- zest of 2 lemons

- 1/3 cup kafir lime leaves

- 4 cups warm fatty milk

- 3 tbsps. warmed honey

- 4 drops spearmint oil

- 1 cup jasmine flowers

Mix zest, milk, and honey in a large enough bowl to fit both your feet into. Crush the lime leaves and then add those into the bath and stir. Then, add the spearmint oil, and stir. Lastly, sprinkle the jasmine flowers across the top of the bath and slip your feet into the bath for at least 15 minutes. An exfoliation and then a good foot cream would be great to follow suit.

When I was doing my monthly IPL sessions to remove my hair, I would often celebrate that day by bringing in my laptop so that I could listen and download music while I got little pulses of light that my body seemed to crave for after a few sessions… how addictive! But ultimately, it gave me some downtime just for me to use however I wanted to, and I think that little bit of time that I used for myself felt incredibly good. Everybody should experience that kind of downtime. Not everybody can, but whether it be a whole day of spa pampering to a 15 minute body scrub in your shower, you should really take the time to care for your physical being just as much as you do for your inner being. Your body is a sacred source of energy that and you should feel proud to take great care of it to keep it well balanced; personally, I prefer to start my physical well-being with my skin and make an experiment out of what it needs at that point in time. Our bodies change in conjuction with its environment, but harmony is easily achieved when you listen to what your body tells you it needs.

Heat the shea butter in a double boiler or in a bowl on top of a saucepan with water in it. When liquid, add the rest of the ingredients except for the Vitamin E and the oil of lavender, and stir well. When cooled, add the vitamin E and oil of lavender, and then pour into a clean glass container and continue to cool completely before putting a lid on it.

Mix the ingredients together and rub on your skin in circular motions until it becomes more difficult to continue rubbing in (about 5 min). At that time, leave it on your face for 25 minutes, and then gently rinse it off. The rice ingredients are great for lightening the face, and the tofu is wonderful for softening the face, kind of like yogurt. Sesame is wonderful to exfoliate and soften simultaneously.

When you first get into the treatment room, you should tell your aesthetician if you have any allergies or any special preferences. Next, you should remove your top and put on a shower towel wrap to cover your chest and a headband so that your hair doesn’t come into contact with unnecessary oils. Then, lie down on the treatment table and get ready for the procedure. It’s always a calming bonus if there’s incense in the room to help you relax.

1- CLEANSING:
The first step in the facial process is to clean your face. If you have oily skin, you can have a gel-based cleanser, and if you have normal to dry skin, a milk cleanser is best so that it’s not too harsh on your skin.
2- TONING:
Next comes the toner to remove any hard water residue left behind.
3- EXFOLIATION:
You need to have your dead skin removed so that your fresher, younger skin cells get the treatment involved with a facial. It would a be a waste to have your dead skin cells moisturized when they’re about to slough off anyways, and dead cells actually block treatment from getting to your newer skin cells- kind of like microscopic dry scales.
4-TONING:
This step should be repeated to keep that hard water out of your face!
5- STEAMING:
Steaming is a great way to get your skin’s pores to enlarge so that dirt will be more ready to loosen and skin will be more receptive to what’s put on it. Steaming should take about 20 minutes, and is not recommended for anyone with rosacea (diffused redness when exposed to heat). In cases of dryness, a milk can be applied to the skin while it’s being steamed to simultaneously give an extra deep cleaning and hydration.
6- EXTRACTION:
Without the extraction of your blocked pores, a facial is strictly superficial. This is the meat of a facial, and will keep your skin looking its best for months to come. It’s a relatively uncomfortable procedure when the aesthetician gently pinches your pores to have all that dirt and pollution extracted from your skin with the goal of keeping your skin looking its cleanest and most radiant.
7-TONING:
Toner will help remove any residue, and while your pores are open, you NEVER want to risk infection from bacteria that can be left behind.
8- HIGH-FREQUENCY PORE CLOSING:
This is a great way to close your pores. Technically, you can also close your pores by putting cold water on your face for somewhere between 20-30 minutes, but a high frequency unit will close your pores in less than 1 minute! It has a strange tingly feeling on your skin and it has an amazing germicidal, stimulating and soothing effect for your skin.
9- MASSAGE:
Hands down, this is the best part of a facial! Unfortunately, if your skin is oily, you have to skip this step so that you don’t stimulate your sebaceous glands which will create more oil. For the rest of you, the aesthetician should massage your face according to your unique muscular facial structure. This is a great way to unwind and just relax while the massage cream helps plump up wrinkles and hydrate your skin, and the massage itself helps to promote your skin’s tonicity and elasticity. Some of you will fall to sleep at this point! It’s the ultimate compliment to your aesthetician!!
10- MASK:
Now that your skin has been well prepped, it’s the perfect time to apply a mask and what’s very important is for you to relax. The more you relax, the better your mask will “sink in”. Often, the aesthetician will leave the room so that you can remain in bed while the mask takes effect; this usually takes between 15-20 minutes.
11- TONING:
Again, residue must never be left on your skin.
12- MOISTURIZER:
Your last step is to have a good moisturizer applied to your face and neck, and a different moisturizer applied to your eyes and you’re ready to go!

Just remember that we’ve now completely upset your skin’s Ph balance, so you can expect bad skin for about a week until your skin rebalances itself. But once this hurdle is over, you’ll expose the nicest skin you’ve ever had! If you have normal skin, then you should repeat this process about every 3 months. However, you have oily skin or very parched skin, you should repeat this process once a month until you have normal skin and can let it go for 3 months at a time. Ultimately, the goal is to have radiant looking skin without any persistent problems.

When considering the purchase of a cream, you really should read the label list (which is required to be printed on the product by Canadian law), and deduce which ingredients are best for you, and where the cream ingredient list chronologically places that ingredient. Typically, you have three dimensions of cream products: (1) pharmacy brand creams, (2) aesthetic brand creams, and (3) dermatological brand creams. Often, the brands are specifically targeted to one of the three classifications, and therefore, do not overlap.

Pharmacy brand creams are often not that fabulous because their advertised ingredient on their packaging is often one of the last ingredients listed in their chemical make-up.  This is actually why you can typically find creams for a relatively inexpensive price, but as a pro, they are conveniently widely available. While more difficult to get since you’ll need to work with spa hours / days, the aesthetic brands offer a higher concentration of ingredients which produce better results. While for example, a cream promotes calcium as its wonder ingredient, but it actually only lists calcium as its 19th ingredient, so we can deduce  that calcium doesn’t actually have a very big role to play in the cream’s make-up, and is actually part of a marketing ploy: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/product.php?prod_id=100167 .  Dermatological brand creams often have the highest concentration of its active ingredient(s); the only difference is that you need access to a doctor, and in most cases, a prescription to get it.

All in all, while you should always be skeptical about price-inflated creams, you should equally be concerned with price-deflated creams; but above all, you should look beyond price to see what you’re actually purchasing- and the ingredients list is always on your side to help you come to your own decision.

If your primary skin pigment is yellow, you should stick with golden tones that can vary between ivory and matte beige. For red pigmented skin, look at pinks ranging from pink ivories to peachy colours.  In brown or olive pigmented skins, look at yellows, browns and beiges. If you’re more golden, a beigey gold foundation will work great (it’s also the ideal skin colour).   In the eventuality that red, yellow and brown are all equally prominent colours in your skin, use coppery tan colours.  

If you need to correct anything on your skin, for example under eye bags or pesky pimples, always use a complimentary colour. So, on red imperfections, apply a green colour; on blue, apply orange; and on yellow, apply violet. Then dab on a concealer 1-2 shades lighter than your foundation colour over the imperfections.

Always remember:

• Orange is used to neutralize blue veins and dark circles
• Lilac is to neutralize the yellow in a skin tone and to lighten your complexion (i.e. Hindu)
• Green is to neutralize the red or pink in someone’s face, and it can also be mixed with a peachy foundation to make it more beige
• Yellow is to lighten the foundation and give more luminosity to your face so long as you already have some yellow in your pigmentation
• White is used to lighten a foundation colour. Never use this pigment if you are dark since you have no white pigment in your skin.

I hope this guide helps you to understand how to manipulate colours and how to choose colours best suited for your skin colour.  If you have any questions, please ask me and I’ll do my best to help; if you can send over a picture of your skin, I’ll be able to answer you more accurately.

There are many skin types, but the basics are:

1. Mature / thin skin
2. Dry / Dehydrated skin
3. Sensitive / Red skin
4. Pigmentation problem skin
5. Normal skin
6. Oily skin
7. Acne skin (typically teens and young adults)

1. Mature skin
For mature, thin skin, there is a variety of treatments you can use. The best possible treatment is IPL skin rejuvenation with a collagen mask to help increase its thickness. This will help build new collagen and it also repairs your old collagen.  The results are immediate and very noticeable, but it only lasts for about 3 weeks. You can also use facials with extreme hydration like the Optimum Hydration Facial, or the Lifting and Firming Vitamin C treatment to increase the tonicity that may have become lost in your skin over time. Always try to include oil-based creams and make-up in your daily routine to keep your skin hydrated.

2. Dry / Dehydrated skin
When you have dry skin, you can be most any age, and you typically have thinner skin that is more susceptible to the outside elements.  If you have alipic facial skin, characterized by invisible pores and a tight, tugging sensation, you should consider a Basic facial without any extractions. It’s the most inexpensive facial, but perfectly suited for your type of skin (lucky you!). You can also go one step further and do the Optimum hydration facial for a moisture rich treatment, or the Oxygenating stimulation treatment for moments when your environment is what makes your skin dry (think of hospitals, high heat at work, visiting an overpopulated city, etc…).

3. Sensitive / Red skin
For sensitive skin, you most always have circulatory issues. You’re very reactive to the things you eat or drink (think of a glass of wine), or physical activity, or a drastic change in temperature. You often have rosacea, which is a temporary redness that disappears with any of the above-mentionned triggers, or couperosis, a permanency of broken capillary veins on your face. In this particular skin type, you should try the Anti-redness desensitizing treatment, to calm your skin and reduce the blotchiness of your skin. You can also use the Calming mask facial for better blood circulation and cell regeneration, which will help even out your skin. Last but not least, the best kind of treatment for you would be IPL rosacea and /or couperosis treatment because the IPL will target broken capillaries and it will help your blood circulation immensely, and the results are immediate. Also, spas that offer thermal therapy, like cold lakes to jump into after a trip to the steam room or sauna, are terrible for your skin because you’re changing your body temperature too drastically and too fast for your your body to adjust. In fact, anything that can aggravate your skin, you should approach with caution.    

4. Pigmentation problem skin
When you have a pigmentation issue, you can have either too much or not enough. When you have vitiligo (white spots), you don’t have enough pigmentation, and for this particular issue, there is no known treatment. A good concealer is the only trick to look like your skin is even. Most common, however, is hyperpigmentation, when you have darker spots on your face. You have a variety of treatments you can work with, starting with an Alpha hydroxy facial which primarily reduces skin discolouration, but as an added bonus, also removes wrinkles. You should also consider Microdermabrasion to remove the layers of skin that help darken that spot. You see, the more layers of skin that you accumulate over the melanin, the darker it looks- so if you have thick skin, your hyper pigmentation should look much darker. Unfortunately, with this treatment you can expect red marks on your face that takes 1 or 2 days for your skin to recover (though, it’ll often recover over night). But when it does, your dark spots will be a much lighter colour, and it’ll also help diminish wrinkles and remove pesky blackheads.  You should also look at IPL age spot fading, where you can have the age spot burned so that by the end of the week, it should crust off, and a much lighter, faded colour beneath it will surface and therefore hide your pigmentation issue. Those with this skin type should be very aware of any sun exposure or medication that can cause photosentivity. You are at the highest risk of more pigmentation issues, so keep a high SPF cream handy (40+).   

5. Normal skin
For normal skin, you can dabble with any kind of facial, since you might have a very temporary tendency to sometimes be on the borderline of any type of skin. Ultimately, if you take care of your skin, you should easily be able to get away with a Deep cleansing facial every season change, and you’ll be perfectly fine.

6. Oily skin
For oily skin, you have hyper secretions, and so your face might look shiny with open pores, and your skin is generally very thick. This type of skin is very common for Asians and African Americans. Microdermabrasion and Glycolic acid peelings are great solutions for you to help reduce the thickness of your skin. Once your skin thickness is reduced, you typically have normal skin underneath.  You should also consider the Optimum pureness treatment facial to help prevent excessive sebum secretion for a more matte look. For this skin type, you should always avoid any oil-basd substance on your face; you have enough of it naturally! Find creams and make-up that is non-comedegenic, and blotting papers are a great way to keep fresh looking.  

7. Acne skin
When you have acneic skin, your skin is trying to tell you that it’s in hormone overload! It’s often asphyxiated with blackheads (comedones) and many puss-filled pimples. This condition often affects teenagers, but is also known to affect some adults. Every treatment for oily skin applies here, only there are 2 additions: the Lifting and firming Vitamin C treatment, which is normally for tonicity and firming skin, but Vitamin C is also known as a wonderful detoxifier and increases blood circulation, which will help reduce your acne breakouts. You can also have an IPL treament for acne, especially when you have a big event coming up- it almost immediately dries up the acne you have within a day or two. Since acne is a bacteria, it’ll return, but you can fight it easily with IPL.

That should just about cover the different skin types out there and what can help solve their different issues. Some skin types, however, are a mix of different issues above, and it’s highly recommended that you may want to talk with an aesthetician to make sure you’re doing the right treatment.

Brow shape tips for the 9 different face shapes

1.          For the oval face

 Description: the shape of an upsidedown egg     

canon face

• Brows should be slightly ascending in their inclination
• The apex (arch) should align with the middle of the apple of the cheek
• The extremity should always be in correspondence with the face – in the oval, it should be a medium length

 2.       For the diamond face shape

Description: retraction on the forehead and on the chin

diamond

• Brows should be slightly ascending in their inclination or horizontal
• The apex should align with the middle of the apple of the cheek
• The extremity should always be a medium length

 3.       For the hexagonal face shape

Description:  like a square, but vertically longer

hexagonal

• Brows should be slightly ascending in their inclination
• The apex should align with the middle of the apple of the cheek or the external whites of the eye
• The extremity should always be a medium length 

4.      For the oval long or oval long retracted face shapes
Description:  angles everywhere! retracted forehead, retracted chin, upsidedown egg-looking jawline, but vertically long)

oval long retracted

• If the frame is long, horizontal brows are required to fill in the width of your face
• The apex should align with the middle of the apple of the cheek or the external whites of the eye
• The extremity should be a long length 

5.         For the trapezoidal face shape

Description: retracted forehead, vetically long appearance, prominent chin

trapezoid

• Brows should be slightly ascending in their inclination
• The apex is only at the exterior of the pupil because of the forehead’s retraction
• The extremity should be a short length to leave space between the eyebrows and the forehead

6.         For the heart face shape

Description: widow’s peak with a pointy chin

heart / triangular

• Brows should be slightly ascending in their inclination
• The apex is only at the exterior of the pupil to bring the focal point to the eye
• The extremity should be a medium length 

7.         For the round face shape

Description: Circular looking

rounded

• Brows should be very ascending their inclination
• The apex should be in the middle of the apple of the cheek
• The extremity should be a short length 

8.         For the square face shape

Description: square-looking

square

• Same as the round face 

9.         For the rectangular face shape

Description: rectangular-looking

rectangle

• Brows sould be horizontal
• The apex should be in the middle of the apple of the cheek
• The extremity should be a long length

BONUS: Brow color & make-up tips

• For brunettes, you need to be 1 to 2 tones lighter than your hair
• For blondes, you need to go 1 to 2 tones darker than your hair
• Use a powder colour on a well-shaped brow to intensify it
• If you have to add a non-existent portion of a brow, then use a pencil and finish it with a powder
  Note: The brow pencils are much waxier and translucent than other pencils
  

All skin types can become deeply dehydrated; regardless of how thick or thin your skin is. Some people think that that if their skin is very oily (in which case, it will often be a thick skin type), that they have nothing to worry about when it comes to ageing. Unfortunately, this idea is a fallacy; although I will say that they will tend to get less deep wrinkles than their thin-skinned counterparts.  Still, we must all keep our bodies hydrated for our health, hygiene, and of course, aesthetics.

When you get superficially dehydrated, the signs of tiny wrinkles start to appear with a lack of supleness in our skin. Typicaly, there’s many dead skin cells that become apparent (they’re called squames), and you can feel a tugging sensation when you have different facial expressions.  Overall, your skin looks dry and brittle. For thirty-somethings who have thick textures of skin, you can easily solve this issue with an exfoliant and a good cream (not lotion, which can be pumped out of a bottle; a cream is thicker and is typically purchased in a jar).

For all other skin types (including those in their thirties), and those over forty, you have more chances of facing deep dehydration, and this will prove to be a huge ageing issue. There are signs of deep wrinkles and the tonicity and firmness of your skin is lost.  There is a lack of elasticity to the point where it appears flaccid. If these are signs that you recognize, the ageing process has begun. Basically, the link between the dermis and the basal layer of the skin becomes weak, so your skin doesn’t look fleshy and full.  But hold tight, there are solutions.

IPL stands for “intense pulsed light“; a technology that not many people know is quite different from a typical laser. It works on a different light pulse than laser in the sense that laser uses a spectrum of red light treatment only, while IPL uses a spectrum of many colours of light, including red light (but it also has a filter to remove red light if a treatment is being performed on a darker skin).

In our natural skin renewal process called the keratinization process, our cells develop more slowly from its basal layer to its desquamating layer (top layer) of skin as you age. Unfortunately, the more time it takes to get those basal layer cells up to your top layer of skin, the less new your skin cells look.  Worse still, as you age, your cells’ liquidy cytoplasm starts to get grainy and hard and actually lose their nucleus altogether earlier on in the skin layers than when you were younger. Also, little “bridges” called desmosomes that keep your cells tightly packed together start to become lazy and stretches out too much; making your cells too wide apart so they’ll start to flatten instead of looking full. As the cells are less packed together, they start pushing towards the surface looking very unhealthy. This results in a dehydrated, dull, and let’s face it, wrinkled look.

In your twenties, the keratinization process of your cells moving from the basal layer to the top layer of the skin should typically take about 30 days long; which is why a really good cream might take that long to produce adequate results. However, when you age, the process slows to about 45 days and sometimes more, and that’s what gives you an aged skin look where creams can only do so much.  

Collagen, elastin, and fiberblasts can be found in your papillary layer of your dermis. Allow me to explain, because these three keywords are the secrets to looking youthful. Elastin is a fiber that gives tonality and firmness to the skin, while collagen is a fiber that gives hydration and tonality. Fiberblasts help regenerate new collagen and elastin, and will help mend those fibers that are not fully functional. As you get older, this production, like with almost all production, slows. IPL helps stimulate the production of all three.  

IPL’s yellow light absorbs into blood targets and is used to coagulate any vascular irregularities (think red veins), while the red light targets abnormal pigmentation marks (brown spots), and then the combination of both lights stimulate collagen production to improve skin structure and reduce fine lines and laxity. Ultimately, production can be increased by up to 48%, while evening out your skin tone and helping to shrink larger pores and ostiums at the same time. 

At a good spa, your treatment should be finished off with an elastin or collagen mask.  While IPL opens your pores and ostiums kind of like a skin vapourizer, you’ll have a short period of time before they start to close back up. During this time, you can manipulate your skin by having a good collagen or elastin mask to seep in as deep as possible so that it can help reestablish your skin’s integrity even more quickly.  Beware: some spas don’t operate in your best interest; bovine collagen is no longer legal and should never be used because it can pass on diseases to its recipients. A good collagen comes from anything marine, so if you’re allergic to seafood, stick with another kind of mask like propolis, which is great for treating dehydrated skin.

There’s no downtime to IPL use, however you cannot be taking any medication that is considered photo sensitive. If you are, IPL can have strong negative, albeit temporary, effects on your skin; so honesty with your confidential aesthetician is crucial.  You also can’t go in the sun for 10 days before or after its use, so anything surrounding your vacation time is limited, but wintertime is a great time to try out this treatment.   At most spas, you should also go through a medical evaluation in order to determine if it’s safe for you to start IPL.  If everything checks out, then you should be able to begin treatments immediately.

Ideally, you should have 1 treatment on a monthly basis to help keep your collagen rejuvenated.  However, right after receiving this treatment, I would strongly recommend going out that evening; you will look fabulously youthful and vibrant. Treatments range in price from $100 to $350 Canadian at different medical and aesthetic establishments.

Have any of you had any skin rejuvenation (aka photo rejuvenation)  treatments? I’d love to know your story! Please comment.