de LaMer, which I've used as often as I'm up to it, since at least 1996.

I do always love to experiment with other products, some successfully, some not. Since I've started this year's resolution to look "more human" (darling hubby would quibble about that but he just doesn't get a woman's need and desire to look the best she can and besides, as I believe he's still in love with me, he thinks I look good all the time - gag!), I've tried a lot of new beauty products. I'm trying hard to at least give myself a psychological triumph over the constant battle with CFIDS/ME/fibro. And since I started this blog and it's taken a decided beauty direction (who wants to read about lumbar punctures, migraines, BP regulation problems, endocrinological concerns, etc, right?), I've tried even MORE beauty products.

The interior of the Petronas Towers

So, I thought I'd mention a few products that have become firm favorites of mine, which passed "The Suitcase Test":

Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanse:

I've already mentioned this product but I wanted you to know just how much I really do love it. I find that I use it anytime I do not want to think about experimentation and want to go into automatic pilot - usually! - or when I know my face needs some TLC, yet a good scrub. I definitely wanted it on this trip and have used it twice daily since arriving. You apply it to your dry face (that took a bit of getting used to, I must say!) and it's so gentle that you can spread it all through your eye area and it will dissolve all eye makeup. After that, getting rid of anything else on your face is a breeze! A muslin cloth is used to wash off all the mess and as you take it off, the bit of "texture" from the cloth works to gently exfoliate your skin. I took my large bottle with me, not bothering with decanting into a smaller pot...I knew I'd consistently use it and couldn't be bothered with figuring out how much I'd need. It's a bit difficult to find and I've ordered Liz Earle's prize-winning products through the Liz Earle USA website. The Brits have absolutely gorgeous skin, so I must admit I do have a bias toward using British skincare products, but I absolutely think going through the extra bit of trouble of ordering is really worth it. See my review here .

Alpha-H Liquid Gold with Glycolic Acid:

This is part of an Australian line of products that are also worth the trouble of hunting down. The description calls it an "overnight facial in a bottle” and for once the words are true, not hype. It "revitalises, firms and gives radiance in a single application." I find that it evens out the skin tone and since I have a few age spots and very old freckles, this has been really successful in terms of making them appear less prominent and truly making the skin more, well...radiant! I don't use a moisturizer after I apply this to my skin and for some reason my skin will produce just the right amount of moisture needed, all on its own. When I finally (!) got to my hotel room here in KL, the first thing I wanted to do after giving my face a good scrub was to apply the Liquid Gold. I knew it would address the slight dryness and dehydration I had (only "slight" thanks to the DYI facials I gave myself during the flights, as well as drinking tons of water). When I first started using the Liquid Gold, I bought the "beginner's kit," which included a prep that allowed your skin to get used to the glycolic acid gradually, but I think I could have gone straight into it, really. I normally use this every two or three nights, leaving it on overnight. Love it! I haven't found a source I'm enthralled with. I just order from a reputable place when there is a free international shipping promotion. Cultbeauty.com is one such source. (Ah! A rain is coming down. Perhaps I should stick myself out on the balcony for a nice moisturizing mist to work its magic! Whoops! Thunder and lightening: perhaps I'll stay in!)

Phytodefrisant Botanical Hair Relaxing Balm:

This has been around for quite some time and I cannot imagine what I'd do without it. I'm so paranoid about not having it when I get out of bathtub or running out, that I have about four or five tubes of it, stashed in overnight bags, each bathroom and in the back of my hair cabinet where "extras" of any products are kept. Given that I'd read that KL is humid, I was so paranoid about forgetting to take this product that I found that I'd somehow stashed TWO tubes in my luggage. (Fibro-brain, anyone?)

This relaxing balm has not only won countless beauty awards, but like my beloved LaMer, has even been put into at least one hall of fame in order to allow other products to have a chance of winning an award. I smear a bit of it all over my (very short) wet hair and since I started using it about twenty years ago, I have no frizz problems, even when my hair was a bit long. It does have silicone in it*, I believe, or something that makes my scalp itch at times (this is definitely a CFIDS/ME problem, not a "normal" problem, because my scalp area has a tendency to swell up and I then need to take a medication that will bring down the swelling - a normal "water pill" doesn't help). At any rate, I avoid getting it on my scalp, just applying it to my hair, especially the areas that will get wet from sweating; often I look as if I've just gotten out of the shower, my hair is so wet after all the work involved in getting dressed, putting on the minimum of makeup and sunscreen. I can get surprizingly close to the roots with no added problems to the "swollen head" concern (oh, I can just hear the jokes!). It works so well, I don't care WHAT it has in it but luckily, all Phyto products are botanically based. I buy mine at drugstore.com (at the beauty.com part) and it last forever since such a small amount is needed.

I'll be experimenting with cosmetics today, hopefully, as I continue to rest up after this trip and try to build up as much energy as possible for the shopping of an appropriate dress for the wedding, as well the for the wedding itself. I realized I needed to know exactly which cosmetics I'd wear on the big day, no fooling around at the last minute, which robs one of said precious energy. I'll let you know which of my favorites make the cut!

Until then, I hope everyone is feeling as well as can be!


*CORRECTION: It doesn't appear that there is any silicone in the Phyto.

Friday night beauty pampering...

Nothing like a good soak on a a Friday night...or do I need a life?

Finally, the week is over and about half of the population will be celebrating the end of the week by going out, while the other half lies on a coach and is exhausted, happy to finally have a break.  For those of us in the US, it's a three-day weekend, Monday being Memorial Day when we remember and honor those veterans who died in wars fighting for our freedom and in protecting our freedom.  We salute them.

At the same time, we plan our barbeques, picnics and/or hit the stores for the Memorial Day Sales!

And then there's "us," the ones with CFIDS/ME/fibro, who feel weary and exhausted (what an understatement... so sorry!) and pain so strong and killing that it feels as if it can send you straight through the roof.   For "us," I'm going to suggest a few products that some call the "ultimate" in end-of-the-week relaxation and perhaps a bit of a reward for getting through the week, the good old-fashioned bath experience of lying back, relaxing and letting your pains and woes float away - OK, only in a movie, but even in real life, the bath, with something special added can help, especially if you can talk someone into running it for you and all you need to do is step in....

People with CFIDS/ME/fibro, rejoice! Just a couple of weeks ago, I was finally able to christen my new bathtub with a truly indulging treat!  I christened it with:

• Elemis' "Skin Nourishing Milk Bath."  What decadence.  I even indulged myself more by adding three capfulls, instead of two, because...well, I was spoiling myself!  Because of remodeling I'd not been able to take a bath in a year and my skin has been so dehydrated that the words "prune" and "raisin" come to mind.  Hospital stays and almost dying, I suppose, are not kind to the skin.  So, I'm working hard on plumping up the skin, all the time trying to lose weight, of course.  Crazy, no?  Your skin is softened and washing it with a nice body wash leaves it feeling indulged. Anyway, I'm simply in love with the milk bath - insanely in love - and will reorder as soon as my finances look like they can handle it.

The next time I plan to melt away the aches and pains of the day, I'm going to add a real favorite:

• Ahava's "Juniper Mineral Bath Salts."  I've used these in the past, the Dead Sea Salts are heavenly and really do help melt away quite a bit of the aches and pains going on in your body.  I tend to think that the magnesium in the salts have a lot to do with the success of alleviating pain.  I'm not saying it's the answer but I find that they give me a bit of a break.  The smell is that of most therapeutic salts.  This is not a luxury item in the sense of the milk bath (which reminds me of Cleopatra) but the results are so amazing, the skin so soft. And I do really love the sensation of floating in the water.

And while I was in the tub the last time, I tested out my:Liz Earle "Energizing Body Scrub."  First let me just say that there is nothing energizing at all in this scrub for this CFIDS'er, so I'm not sure you need to fear that it's going to energize you just as you want to start working on falling asleep.  The ingredients include  Damask Rose Flower Water (and I love anything of quality that smells of roses, very cliche of me, but true), Sweet Orange Oil (clean smell and feel), 8 essential oils (unnamed) and Vitamin E, all with ground-up olive stones.  I'm not sure that the ground olive stones were a selling point with me other than that they ARE natural, and the Rose and Orange together are bliss.  My shoulders and upper arms were especially rewarded with this scrub and it's a real keeper.  In fact, thinking ahead (really, Irene?) this would be a nice Christmas present...or birthday gift.

And finally, just because my eyes have been giving me such a hard time lately:

• Liz Earle's "Eyebright Soothing Eye Lotion."  I pour a bit onto two cotton pads and let them soak onto/into my eyes for about 15 minutes.  Eye drop do me no good: I contend that it's because the eyeball itself is so hard, perhaps from dehydration, perhaps from inflammation, I have no idea other than it's as about as porous as a marble.  These soaked pads are the best relief I've had for my eyes. I'm not saying this is the answer, but again, I'll take relief where I can get it.

I hope everyone has a really wonderful long weekend, that everyone stays safe and that everyone feels good.  Till next time! 

Exfoliating methods and products for my funky skin: deliciously satisfying.

Some of my favorite exfoliating products.

I thought we'd get away from a bit of the depressing medical aspects of CFIDS/ME and fibromyalgia, and that we'd  have a bit of fun with beauty tips.  I've been experimenting with a few products and thought it might be fun to let you know what's been working in my world.  I promised "exfoliation" in an earlier post and so here goes my version, or at the very least, the one I've been fooling around with most recently.  As always, all disclaimers are in full force.  What may work for me might not work for you.  But I really have tried to list products that I think will be fairly safe for our "funky" CFIDS/ME/fibro skin.

• First, in the category for cleaning my face with a gadget, I have fallen absolutely in love with my Clarisonic Mia.  (It's in coral: how "today" - can you get and how much will it haunt me in a few years, no?)  

This was a bit of a surprise since my original Clarisonic wasn't a complete success.  I would use it periodically, but it seemed a bit rough for my face.  Mind you, at this point I hadn't realized that my skin was, indeed, problematic. (I'm a slow learner, remember?)  I just kept thinking we didn't agree for some reason.

When feeling virtuous and diligent about "doing my face,"  I'd occasionally go to my Clarisonic, but I wasn't in love with it.  In fact, when I bought the Mia, I only did so because I thought (hoped?) that I'd thrown out the original when we moved everything out of of our Master closet, bedroom and bath for the big remodel -when I'd bitten the bullet and ruthlessly thrown out anything I didn't want or need, looked awful on me, or was in anyway just taking up room. Whoops. Somehow the old Clarisonic wasn't thrown out (it was the toothbrush I'd thrown out) and so I was now "stuck" with two Clarisonics.

However, I started to fall in love with the coral Mia when I realized it didn't make the water rolling-down-your-arms-when-using-it mess.  But the old Clarisonic needed a new head - I was not about to use a cruddy looking old head!  So I finally ordered two heads from Sephora: the "delicate skin" one and the "sensitive skin" one because, of course, I couldn't make a decision - a CFIDS/ME/fibro problem in general.  When they came in it took me forever to decide which I needed, the one for delicate skin or the one for sensitive skin.  I mean, really, didn't I have both types of skin, delicate as well as sensitive?

Here are the great distinctions, from the Clarisonic site:

      *Normal: Perfect for normal skin, shaving prep and for use on the decollete and body.
      *Sensitive: An easy introduction for sensitive to normal skin types.
      *Delicate: Ultra-gentle for those with delicate or extra--sensitive skin.

What?  Fibro-brain here was having a hard time making the distinctions!   But I finally decided  that the old Clarisonic would be used on my body with the "sensitive" head and the Mia on my face with the "delicate" head.

• Oh my!  The "delicate" head put the Mia into another world and I am in love.  It was so gentle that I didn't want to stop using it and I felt as if my skin was finally getting cleaned out for the first time ever.  This was not something I'd felt with the original ("normal") head.  I really wanted to write a post about it immediately, but given that I was in the midst of my DIY ("Do It Yourself") spa experience, I was certainly not able to do so because I was so busy melting in the bath.

This now leads us to what did I use with the Clarisonic?

• Well, I certainly didn't use the cleanser that came with the Mia.  Sorry, but it's a bit too generic for me.  I don't want to take chances.  And who really knows who even made whatever is in there?  No, I do not want to go there.
• I have a bottle of Perricone MD "Nutritive Cleanser" (12 oz or 354 ml) and it was no better on my face with the Mia than before.  It absolutely strips my skin.  I really should just toss it into the garbage, especially since I still have four trial sized versions sitting around but I can't stand to throw out so much money.  So periodically, I'll used the Nutritive Cleanser on my body.
• However, I know a lot of people do well with Perricone MD "Nutritive Cleanser."  I was told by a beauty expert that it's the foaming action that must not agree with me.  Other people swear by this product, so please take that into consideration.  Do you have problems with products which have foaming action?  (Of course, that doesn't quite explain my love for Dove and certain foaming shampoo's....) Is this a general CFIDS/ME/fibro reaction or is just me, I do not know.
• I used La Mer's "Cleansing Foam" and that was not the greatest product that I've ever used but not the worst.  I wash with it occasionally, but am very careful and will be happier when it's out of my life.  In other words, though I am in love with La Mer products (and have been since the Creme de La Mer since first came out), this particular product has not been a huge success story for me and not really worth the money for me.
• I hit a home run, finally, with Kate Sommerville's "Gentle Daily Wash."  This is great for face and body, I find.
• And believe it or not, I actually use my good old Dove "beauty bar" soap, the original, the classic.  And I see that it has made it onto InStyle's "best of" list again...GO DOVE!  Not perfect, but much better than the products above, save the Kate Sommerville.
• I tried Estée Lauder's "Soft Clean Tender Creme Cleanser" the other day and will try it again.  It looked very promising.

What exfoliation do I use besides or instead of going the Clarisonic methods?

•  "Daily Microfoliant" by Dermalogica is great.  It's a powder that you rub into your very, very wet hands in order to turn it into a foaming paste and then into foaming "nothingness."  It reminds me a lot of Bare Minerals "Exfoliating Treatment Cleanser."  It can be a bit harsh for my skin, so I use it when I feel like my skin can take it, especially if I've gone through a long period of not washing my face and really need to even out that skin, especially my nose.  I like the massaging and "rubbing" action when it's called for.

• On a more daily basis, I prefer the Dermologica "Gentle Cream Exfoliant."  It seems gentler on my face (I have combination skin), not stripping, nor scratching, just nice smooth skin afterward.

• My favorite exfoliant must be La Mer's "Facial Refiner," something I admit I didn't care for too awfully much for years, but kept using samples.  Well, ladies (and gents?) this really should be used in the shower!!!!  It makes a huge difference.  My beloved Sylvia also gave me a couple of tips when I got that first sample but somehow, I didn't listen/hear her.  A couple of years later, I finally tried it in the shower and then promptly bought the full-sized "Facial Refiner."  Furthermore, while in the shower, don't wash it off immediately, but let it sit on your face (and the backs of your hands if you can manage that?) and do something else in the shower, like wash your hair, shave your legs.  Let the "Facial Refiner" work for you.  Make sure you have it completely massaged and activated before putting it on you face.  This is one mighty fine beauty treatment.

• A less expensive, but more difficult to acquire exfoliant treatment, is by Liz Earle.  Now the award- winning Liz Earle has a US branch on the internet, however, and I'm in love with her products.  Liz Earle's method employs the muslin cloth.  In fact, she was the first to come up with this idea and other companies are now copying this method.

Essentially, you pump some cream on your dry hand and smooth it onto your dry face and gently massage it all in, including over your eyes.  It takes all the makeup off, if you're wearing it.  Personally, I prefer to take off that first layer of makeup with Dove and then move on any other product, but that's just me.  I use "Clean and Polish" even when not wearing makeup because I love the cream  and results so much.  As you massage, the skin softens and I find that if I'm in the tub, it's hard to stop.  And as if that's not enough: Liz Earle's products are all very natural but not at the expense of it feeling luxurious.  The "Cleanse and Polish" has Rosemary, Chamomile, Cocoa Butter and Eucalpytus essential oil. 

• Step two of the Liz Earle "Cleanse and Polish" is gently "polishing" off the cleanser with a hand hot muslin cloth.  I used face cloths a lot with other products before buying the Liz Earle and have found that the muslin cloth is indeed more effective than a washcloth.  

However, be warned to remember the words to "gently polish" the cleanser off.  In my enthusiasm for the muslin cloth, one day I decided to use it with her "Energizing Body Scrub" on my shoulders where I tend to get really rough skin.  It's a great product, but like I said, I was a bit too enthusiastic and ended up with two knuckles abraded when the cloth rolled on me and my fingers somehow got twisted in the cloth.  Don't be as dumb as I am, please!   For those who would like to check out Liz Earle's website (and I do encourage you you to do so) it's: http://us.lizearle.com/?cmp=google_brand&kw=liz+earle+com+b

I especially loved the travel weekend kit with its travel-sized products.  It's a sweet kit, just the right size to put in loads of trial-sized products while traveling, including shampoo and conditioner.  And because Liz Earle has trial-sized products you can buy, I know I'll be restocking that travel kit once I buy the normal-sized products too. http://us.lizearle.com/kits-and-gifts/pampering-weekend-kit.html

And finally, a real surprise:

• Aveeno "Clear Complexion Daily Cleansing Pads."  I love them!  My skin never breaks out in tiny bumps, nor rashes, and always feels just right after using these pads.  I'm on my third jar of it, and since it's a relatively new discovery, that's really saying something!  The product info under the name says "Gently Exfoliates for Clear, Even-Looking Skin."  Exfoliates, yes. I'm not so sure just how much it helps even out my ahem....ugh...."mature" skin.

So there you have it.  These are the latest exfoliating products and processes I've been fooling around with lately.  After this, your face will definitely be ready for serums...

...of course, I haven't even touched upon the deep cleaning masks yet....they are really lovely things to have in your beauty arsenal.  More to come, I promise!

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Note: I somehow lost this original post and, of course, it was the ONE I didn't back up.   Worse, I hate to think how many errors there are in this copy...but can't bare to look through it all right now!   Someone grab me some anti-nausea med, please!