Be Well Expo

Hey guys!

I want to share an exposition I went to last Sunday.

Now there are lots of conventions and Expo catered to professional skin therapists, Spas, massage therapists as well as dermatologist within the skincare and beauty industry. However, The Be Well Expo launched this year was the first exposition that was open to professionals and most importantly consumers.

In the past, it was usually professionals that attended the conventions sampled new high-quality professional products on the market for their spas or businesses and purchase wholesale prices. The ways you could attend these conventions were to be a professional skin therapist, business owners, or wholesale distributors-- either way you had have proof of license.

What's amazing about the Be Well Expo is that the public consumers to view, play, and get information on the country's most top-of-the-line brands that were offers in high-end Spas, or dermatologists office. The sources that you get are directly from the company's representatives.

Here's a video to give you guys a look of what you may find at the next annual Be Well Expo.

The samples from companies

Wellness October

Salutation and welcome to the month of October!

Besides my birthday being in November and lovely wintry weather in December, my favorite month of all time has got to be October. although this month is famous for Halloween, October is also the national wellness month. The North American Vegetarian Society and The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation among many other organizations, all participate in October to raise more awareness.

With that being said, I would like to share an amazing documentary about Joe cross and his inspiring journey to reboot his body and improved his health.


If you are not familiar with the documentary film, follow this link and you watch the film for free.

The documentary talks about how Joe felt stranded at the age of 40 being 210 pounds, obviously overweight, and trapped taking medication for a skin reaction that was caused by his eating habits. destined for change and committed, Joe evaluated the fuel [food] he was consuming and amended his lifestyle. while in the process he noticed he had more energy and focus, and most importantly he stopped relying on medications and his chronic skin reaction went away along with excess unwanted weights. what was more inspiring, was a story of Phil Riverstone and his amazing journey from being 400 pounds overweight--but I'll you watch the film. prepare to be mind blowin' away by the way...

I got so excited and inspired that I made it my personal challenge to juice and eat only fresh vegetables and fruits for the first 10 days of October and see how it affects my body.

After the 10 days, your body will reboot with tons of micro-nutrients from the vegetables and fruits you consumed, that you can maintain that lifestyle of eating more fresh food to improve your health.

Currently I'm in my seventh day, and I FEEL GREAT! Positive mood and energy has increased substantially,  and I sleep much better at night and wake up before my alarm clock goes off before the crack of dawn--- this is most incredible because I haven't done that in years. And of course, I did lose some weights, 5 pound to be exact and will probably continue to lose more.

Similar to the Joe's skin condition, I have had eczema since I was a child and I'm happy to say that I ditched using topical medication to maintain it---it is now sitting in a box collecting dust. A BIG HAPPY SMILE TO THAT :) 

By the way, is all happened within the third day of the challenge.

Since I'm almost done with my 10 days, I can't wait to share the changes with you guys!

For the month of October, I'll be posting juicing recipes, cooking recipes, and tips on how you can make your own vegetable mask with the left over pulps.

Lastly, I encourage whoever is reading my blog to consider making healthy changes, not just for this month or the next, or in hoping that you'll lose weight and be prettier--which I don't doubt that you aren't to begin with, but more importantly for the wellness of your life. Take it slow one day at a time until you submerge your mind and body to the amend behaviors that eventually it is second nature to you. You don't think it, you realize it, you just do.

Here is the challenges:

for three, five, 10, or 15 days, to consume only fresh vegetables or fruits without eating meat, and dairy products, processed food, or starchy grains.

Explore "join the reboot" website for ideas and more guidelines.

If you have recipes or ideas, share them in comments

Good Luck and Cheers to your Health!

Skin Typing and Conditions

If you own a Volkswagen Jetta, you wouldn't follow the maintenance procedure of a Honda Accord. 

The same theory can be applied to skin care and if you were to have dry skin, you wouldn’t use a cleanser, moisturizer, and cosmetic products more suited to someone with oily, resistant skin. 

During my late adolescent years before I got familiar with skin type, I was bombarded with using products that was not compatible to my skin for two reasons. The first one being that since my skin was combination, (both dry and oily in certain places) I kept approaching it the wrong way. As I got obsessed with maintaining the oilier areas by using acne products, the dry areas got irritated by drying ingredients that it became dehydrated, flaky, and my cheeks were always inflamed with redness.This made me looked sunburned constantly. As I tried reversing the approach by using heavy cream and moisturizer to combat the dryness, my oilier areas became just plain greasy. 

I was really lost and felt I could not control my skin so I stop using skincare all together. Little did I know, by doing that, my skin just wrecked havoc. My T-zone areas became super oily with blackheads sprouting up to say hello while my dry red cheeks textured and felt sandpaperish  all over my entire face. 
Being still lost and confused, I covered it all up with makeup—which helped the aesthetic but I was still not happy with my skin. After I took off all the makeup the redness, and dry patches were still there. And the foundation compact I used added more oil which broke my T-zone area. 

The second reason was that I did not know the difference of skin type and condition. A persons’ skin type can be normal, dry, oily, or combination. Yet, a persons’ skin condition can be sensitive, problematic (acne), and dehydrated (lost of water vs. lack of oil in dry skin), or anti-aging etc. What makes skin type and skin condition different from each other is that while skin types are internally genetic determined and cannot be change, skin conditions both internal and external factors affects the skin may be change. Pigmentation and acne are both intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affects our skin can be improve most of the time by proper pharmaceutical product as well as medical medication to balance out hormones conditions.  

My young self got enlightened as I started working for a wonderful dermatologist and got a beginners' education on what's the difference between over-the-counter products (cosmetic) and pharmaceutical products (more on this later) and went on to Aesthetician school years after that and had a full understanding of how important skin types are. 

I started getting more and more interested about skin function and picked up books by MDs and got really into product selection. Paula Begoun was one of my favorite guru for reviewing OTC products. I learned what products to pick up for my skin type and my skin started to look better.

one way to test and see what type of skin you process is by washing your face with  lukewarm water and dry it while leaving it unmoisturize for one hour. After one hour, press a single piece tissue: one of the four head, one on the nose, one on each cheeks, and one on chin. Press down on each tissues like you plotting your skin with even pressure by the palm of your hands. Let it sit for a couple of seconds, and take the tissues off.

what you need:

thin white wrapping tissues cut up into five individual 3" by 3" pieces. 

Now that you have your tissues and the oil production, let's see what skin type match you best. 

  

List of skin type

Normal -if no oil appears on the tissue paper and your skin does not feel tight or look flaky
a normal skin type has good amount of oil/water balance. Although the skin can fluctuate and be a little more dry or oily, one production does not exceed the other. Pores on normal skin type are often consistent in size making the skin texture and complexion even. To promote balance, maintenance and preventive care is the goal for the skin type. To evenly maintain texture complexion, use skin care product that keeps skins’ sufficiently hydrated.  

Dry-if your skin feels dry, tight, itchy or flaky and no oil appear on the paper
Dry skin type does not have enough oil production and often feels dry, tight, or flaky. The hair follicles and skin pores are usually small with little to minimal oil secreting outward to the surface. Dry skin needs extra care and detail maintenance because it lacks the natural oil secretions that helps protect it from environmental damage and aging. Dry skin is more prone to premature aging (seeing wrinkles at 25 versus 35) due to the lack of lipids production and is often affiliated with dehydration--- a condition due to the lost of water. Drinking plenty of water does help hydrate the skin with moisture however using humectants can help minimize the negative effects of dryness.

Examples of Higher Grade Humectants

Hyaluronic acid from plants are capable of binding incredible amounts of water molecules to itself, due to its polymeric sugar structure.
 Sodium PCA : Attract and bind several times its own weight in water and is considered to be one of the primary moisturizers of skin cells.  
Panthenol is a very popular humectant for skin care products. It is a provitamin of B5 (pantothenic acid), and is present in many living cells.

Oily-if oil comes off of your nose, forehead and cheeks
oily skin type produces excess sebum/oil production. The hair follicles and skin pores size are larger and contains more oil. If you notice visible pores size bigger than the tip of a safety pin needle, chances are the skin is oily type. Oily skin type requires additional cleaning and exfoliation more than the other skin types. Although oily skin is prone to blemishes because of the pores constant clogged with oil and extra dead skin cells build up, it is not necessarily true that all oily skin have breakouts. Oily skin type can range from conditions dealing with internal and external causes.

“It is important to be mindful not to overly clean the skin making matters worse by stripping the skin and irritating it.” 

If skin is overly dry it is not balance in the body and our natural protection mechanism try to produce additional oil to compensate for the dryness on the surface. This is when the oily skin type looks and feels like worlds colliding, because on one end, your natural oil production generating as it should, while your protection mechanism triggers additional oil production causing a greasy mess.  

Combination-if there's oil on your nose and forehead, but not your cheeks
combination skin can be both oily and dry at the same time. While the other skin type tend to be evenly distributed oil/water throughout the skin, combination type are more fragmented distributing oily areas –like the T-zone (forehead , nose , chin ) and dry patches in others-- commonly the cheeks, but not always. With combination skin it seems logic to divide and conquer the areas by use products that are appropriate---but that would cost a lot in time and money. 

Instead, approaching it by treating and overcoming the dryness, however, not the same way you would with dry skin. 

The problem is, with dry skin it lacks lipids, which is oil, but combination skin already has oil production generating, so we don't want to over stimulate that part of the skin. In fact, gel based products like aloe vera for our face, or water binding humectants and emulsifiers is best when choosing skin products for combo skin. For makeup use, water- based products works best.

While a person skin can have one skin typing, it is not uncommon to have one to multiple skin condition. A person might have dry sensitive Sun damage and prone to wrinkles while another person might have oily sensitive Sun damage and wrinkle and both people may be related and still have a unique skin identity. Here is a list of some conditions.  


List of common skin condition

Dehydration: dehydration is the lack of moisture (water) within the skin caused by the environment, medication, topical agents, aging, or dehydrating drinks such as caffeine, or alcohol. Water intake is needed for healthy functioning of the body and skin cell. 

Sun damage: Sun caused damage to the epidermis and dermis, wrinkles, collagen and elastin breakdown, dark pigmentation or lack of pigmentation, and post-cancerous skin. 

Comedones: open, comedones are blackheads and clogged pores caused by the buildup of oil, and leftover dead skin cells stuck in the pocket of skin pores. Closed comedones are blackheads with a layer of thin skin covering the opening of the Pores. Closed comedones often create incubation for trapped dead skin cells and needs to be exfoliated and extracted. In acne grade I, comedones are not uncommon. T

Milia: Milias are whiteheads with oil and dead skin cell trapped beneath the surface of the skin (non within the pores). Milias are often found underneath the eyes and commonly found within the inner eyelids. They don't look like blackheads or pimples a rather small to medium bump underneath the skin. 

Adult acne: acne breakouts happen after puberty from hormonal changes or other internal or external causes. 

Enlarged pores: larger Porter two to access oil and extra dead skin cells trapped in hair follicles or expansion due to skins elasticity loss. 

Hyperkeratinization: excessive building up of extra left over dead skin cells. 

Keratosis:  a postcondition Hyperkeratinization that form a buildup of cells that creates rough bumpy textures on the skin. A common place for keratosis, is on the backside of the upper arm, and men's back. 

Couperous Skin: visible redness with capillaries. Dilated capillaries is a sign of weakening of the capillary walls ( blood vessel) due to internal or external causes. A common external cause of couperous skin is using harsh detergent cleansers. 

Sensitivities: skin reactions from internal and external causes. 

Wrinkles/aging: loss of collagen deprived depth within the dermis causes lines on the surface of the skin. Can be internally or externally caused.

Hyperpigmentation: Brown, dark discolorations from melanin production due to the oveexposure of Sun or irritation or hormonal causes. Common Hyperpigmentation's are freckles, dark birthmarks, or pregnancy marking. 

Hypopigmentation: white, colorless area from the lack of melanin production due to overexposure of Sun. 

Rosacea: chronic redness, raise blemishes or infected lesions with white or yellow fluids within trapped skin pores or hair follicles. 

Papules: raised lesions or blemishes. Papules are often confused with pimples because they look like them, however, underneath a papules, there is no fluid, and is often resemble of skin hives or irritation. 

Pustules: An infected papules with fluid inside trapped skin pores or hair follicles. 


When approaching skin conditions, be mindful of maintaining the skin type first. Pick a skin system like cleansers, toner(optional), basic moisturizers and sunscreens matching skin type. 

As for “treatment” type skin routines, pick out serums, special exfoliations and moisturizer to customize the needs of satisfying the condition. 


For example, someone with dry skin would benefit a creamy (milky) cleanser that contains emollients like lanolin. Lanolin is a wool fat, and a natural emulsifier that absorbs and holds water to the skin and contains 20 to 30% water. By using a creamy cleanser in the morning and saving a foamy cleansers for nighttime, it will conditions your skin, along with your morning moisturizer to the environment you can be exposed to (sun, wind, heat etc.) that can dry out the skin.

At night time, a foamy cleanser will exfoliate impurities that might have collected during the day. Cleanser that contains ingredients such as cocoamide (DEA, MEA) that derived from coconut oil will helps cleansers foam up, yet locks moisture to the skin. Also, try using a little coconut oil and massage the skin couple times a week to introduce the fatty oil which helps condition and restore your acid mantle (read “It’s a party and all the rubber bands are invite”).

As for moisturizer and SPF, pick up a product that doesn't contain any alcohol, but is formulated good humectants like glycerin, hyaluronic acid, or dimethicone. These ingredients slow down moisture loss during the day preventing further dehydration. Most over-the-counter products will carry these ingredients.

If you want a natural route, look for moisturizer that contains ingredients like pure lavender oil ( calms sensitive skin) licorice root extract, or olive oil. One of my personal favorite is Yon Ka Creme 28. It has tons of natural oils to moisture the skin, yet doesn't leave a sticky or greasy feeling after applying.

For foundation, use a cream based like Eve Pearls HD Foundations. The oil in the cream type makeups will help with dryness.   

I hope this has brought awareness to the skin typing and condition and if you have any comments or questions feel free to e-mail!