Looking Like Your Mother

Pores No More

Ya can't make your pores smaller."

I've been subjected to the lecture so often that I can actually hear the nasally whine. But once upon a time an Avon lady who was not Reece (WTF?) gave me a product that I tried and I swear to god, my pores disappeared. So I know that pore relief is out there, it just depends on whether you want it in spackle strength or fairy dust weight. I recommend the fairy dust because it works and feels heavenly and doesn't clog everything up and create more pore problems. For that, I recommend my new favorite, Dr. Brandt's Pores No More.

Dr. Frederick Brandt's brand of magic feels like mousse-light, something like dewy silk that transforms into a fresh, airy powder. By all rights, it shouldn't work on skin past the first decade of life. But it does. It fills pores and diffuses light right back at whoever is looking. This filler and diffision, a/k/a a fine illusion, is what helps smooth out the tone and texture of the face.

No wonder Madonna glommed onto this guy. (It says that in Swedish, kind of.)

But did he have to yell at me first? My first reward for buying the product was a WWFslapdown by documentation:

"clues that your skin is sun-damagd[:] fine lines, a leathery texture, dull skin, broken blood vessels, uneven pigumentation, and age spots (lentigos). spent too much time in the sun? exposure to ultraviolet (UVA and UVB) rays slowly unglues the framework of collagen and elastin that holds your skin together and keeps it plump, pliable, and free of lines.

It was like a checklist of badness from the Baron of Botox, and I was guilty of all of them.

Bruise Therapy

Sienna Miller claims that if there is a lamppost within 30 feet of her, she will find a way to walk into it. I myself suffer an unusually large number of injuries involving cooking utensils, thick paper cuts from blow-in cards, and bruising. The wind bruises my body.

If upon feeling pain I can run to the freezer and grab a bag of frozen peas and tie it to the offended spot with an ace bandage, I can limit the purplishness by a few centimeters. But if I am out of veggies or out of the house, forget it. "Maybe you suffer from osnvliwuewoiehrlskd," somebody said to me once, but I couldn't make out the layperson's diagnosis. I prefer to think that Sienna and I are twins.

I just picked up a product called Restoral. If I take the pineapple plant stalk-based bromelain extract pills and rub a magic arnica/Vit E and emu oil mixture on the site, I am supposed to heal. The system is designed to limit post-surgical bruising.

I don't think there are enough emus in the world to supply me and I certainly don't want any to die for the sake of one of my clutz moves. Do you suppose they just milk the emus?

"Even for non-surgical patients, this product is a huge hit," the sales rep swore. "It's great for boxing and wrestling and ... "

"... a good gust of wind," I finished in silence.

RejuvaWand Me, Or...Maybe Not Yet

This report, via Dermatology News is just in on Rejuvawand, a home-use appliance that sends light rays into the skin to smooth it out and reduce fine lines. The two month study linvolved 36 women with an average age of 50.5, and the results were measured by PRIMOS, an imaging software. The clinical study was conducted by Leonardo Rasi M.D., a doctor who is in the laser business. He practices cosmetic laser medicine in Redlands, California.

The report suggests that the product actually works at reducing fine lines, but at what cost to the bank account and a person's free time? According to Dr. Rasi,

At 30 days 67% of subjects showed an overall average improvement in fine lines, facial wrinkles and surface texture of 13%.

Well, Consumer Reports says that an OTC product might get you close to 10%, without having spend a couple of hundred dollars on a lot of hardware and product, and time rubbing what looks like a vibrator around on your face. See this video, for an example of how much time that user puts into her home use.

At 60 days 77.5% of participants showed overall average improvement in fine lines, facial wrinkles and surface texture of 16.5%.

Ditto on my Consumer Reports comment, and what exactly is the difference between "fine lines" and "facial wrinkles"?

The physician evaluator noted that in as few as 30 days 7 out of 10 subjects showed a 44% improvement in fine lines and facial wrinkles.

Now I''m really confused. How do we jump from 13% to 44% by dropping the surface texture component of the Primos review? If this product is doing what it claims to be doing, then why isn't the texture evening out just as intensely, too. Is it just the gel product one is supposed to slather on the face that is plumping up the wrinkles temporarily? Is that all that is boosting that number that high? I'll order the white paper and see if I can make any sense of it all.

The Coco Nose Clamp

Well sure it works on the soft nosy part, kind of, but what about those of us with bridge cartilage that we thinks is a bit too wide? Now if they would market the clip with a matching ballpien hammer, they would have a sale.

Thanks TEXYT  - go there for full story.

Oh, right. Also available in pink. Not sure about the hammer, though.

The Brief Iredale Respite

Wow, nothing like reviewing lawn mowers and learning about colonic hydrotherapy to make me want to run to the nearest makeup counter and feel all girly again. Colorescience is sending me a new box of products to try, after I had such great results with their micronized sunscreens. I felt like a loser not doing my homework and finding out first that Diane Rogers, the woman behind Colorescience, had created the bareMinerals foundation product back in 1976. I'm dying to know if she sold out in 1990 in frustration or if she just wanted to try something new, if she had a no-compete clause that kept her in the shadows while Leslie Blodgett cleaned out bank accounts making bare Escentuals an almost household name. this business backdrop shouldn't matter, I guess, except that I like it when women create. And resurface.

In the meantime, I have recently come across no fewer than four completely independent sources that have spent a lot of breath and space on the topic of concealer, something I never use. So when an advertisement for a new concealer from Jane Iredale collection, Active Light, popped up in the middle of a dry, dermatologist's journal, I got all warm and tingly inside. 

Ok, back to colonics. But first I have to wash my hands.

Child Insecurity

"That's going to be so unfair to my kids," my teenager lamented, when her class assignment relating to ozone depletion led to discussions on increased skin carcinomas and restricted outdoor activities. I nodded my head and agreed as to the potential rottenness of it all, but instead of projecting into the future, I reflected on how much more restricted her own childhood had been compared to mine.  For the millionth time, my memory three me up into the deadly-tall oak tree that all the kids on my city block filled as pirates sailing the globe, back in my neighbor's linoleum-lined basement that was so perfect for play school, on a bicycle playing cowboys and Indians, and poking a stick around a garage corner if cops and robbers was the game of the day.

My own kids never had that. Our generation grew up and in the process acquired a profoundly graphic knowledge of what a bad person could do to an unsuspecting child. Cars congested even the ring-cities' streets. A sign on a school yard fence that read "This is a Drug Free Zone" told us that it probably wasn't. We accepted the fact that the nightmarish, child hate crimes had been around when we were young and that then, as now, only an incredibly small percentage suffered them. (We even forgave our mothers who explained that yes they did love us and preferred us alive; it was just that incidents were reported in a way to make them seem distant and isolated.)  But in a threat-conditioning akin to what we have as a nation more recently experienced with terrorist security alerts, media coverage of abductions over the past two decades came with its own threat level color system, and that color was always clamp-down red.

The sad result was that no matter how many Schwinns we outgrew or pairs of Keds we wore out as a child, and despite the fact that we lived to have healthy hearts and healthier imaginations, none of us as a parent was letting our 6 to 10-year-olds out to roam the neighborhood with complete abandon. We introduced structure and boundaries and in so doing, we dry-docked all the pirate ships.

So when asked to write a feature about security technology, the only type of device that piqued my curiosity related to child monitoring. It's not that I want to know what the little buggers are doing. I know what they are doing. They are cheating, giggling, spying, sticking things up their nose, aligning, falling, and alternating between being mean and nice to each other. Fine. I'm not out to change human nature. I just want a device that allows my long arm of my law to reach out and pluck any one of them to safety should Armageddon approach. What follows is a short survey of where we have come so far towards that ideal. Maybe by my grandchildren's time they will have such a device, in SPF 190.

The Microchip.  There are implants for dogs and cattle and even people, but these implants act more like an internal bar code with extremely limited location assistance. Once a scanner is run by the implant, the reader gets all the information they need about the animal or unconscious person. This would be fine if someone hid me behind a box in a warehouse and my rescuers knew that and I was still alive just mildly inconvenienced by amnesia. But implants do not have what is needed for more frenzied, less informed searching, which is a global positioning system. It is probably because they have not gotten to the point of including a GPS device within it yet, what with batteries and loads of androidy stuff. One company to watch for product development status, however, is Digital Angel Corporation.

Guardian Lion. GL offers the greatest protection we have found to date, at least in theory. At the time we went to print, everything was in production. Strap a real-time tracking GL watch on your child and that watch addresses several concerns any CSI-trained brain could come up. It's attached to the body, so it is impossible to lose and easy to activate in case of concern. Enter most buildings, the GPS still works. Cut the watch off, the alarm is activated and at least gets you to the point of abduction (within three meters). Hit the panic button, and a signal goes directly to a dispatch center, not just mom or dad's computer or cell phone. Plus, depending on your subscription plan and format, the child does not have to activate for tracking to start, either. It's expensive and time consuming, all this monitoring, but it seems to be the most thorough. For little ones, it seems the most fool proof. For the teenager, it has the potential to be the most annoying, because it can be set up to tell the parents e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e  the adult-wannabe has been. You should also be able to use the GL monitoring system for "geo-fencing," programmed invisible parameters around a walking route or playing area. An alarm will automatically initiate the moment the child moves beyond. Pre-sale order watches about $100, subscriptions prices vary.

Wherifone.  This company wins awards for their user-friendly GPS cell phone designs and concepts, most recently the Consumer Electronics Association 2007 Innovations Award. WF's cell phone is also a great starter phone for a child because there are no numbers to dial or keys for text messaging, only presets. The parent can find the current location on an internet map or through phone access and see child's phone location on a street map or aerial photograph. Although not as strong as GL's, the tracking still works in cars, under dense foliage, and some wood frame buildings. The best part for the child is the clearly placed SOS panic button, which is also available should he or she get separated for two seconds or fall off a bike and get hurt miles away. Tracking only works when phone is on. Phone starts at about $100, with basic monthly subscriptions at $20.

uLocate.  uLocate is an application that is sold to other companies whose hardware does the tracking work. For example, Mapquest has a service called Mapquest Find Me Now, and Find Me Now operates on the uLocate system. With certain phones and a small monthly charge of $4 per month, GPS tracking and mapping services are available. Mapquest identifies the compatible phones, and services such as these should be growing.  SOS services are not an option. Visit Mapquest and go to the "Mobile" button.

Child Locators.  Brickhouse Security offers a variety of security devices for children, such as the Mommy, I'm Here! little bear or bunny that gets slipped onto a shoelace. Unfortunately, when a parent pushes the keychain locator button, the shoe device emits a loud 56 decibel intermittent beeping sound, guaranteed to cause some sort of Pavlovian conditioning. Plus, the alarm does alert any abductor as to the location activities and where the device is.Ionkids, on the other hand, provides a bracelet device that cannot be removed without notifying the parent. Plus, when the parent pushes the "locate" button, it is the parent's control device that makes noise and sends the parent in the direction of the child. The bracelet remains silent, unless someone tries to cut if off. Up to four bracelets can be used with one locator device at a time. If only it looked beaded and hip instead of like the ugliest, biggest sports watch ever.

Faceless Face and Ms. Brown's Face

I tried them first in Scandinavia. They next appeared in my path when I hit the Shops at Columbus Circle in NYC. The consultant there walked over, grabbed a lipstick that was a perfect match, and made a believer in me. Yet Face cosmetics out of Stockholm still doesn't seem to have their own website to visit. This is hard to believe, seeings how the Swedes' degree of tech saviness has often put their counterparts in the US to shame. Anyway, some of their product line can also be viewed here at HQ and another review here at NY Mag.

Are they ramping up or flaming out, I wonder. Are they trying to hitch their wagon to sister Swede company H&M, or trying to stay high-end distant? Being Swedish, I'm betting on the silent and distant approach, the Bergman internalization factor. It's all about the drama, baby.

Or not. Perhaps the mother daughter team of Gun Nowak and Marina Arfwidson have just been too busy to care much about a web presence.

Meanwhile, I am a little disappointed that I will not be stuck in the crowd on tiptoe, vying to see a glimpse of Her Highness Bobbi Brown at Bloomingdales on Thursday, signing her book Bobbi Brown Living Beauty. Ms. Brown is also promoting a liquid face lift. Hmmmm, on that, but her make up artistry is top notch. On Amazon, her book got some ouch reviews so I thought I would take a look at her stellar recommendations myself.

Fat City for Well Box

I got a flier last week for endermologie. Not from this company, though. I thought that all of it was dead, anyway. It should be, by the flier's account The flier didn't even promise to eliminated my fat. All it promised was to temporarily reduce the appearance of cellulite. I can do that with a $4.59 pair of L'egg's Shear Energy pantyhose, pul-lease.  (I did liposuction stuff many, many years ago, thrilled at all the vacuum tubes and promises, convinced by all the before and after pictures and expense, and well, yeah, nothing.)

And I was - no kidding - just mouthing off in the office about how Well Box sort of made a big splash about a year ago then sunk to the bottom of the fat apparatus sea. Now it is all a-buzz again, with a home version of Liposmassage.  And all this is happening at the same time that Smart Lipo has hit the scene.

So, what gives, I wonder. Is it just the season?

Maybe my next big plan should be to order some Xenical, smart lipo out the stubborn stuff that won't pass through with the help of that dietary aid, and still try to keep as much fat on my ever-loving face and chest as possible. I don't have the 2,730 hours of self-massage time it is going to take to scrub the chub off my knees, shins, and ankles - the only part of my body I can consistently hit with a weak-sister home machine. Hey, I don't have a maid I can order to do me.

Again, even if these products and systems offer some help in the battle against that damn cellulite, the cost, the down time, and the temporary nature of the results together make them all seem destined for ultimate failure. I suspect the Well Box will be a big space taker on eBay in about six months.

As for me, I am seriously chewing my lip on the Smart Lipo. I'll report on that later.

That other stuff? Maybe if everything else on your body is near perfect and you have a few finishing touches here and there, unlimited funds, and a close up body shot on HGTV. But I don't think endermologie and the Well Box is going to do the job when what my body really needs is something more like a steam shovel.

Shea Butter Review

"It smells like dog food," my youngest claimed from the bathtub, as I stood by the sink putting on a coat of whipped Nature's Shea Butter. 

"I know it has a funny smell. That's why I mix it with this stuff," I explained, holding up a tub of Body Shop satsuma Body Butter. 

Darn it, I thought. I hated that it was so obvious to her because I love this product. Except for the smell part. I decided to skip all the products that contained some percentage of shea butter and go right to the source. The Nature's company warned that there is a nutty scent to its pure product and offers others that have been perfumed, but I thought I might even enjoy the scent, as I do with hazelnut in my coffee or almond in my ice cream. Dog food might be a bit strong, maybe processed cardboard is a better way to describe it, but on the other hand, I would work the product into my thighs, knees, ankles, and heels every morning, put on tights or leggings, and at night after work, my skin still felt soft and slightly coated. The only question I had was whether the touch of satsuma covered the nutty smell until both had worn off.

Read about it in this Ocala newspaper account, which also has great links.

I fell in love with shea butter at a spa in Canada. I will return there and find the source and determine how pure their product line is. I will will also contact Nature's Shea Butter about their scented product. I have also grabbed an off-the-shelfer, Lubriderm with shea and cocoa butter treatment. It's a nice lotion, but as I had already known and as it described in the Ocala report, the shea butter in its unrefined, still nutty scented form is the butter that still has all its fabulous properties. Everything good about it is denuded during the process of neutralizing the scent.

So, I guess I should really find out how much time passes before the scent disappears. Or put another way, how long during the day have I been smelling like dog food?

Anti-Sun Tan Plan

It's like the old jump rope rhyme, "A my name is Alva, my boyfriend's name is Alfred . . . ," only shorter. This one skips along

"UVA you go with Aging, you act like an x-rAy . . ." 
"UVB you go with Basal cell carcinoma, you hang out at the Beach . . ."

Ok, more awkward and less fun, but I have to do something to keep it straight. If I am struggling with that and fumbling over the list of active ingredients, my brain switches to attractive packaging and all is lost.

The American Academy of Dermatology says this: For UVB protection, look for these chemicals: padimate O, homosalate, octyl methoxycinnamate, benzophenone, octyl salicylate, phenylbenzimidazole sulfonic acid, and/or octocrylene.  For UVA protection look for the chemical mexoryl, or the non-chemical physical sun blockers titanium dioxide or zinc oxide.

Now, for those of you who have suffered through class, here is the reward: Sunforgettable, from Colorescience. Maybe not such a great name, but it is a UVA powder protectant made out of titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. Think bare Minerals only made out of the mighty UVA non-chemical blockers. I love the way I look in bare Minerals, so if this comes even close, I just might remember to reapply. For the UVB protection, I am still searching. So far, I like SkinCeuticals Ultimate UV Defense Sport SPF 45. It's a waterproof/sweat-proof sunblock that mixes some invisible zinc oxide with an o-m, o-s, and benz combination.