TAKE CARE OF YOUR FINANCES

Hello fellow readers, I know that I haven't been posting in a long long while now, this is because I have been busy and just too lazy to post new articles. I know that my blog is about taking care of our health and bodies, but I think taking care of your money is just as equally important. I mean how are you going to take care of your looks if you don't have the money for it? I'm introducing this new topic because I want to have more stuff to write about, as one can only know so much about health and beauty. I don't believe in reading an article about beauty and simply and paraphrasing it into my blog, because it's not my thing; that's almost like copying to me. I want to write articles only based upon my knowledge and experiences.

So in the future, I'm going to write articles about finances: loans, savings, mortgages, banks, credit cards, debit cards, etc... I know this is going to drive towards a different audience, but I don't care, blogging is simply a hobby of mine, not really so much of a job.

It's a good thing now the savings rate in America is going up, whereas in 2006, it was hitting a NEGATIVE rate! That is just a shame. I know we all got loans and all sorts of bills to pay, but I believe there is simply no excuse to save a few bucks here and there. If other poor countries can save as high as 50% of their income, why can't we? Sometimes, I'll just shock as to how we can get into so much debt. How can anyone get into $10,000 in credit card debt and take years to pay it off? This is not good. If you have money problems, it might also mean you have other problems as well. So all I can say for now is SAVE, SAVE, SAVE! AND PAY THOSE LOANS AND BILLS ! One advice I can give you is never use your credit cards to pay off your loans, it's the stupidest thing ever!

That's it for now.

SENSITIVE SKIN

If you have sensitive skin, you need to take extra precautions in taking care of your skin. Sensitive skin can become irritable in all sorts of weather conditions and enviroments. Suffering burns from sunlight or strong winds are common. Therefore it is imperative that you apply sunscreen lotion during the day on your face and all other areas of sensitive skin on your body. At night, you should apply cream lotion on your face too. In my opinion, you can simply wash your face daily with lukewarm water, no cleanser needed. Sensitive skin is usually not dirty, plus you might be allergic to chemicals in cleansers. If you are going to a facial cleanser to wash your wash, choose a cleanser that contains good oils like sandalwood, tea tree, or lavender. If you can, choose a cleanser that contains no or very little acid and alcohol of any kind in it. Your face might be prone to rashes or burns if a cleanser contains alcohol and acid. It is best to avoid them. DO NOT use a towel to dry your face after cleansing. Towels can be dirty and causes friction when drying your face, which could cause redness easily on sensitive skin.

Exfoliation and facial masks? I would say it's not neccessary at all for sensitive skin due to the thinness of the skin already. If you are going to exfoliate or do a facial, do it sparingly, like once every 5 or 6 months. Again, this is really optional. But try on a little bit of the exfoliation or facial mask sample first to see how it will react to your skin. If it's okay, then apply it, and vice versa. This goes the same thing if you're a woman and applying perfume or makeup, always try a very small amount first to see how it will react to your skin.

Diet is the same, just eat healthy, and no fried or fast foods. Avoid coffee and smoking as much as as possible.

COMBINATION SKIN

A majority of people have combination skin; their skin is oily and dry. The oily skin part on their face forms a T or known as the T-zone. The T-zone resides on the forehead, nose, and chin areas and the rest being dry skin areas. Combination skin are also prone to acne, but can be easily controlled. Every night while taking a shower you should wash your face with a mild cleanser(choose one that's for combination skin or with salacylic acid in it). After you finish taking a shower and dry up, apply lotion (oil-less) to areas of dry skin. In the morning, just splash your face off with warm water, dry your face, and apply lotion to areas of dry skin again. This time, you might want to apply an oil-less lotion with SPF because you are likely to go outside. Remember to only apply lotion minimally since only some parts of your face are dry, so squeeze your lotion bottle a little bit.

You should still exfoliate like every 3 weeks. But if you have mild or severe acne, I would say forget it about it. The acids in the exfoliator will probably excerbate your skin condition. This goes the same for facial masks. You can exfoliate and use facial masks if you only have light acne.
If you are going to use facial masks, I would say to just apply it on the T-zone area, your dry-skin areas are mostly clean and free of dirt if you already wash your face daily.

Drink at least a couple bottles of water everyday. Avoid smoking, alcohol, tea, and coffee as much as possible. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Again, no junk food, fast food, sugary, and salty food of any kind. We all know this, but a few do it. It's true what they say: you are what you eat.

ON DRY SKIN

Dry-skin people do not produced enough sebum in their oil glands to keep their skin lubricated and moist. The good news is that dry-skin people hardly have any acne or other blemishes. Simple Vaseline will help you moisturize your skin. But a lotion aloe vera in it will be great. Apply it at least 2 times a day: morning and night. It'll be a good idea if you carry a small pocket moisturizer with you at all times, especially during the winter. If you are applying lotion morning and night, you should get a lotion with SPF for morning and a cream lotion for night. Your facial skin will feel more soft, moist, and a bit supple.

Cleansing your face once a day is enough, but do not use any soap or hot water to clean your face. It will simply dry your skin even more and excerbate the problem. Go find a aloe vera cleanser if you can, I'm sure they have it, or else use a cleanser that is dedicated for dry skin and use lukewarm water. If you are going to exfoliate, do it like only once every month, but I think it's not even necessary for dry-skin people. Dry-skin people usually have less dirt and much less oil than all other skin types.

As for diet, avoid coffee and any kind of alcohol, they will dehydrate your body and skin even more. Also stay away from soft drinks, excessive salt and sugar. Drink at least a few glasses of water everyday and eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.

ON OILY SKIN

There are five types of skin: oily, dry, normal, combination, and sensitive. Today I'm talking about oily skin. Well if you have oily skin, you obviously know it. I have oily skin. Oily-skin people have a greasy shine on their face, ususlly residing on the forehead and nose. The skin is also thick and dull in color. There are good and bad news for oily-skin folks. The bads news is that oily-skin people are more likely to get acne and other blemishes due to having enlarged pores and simply better ability to attract dirt and bacteria on their faces. They are also more likely to get blackheads, especially around the nose area. The good news is that oily-skin people tend to age slower than dry-skin people and less prone to wrinkles.

To care for your oily skin, you definitely need to buy cleansers dedicated to oily skin. There are bunch of products out there. What I have used in the past are cleansers by Murad and Benefit. Shiseido also have a cleanser for men with oily skin. As stated before, DO NOT USED SOAP OR ANYTHING THAT WILL CAUSE YOUR SKIN TO DRY AND FLAKE. This will generally just lead to an overproduction of oil, and you do not want that. Cleaning your face once a day is enough, but if you have extremely oily skin, twice a day will be good; once at night before you go to bed, and once every every morning when you wake up. Cleaning your face too much will just irriate your skin more. You should exfoliate once every 2-3 weeks and do a facial mask once every 2 months, but frequency should be according to how oily your skin is. Also, KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF YOUR FACE. The more you touch your face, the more bacteria will spread, thus the more likely to cause acne. Only use your hands when washing your face and always use facial tissue to dry your face after cleasning. Towels are always laden with bacteria and germs no matter how clean it is.

You should eat healthy and drink plenty of water to flush out toxins. Avoid junk food, fast food, fried food, excessive sugar and salt, and spicy food as much as possible. But eat plenty of fruits and vegetable and whole grains. Diet plays a huge role in skin complexion. If you can, use a blender and make your own natural fruit drink or smoothie daily and consume it.

TRIMMING YOUR EYEBROWS

Taking care of our eyebrows is more of a frequent task for women than it is for men. Removing eyebrow hair can be a difficult task and I would highly recommend you to just pay a professional to do it. This is one of the areas of the face where it's hard to groom. Removing eyebrow hair can be a risky task when doing it by yourself. You do not want to mess up your hair here. Plus, I don't think it's expensive just to remove some eyebrow hair.

For guys, if you do want to trim a little bit of your eyebrow hair, use a tweezer and a pair of small scissors. DO NOT EVER SHAVE YOUR EYEBROW HAIR THOUGH! Try to cut your the edges of your eyebrow hair linearly, giving them a bit more of a rigid shape and form. Cut the areas where the hair is more scatter apart, which around the edges. It is hard to describe on how to groom your eyebrow hair, but it should just be a little litttle bit shorter. In fact, forget about the little pair of scissors if you want, just use tweezers and pluck the hair out around the edges. Folks, just get your eyebrows threaded or cut by a professional. I do not know much about this. I do not feel comfortable giving you advice that might messed up your eyebrows. Remember to trim your eyelashes too if they're long.

FACIAL MASK

Facial mask is another one of those tasks that I do once in a long while. A facial will extract dirt, grease, and dead skin cells off your face. It is almost the same thing as exfoliation. This is another optional task that I'm recommending men and women to do. I would also recommend facial mask only for those with oily skin. This is simply because oily skin people attracts the most dirt on their faces than their dry-skin counterparts. Therefore oily-skin people need it more than dry and even normal skin people. If you are dry-skin, you wash your face daily, and exfoliate periodically, you don't really need a facial mask. Of course everyone can get a facial if desired. If you have time and money, go to a spa and spend a couple hundred bucks on a facial. But if you have time and do not want to spend that kind of money, there are of course always cheaper alternatives. Murad and DDF both have good facial mask products and they can last a long long time, depending on how frequent you use it. It costs about $40, but I think it's worth it for the amount of time it will last. You can literally use it for 2 years or longer if you only do a facial like once every 6 months.





Like exfoliation, wash and shave your face first before you apply on the mask. Then dry your face and hands with facial tissue. Now you apply on the mask, covering as much facial surface area as possible, like the picture shown above. Then you wait 15-20 minutes, the mask should be a bit more dry and hard by now. With lukewarm water, gently start rubbing and cleansing your face. It will take a while to completely wash away all the dirt and mask. But you will feel a difference on your face; it is cleaner, more bright, and more resilient.



There is also another king of facial mask that is really cheap and effective too. It is using egg whites. So break an egg and carefully separate the egg white from the yolk into a small bowl. Wash and dry your hands. If you have a beauty brush, dip it into the egg white and spread it on your face. Do this in front of a mirror and next to your bathroom sink so you won't make a mess. Then you wait for at least an hour and simply rinse off with lukewarm water. Yes, the egg white will smell, but it's cheap and effective, so somewhat of a compromise. That is all.

TAKING A SHOWER

Okay guys, you should take a shower once everyday and try to spend at least 15 minutes in the shower. I just think that it's hard to get clean in the shower for only 15 minutes. Now that I had previously blogged about washing your hair, here's what you should do to wash your body. Whether you're using soap or bodywash it's fine. If using a bodywash, you obviously need a shower scrub. My favorite bodywash is Dove, but almost any bodywash will do. Soap is interesting, they come in all flavors and even caffeinated. But I would recommend a grainy feeling soap, because it sort of exfoliate your skin a bit. But pretty much any soap will do, my favorite is Lever 2000.

Now if you are one of those guys that just hate taking a shower and just want to get it over with, then I suggest you using shower scrub. It takes less than 5 minutes to scrub your entire body, rinse off all foam, and getting out of the shower. I would actually prefer this method because with a shower scrub, you are actually scubbing off most of your dead skin cells, which means newer skin. Plus, it saves you time. Normal soap wouldn't do nearly a great job at this. So bodywash or soap, just scrub your entire body away and rinse off.

Now make sure you scrub your crotch area and armpits a bit harder than the rest of your body, because these areas are extra dirty than the rest of your body. Also, if you took a dump for the day, scrub your anus with soap. You do not want your anus to be encrusted with shit crumbs, lol. Another thing to wash, your penis or vagina. Everyday we have an accumulation of dirt and dry flaky dead skin on it, rub and rinse it off with your fingers. Do not forget to wash your ears also, I have seen guys with encrusted earwax in their ears. Also, rub the back and sides of your feet, there is dirt there. If you do all these things, you will be clean.

Plus, taking a shower is a great time to shave off any hair that you do not want because it is easier to clean up the mess. Guys you should learn to enjoy taking a shower. Play or sing songs if it helps you. I love to take a bath but I rarely rarely do, because of water conservation. Don't you guys like the warmth of water splashing down your body? I do and sometimes I wish I can be in the shower forever.

HAIR CARE AND WASHING

Today's post is about washing hair, and from now on, I will try to attach a picture that correspond with each post topic. If you want to have clean and healthy hair, take good care of it. First, choose a shampoo with hair conditioning and with a good amount of zinc in it. Pantene Pro-V has a shampoo just for that. Pantene Pro-V is for guys and girls also, so don't be embrassased if you are a guy using it. I used Herbal Essences before, the shampoo is just really fragrant. You can use soap to wash your hair, but I wouldn't recommened it. Yes it will get your hair clean also, but not as much of a great job as shampoo. Pert Plus and Head and Shoulders are all great shampoos.

In order to be a thorough wash, you should wash your hair for a good 5 minutes at least. I know guys who wash their hair for only for like less than a minute. How do I know this? They come out of the shower in less than 10 minutes, which means they haven't spend much time washing their hair. Use a bit of strength to scratch your head a little, and all around your head. If you got your hair washed in a barber shop before, you should imitate what your hair washer is doing. I love their head massage techniques. Then you simply rinse it off the foam completely. Then you can dry your hair with a towel and blow dry it if you want. Of course if you are going to comb your hair, don't blow it.