Category: common sense
Lifestyle Brands
Product overload and avoiding / fighting being a product junkie
There’s a great post, over on Science-y Hair Blog: about half of it follows here below. Screenshots, click on them, they’ll link you straight to the original blog. Everything that the wise “WS” says can be applied to any consumerist excess / addictive behaviour, of anything… yes, even chocolate…
Looking after yourself (in a non-selfish way)
Think you need a supplement?
Maybe you just need a quick pick-me-up.
(Maybe it’s more serious, so do see a doctor for anything that started on Monday or Tuesday and is still there on Friday, or that started on Wednesday-Friday and is still there on Monday. Or five days running if you work at the weekend. Do not count weekends and days off, we’re looking at stuff that affects the smooth humdrum daily routine.)
(Also: chocolate.)
skin, updated
(Little to report.)
Compared to my last post: stabilisation, mainly ups overall. Skin feels, seems, and looks more stable.
Here is what I am using on my face right now:
- Mix of sunflower + meadowfoam seed oil as makeup remover; warm water & a fresh cleansing pad flannel thing every time
= no change - Wash: La Roche-Posay Tolériane Dermo-Cleanser; applied to dry skin, removed with a damp cleansing pad. Zero anything with this cleanser: a bland fluid, feels like lightweight cold cream or cleansing milk. Cleans well and leaves skin feeling clean but comfy.
= no change - Toner, serum, etc.: nothing. Just pat skin dry.
- Eye area: Garden of Wisdom anti-puffery eye serum (hyaluronic acid, caffeine, matrixyl 3000). Using this for puffy eye area (undereye and eyelids) with regular seasonal allergies. Current sleep situation is improved; I get baggy both with too little and with too much sleep, so actually bags are a good indicator of whether or not I’m getting the right amount of sleep (for me, and this is one of at least two raisons d’être for bagginess in my case; the “how” and “why” of bags varies).
= no change - Moisturiser (face, eye area, throat): La Roche-Posay Tolériane Cicaplast balm.
Testing against their Tolériane Ultra ended with the following:
1. Cicaplast baume is moister, more concentrated, and as I use about a third of the quantity and a tube is half the price, Cicaplast is a better buy.
2. Cicaplast keeps my skin better moisturised for longer.
3. I do not get any redness, bumpiness, itching, spottiness, or other stages of irritation with it. At all. Skin just feels soothed. While Tolériane is fine on most areas of my face plus neck, I get all these irritable negatives in the nose, chin, and jawline areas. Sometimes soon after application, sometimes a few hours later.
Conclusion: staying with Cicaplast Baume. Used up the last of the pathetically tiny tube of Tolériane Ultra in one lavish swoop as a body moisturiser after a very pleasant oily bath. Waste not, want not. - Lips: my old multi-purpose DIY balm, shea butter + olive oil + beeswax
= no change. - Face & eye-area sunscreen: Derma E Face SPF 30 (16% ZnO, also green tea, vitamin C (SAP), no silicones; = Wise/Poor Man’s Replenix)
= no change. - Lip sunscreen: Badger unscented SPF 35 stick (22.5% ZnO)
= no change.
Using up the remaining Lipikar Syndet cleanser on body, plus Lipikar Baume on body and hands (like it a lot), and Derma E Body sunscreen.
So: continuing minimalism and super-gentleness. As I said before: Current cleanser and moisturiser are pricy but not exorbitant, and certainly cheaper than prescription medication or trying out other products that might or might not work. Above all, functioning calm skin and no pain = priceless.
Plus hat, covering up, daily antihistamine, etc. …
On a less self-protective defensive note, but staying with that idea of being pure as the driven snow:
skin disaster updates + coming up next…
Main update: skin is improving and nearly “normal.” Touch wood (or soft fluffy bunny). How and why are mysterious as the exact mechanism is unknown and has not been tracked systematically, due to my having other things to do (work, life) which are incompatible with obsessively attending to skin-condition. My doctor suspects the following:
- Paying less attention to skin and more attention to other things has probably been a positive contributing factor.
- Skin improvement has meant that (1) above was possible in the first place, because my skin didn’t hurt so I could ignore it. Skin not hurting, skin slowly healing, triggered a neat nice virtuous circle.
- My skin may have simply taken a regular renewal time to heal: that is, two months after the multiple initial dramas at the beginning of March.
- Work stress, anxiety, and overwork have been a negative contributing factor. They would have put my whole system in a weakened state, including increased sensitivity, proneness to over-reaction, and lower defenses. I’ve been more physically ill this year than previously, and less mentally well.
- A positive that may have helped in the last two weeks: it’s a calmer time of year, work-wise, and I talked to work-people who were supportive in various ways, including reducing my work-load. Moral of the story: talk to people, openly and honestly, including your boss. If you’re valuable you will be valued. If you’re anxious and/or depressed, you may have no idea as to whether or not you and your work are valued and valuable, and you may have no way of telling precisely because your judgement is off. This may of course be a high-risk gamble if you are in fact neither valuable nor valued; so talk to trustworthy peer-colleagues first. (If you have none, then it’s probably a sign you should change job; been there, done that…)
Current stuff used:
- Meadowfoam seed oil as makeup remover; warm water & a fresh cleansing pad flannel thing every time
- La Roche-Posay Lipikar cream cleanser; ditto
- Garden of Wisdom anti-puffery eye serum (hyaluronic acid, caffeine, matrixyl 3000)
- Garden of Wisdom green tea hydragel serum (= Wise/Poor Man’s Replenix no. 1)
- La Roche-Posay Cicaplast balm
- DIY shea butter + olive oil + beeswax lipbalm
- Derma E Face SPF 30 (16% ZnO, also green tea, vitamin C (SAP), no silicones; = Wise/Poor Man’s Replenix no. 2)
- Badger unscented SPF 35 stick (22.5% ZnO)
Next up:
- review of Derma E Face SPF 30: I’ll expand the quick notes on my notepad at the “morosophical beautification” page
- review of that Garden of Wisdom eye stuff, and a couple of comparisons
- review of the Badger sunstick, comparisons (Babo Botanical, Elemental Herbs, BurnOut)
- I’ll keep my eyes open for any new sunscreen that looks Ginger-compatible, and anything else useful and, again, usable on yours truly.
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away”
and other amusing folk wisdom, urban myths, and wonders of our marvellous world:
First, from The Poke:
Continue reading
babelicious
You’ve met, loved, and lost Food Babe. Here’s Chow Babe – Prettier and Smarter than Food Babe:
(Vain Hair = “affectionate nickname for Vani Hari, The Food Babe”)
LOL of the day
link of the day / week / month
There’s been a lot of hilarity recently at the expense of the poor Food Babe. Yes, she is foolish; yes, the extent of her folly is dangerous. Her ignorance is as deep and broad as her convictions are strong and her “Army” is legion. I’m sorry but we’re talking Biblical, Apocalyptic levels of folly here so “legion” is the only appropriate term here. But there is worse and funnier, more foolish and more popular.
Meet Dawn’s Brain:
Link of the day: the perils of greenwashing and idiocracy
Read the full piece at Back From Nature. A lesson in scepticism. Think, learn, research, think again, question everything. But maintain balance and common sense. If you have little to no scientific background, do not reject and repudiate those areas of knowledge but make the effort to learn about them.
That’s good scepticism too, learning stuff; remember that “science” in its full older sense just means “knowledge.” Being scientific means being sceptical, and being sceptical entails being scientific.
Learning and knowledge are interactive: consult experts, the first of whom is your doctor. Or any doctor. So: talk to–and that includes listening to–your doctor.
OK, my own doctor is fabulous, sane, and sensible. She includes more eco stuff and advice, but only when properly tested. I passed on her tips on meditation in a recent MUA green board discussion; here they are for anyone else.
The original question (anonymised):
My GP’s answer, with apologies for any errors, my own via recollection and reporting:
Nice person thanked me (this discussion board is usually like that ❤️)
The Praise of Folly 