Skin Care News

I want to share the story of my friend, Dario Wolfish. When I first met Dario, he was an applicant for a job opening that I had. He told me the odyssey of his 205 pound weight loss and the reversal of the obesity-related complications he had been diagnosed with—diabetes and high blood pressure. I was awed. 205 pounds in 13 months. But even more awesome, several years later he has kept it off.

I spent the better part of my life thin, and now find myself battling my weight. I don’t spend my days lounging in front of the TV eating McDonalds. I don’t expect anyone to find the extra pounds I carry attractive, but I do expect to be treated with respect. So when I read posts such as this one (thanks for the heads-up phin), I am disgusted.

Yesterday I needed a break, so B stayed at home with J and worked and S and I went shopping with my neighbor. She introduced me to Forever 21 (again, but this one was BIG), Charlotte Russe, Agaci, and my regular stop Aeropostale, and couldn’t believe I didn’t buy ANYthing. She is six months pregnant and found a bunch of cute, flowey tops to wear. Forever 21 has a lot of good ones for that. We came home and switched out a kiddo and S stayed with B and J came with us while we got our nails done, he has a cell phone that he discovered still works so he called Grandpa, Auntie, Grandma, and then asked for M’s number and called her. We picked up dinner and ran to HEB to return a movie and came back to watch Dancing with the Stars. I can’t believe I haven’t discovered that show before. LOVE it. We went back out and ended up spending an hour and a half at HEB perusing the makeup and nail care aisle, and then every other aisle it seemed and getting a hodgepodge of needed and fun stuff. Then B took both the kids and put them to bed and we stayed up eating chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and watching The Sweetest Thing until 1am. Fun girlie night.

I embarked on a search for something cheaper. Bought tube after tube of nasty stuff that worked like crud but remained on the edge of the tub for months anyway --I had spent good money on it, after all. One item I’d had especially high hopes for was the “Motions” line of hair care products-- I had to drive to a store 40 minutes away to pick it up, but since it is designed specifically for Black hair, I figured it would work for sure. Nope. The comb didn’t glide near as nicely as with my hideously expensive but much-loved Physique. Onto the tub edge with the rest of the rejects went the “Motions”.

Hip cosmeceutical maker Philosophy has sued the South Florida dermatology practice of Dr. Fredric Brandt for trademark infringment. Philosophy claims that when it adopted the mark HOPE IN A JAR for a moisturizing cream, Dr. Brandt responded by marketing a product called MICRODERMABRASION IN JAR. Similarly, according to Philosophy, its MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE product became LASER IN A BOTTLE when Dr. Brandt got a hold of it.

I feel like doing my Earl Pitts imitation when I read stuff like this: Townhall.com :: Columns :: You bet I want fries with that by Jeff Jacoby - Feb 13, 2006. Jeff Jacoby voices frustration after decades of being told what we should and shouldn’t do about diet and exercise.

Will your party scrap Schedule A of the Health Canada Act, written over 50 years ago, which consists of a list of virtually all diseases known to humanity and mandates that they can only be treated by drugs and not by supplements or nutritional medicine? Schedule A made it a criminal offence--in the 1980's several doctors lost their licenses in Canada for using nutritional support as an adjunct to standard medical practice. Will your party adopt the US law which takes them out of the Codex process completely; that the assessments of supplements be done at arm's length from the industry as ordered by the International Court; that the upper limits being proposed are in fact done by scientists and not by Big Pharma. Comments?

Additionally, I just did something I thought I’d never do: I just wrote an article about men’s skin care products.

While walking around the mall a guy working at one of the kiosks approached me and made me realize how pathetic my life is right now. Well, at least from the romantic standpoint. The guy was selling nail care products of some sort and as I was walking by he stopped me to “ask a question.” I’m always interested in listening to people sell now so I said ok with one foot facing him and the other set to walk away as soon as he started to annoy me. He asked whether I take care of my hands and I said no, not so much. He asked whether Valentines day was coming up. He spoke broken english so I had him repeat it a few times before I could understand what he was asking and I think he thought I was just plain stupid for not understanding. I finally said yes it is and he asked whether I had a girlfriend. Nope. A wife? No. A friend? Negative. Anyone? No, actually. He paused for a minute and realized I was serious and not just avoiding him and then kind of grabbed my arm and said sorry and turned away.

Back on the diet and exercise plan. The dress for New Year’s was ordered and will pick it up at the post office tomorrow. The short red matte Jersey dress with rhinestone straps aka the “man bait” dress.

I thought for the last 6 months or so that my red nail polish was tragically lost (probably in the same place my hot pink and black nail polishes were.) Not so! It was hiding at the bottom of my nail care bag! My nails are now a bright and exciting shade of red and I’m pleased as punch. Unfortunately, it’s starting to get a bit thick, so I may need to invest in a new bottle. Considering this is the same nail polish I wore on my toes every day the summer after my senior year of high school, it’s probably way expired. Aw, I will miss thee, red nail polish from Estee Lauder.

Sometimes I look back on the pictures of me during my pregnancies, and think “how in the world could I have felt attractive when I looked like that?” I see the stretch marks and swollen feet and blotchy cheeks, and I cringe with embarrassment at having ever flaunted that bloated body. But then I remember the hours I spent examining my ever changing body with wonder. I remember running my fingers over my tight, strained skin, completely in awe of my body’s ability to stretch and conform to seemingly impossible limits in order to accommodate the growing life within. I felt like a living miracle, proof of the wonders God has created on this earth. I remember lying in bed at night and lifting up the sheet so I could let go and watch it waft gently down, draping across the curves of my breasts and my bulging stomach.

So I am tooling around on the web tonight and I ran across Chris Rock’s “No Sex in the Champaign Room” which for those of you who don’t know is a spoof on Baz Luhrmann’s Sunscreen song. So then of course, I had to go and pull out that old piece of trash. Which then leads to more nostalgia. So what songs take you back to those days? Lets see here, Chumbawamba Tubthumping, Eve 6 Inside Out, The Real Slim Shady by Eminem, Lump by The Presidents of the United States of America. O man, classics. One day my grandkids gonna be on my knee and he is going to ask me two things. One, did you really listen to this stuff, and two how the hell did you elect Bush, not ounce but twice?Ok, so maybe I am being a little harsh on the music, but you are going to have to answer the second question. I know what my answer is. “I didn’t vote in the first election, and I voted for the other guy the second time.” Whats your answer? What music did you listen to? Talk to me!