Category Archives: Online Magazine

Beauty, Online Magazine

Glowing skin naturally: Lighter, fairer You

5 Comments
Image courtesy:www.eatingwell.com
Image courtesy:www.eatingwell.com

Body lotions alone cannot give you a glowing lighter skin; you need good nutrition. Uneven skin tone and discoloration are common with Black women, as such, we are constantly looking for skin care products that will brighten our complexion. Our harsh sun, coupled with lifestyle of stress, insufficient sleep all add up to dull our complexion. Our skin needs adequate sleep for the growth and renewal of skin cells so it is important that we sleep well

Eating well too is very important for beautiful, glowing skin. To start with, you need meals rich in vitamins and one that is balanced. You also need foods rich in antioxidants that fight off impurities to reveal brighter, glowing complexion. Here are a few:

Papaya: This anti oxidant rids the skin of impurities as well as give a brighter complexion.

Lemon

Orange.

OTHER FOODS THAT CAN BRIGHTEN COMPLEXION

Milk, cucumber, turmeric, oatmeal, coconut milk

DIY FACIALS FOR SKIN BRIGHTENING

SCRUB: Oatmeal and cucumber paste make good scrub for a brighter complexion. You can cook the oats or use it raw while cucumber can be mashed or blended to paste. Combine the two and use as scrub.

CLEANSER: Milk and lemon. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to 90ml liquid milk. Use cotton wool to cleanse face and neck.

Milk & lemon cleanser for skin brightening
Milk & lemon cleanser for skin brightening

MASK: Papaya and oatmeal make great mask for skin brightening.

TREATMENT FOR SUN BURN & DARK CIRCLES

If you have been sun-burnt or have dark circles, then you will need:

90ml liquid milk

cucumber paste

Oatmeal

You start by mixing oatmeal with milk to scrub the face, then you combine milk with cucumber paste to cleanse the face. Rinse out with water. You same alternate between these three ingredients for papaya to use as mask.

To prevent sun burn, you must use lotions with SPF 15 as minimum. In extreme cases, I recommend Sebamed Sun cream products:

Sebamed 50+ sun cream

Advertisement
Beauty, Online Magazine

Bye to acne

5 Comments

The best article to address this issue is one of the previous posts and the one that inspired this Month’s online magazine tag, The Beautiful Skin. The post titled, Beautiful Skin: can makeup alone cause breakouts? Gives insights into how important nutrition, hygiene and our lifestyle can cause wear and tear on our bodies that lead to breakouts and acne. Please follow link:

http://enenaturals.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/beautiful-skin-can-makeup-alone-cause-breakouts/

This is yet another post from this month ‘s online magazine:

Nigerian beauty and makeup online magazine
Maiden edition: The Beautiful Skin Issue

To add to the information contained in the post, “Beautiful skin: can makeup alone cause breakouts?” I must say that antioxidants play an incredible role in protecting our skin and fighting against free radicals that cause breakouts, acne and pimples.

Antioxidants can be found in Vitamins A, C, E foods like dairy, egg yoke, citrus, fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains.

To learn more about antioxidants, please go to: http://enenaturals.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/anti-oxidants-what-are-they/

Vitamin C antioxidant foods are your number one protector against acne or pimples, as such, you must consume citrus and Vitamin C rich foods daily, especially if you are prone to breakouts. This type of antioxidants rid impurities  by purifying your blood.

By going to the link above, you will find all information on how you can rid your skin of acne and DIY facial and therapy you could do at home.

ACNE BURSTERS: LEMON & TURMERIC

Both lemon and turmeric are astringents that rids the skin of impurities and fight acne, breakouts and pimples. Here is how I combine the two as facial scrub when I start breaking out.

SCRUB:

1 tablespoon of sugar and half tablespoon of turmeric. Combine the two, wet your face and scrub gently. Not only will it clear your skin, but will give you baby soft smooth skin. So even if you do not have acne but want smooth skin, give it a trial.

Sugar and turmeric scrub
Sugar and turmeric scrub

 

CLEANSER:

You can use the juice of lemon or orange – even apple to cleanse the face.

BODY DETOX:

To detox and rid your system of impurities, drink a glass full of water with a tablespoon of lemon juice and a teaspoon of honey in the morning.

 

Give this a trial and tell me your results.

Cheers,

Ene

Beauty, Online Magazine

Anti-oxidants: what are they?

4 Comments
Image courtesy: www.breastcancerbydrruddy.com
Image courtesy: http://www.breastcancerbydrruddy.com

This is the follow-up post to my first post titled “Nutrients the skin needs” written for my online magazine. You can read post here – http://enenaturals.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/nutrients-the-skin-needs/

This Month’s magazine, which is the first, is titled, The Beautiful Skin

Nigerian beauty and makeup online magazine
Maiden edition: The Beautiful Skin

Haven made the skin the central focus for this maiden edition, I am blogging about how important it is to nourish our skin with the right foods. In the first post, I wrote about nutrients that our skin needs. In this post, I am blogging about antioxidants.

WHAT ARE ANTIOXIDANTS?

Antioxidants protect our skin against free radicals that cause breakouts, acne, pimples and other skin problems. Antioxidants purify our skin, renew our skin and defends our skin. It is a power house, if I might add. Consider antioxidants your friendly protector of your skin Because you cannot have beautiful skin without them.

Remember we mentioned Vitamins A,C,E in our previous post – http://enenaturals.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/nutrients-the-skin-needs/

Vitamins A,C,E are rich sources of antioxidants. Vitamin A can be found in dairy foods and egg yoke; Vitamin C in citrus, fruits and vegetables and Vitamin E in nuts, whole grains, and vegetables.

Other sources of antioxidants are Beta Carotene, which converts to Vitamin A once it gets into our body and can be found in apricots, carrots, mangoes, pumpkin.

Selenium is an antioxidant mineral that protects the skin from environmental harm like sun and gives the skin firmness. It can be found in sea foods like crabs, oysters, shrimps, tuna and whole grains.

FOODS RICH IN ANTIOXIDANTS

Here is a list of foods rich in antioxidants:

Pomegranate, blueberry, cranberries, black berries, strawberries, raspberries, grape seed extract, acai, noni, green tea, cherry, banana, lemon and citrus, orange, apple, papaya and mango.

ANTIOXIDANTS AND ANTI- AGING

Antioxidants protect the skin against sagging as such are anti-aging as they combat wrinkles. By providing the skin the growth and renewal of skin cells, as well as give the skin structure, tone and elasticity; and antioxidants can help delay aging.

BANANA: bananas contain iron, magnesium and potassium; and also make good anti-aging antioxidant.

ORANGE & APPLE: These contain collagen that slows aging.

MANGO: mango contains Vitamins A and C as such, it rejuvenates the skin, fights against aging and restores elasticity to the skin.

D-I-Y FACIALS AND THERAPY FOR ANTI AGING

Begin your day with a banana shake.

SCRUB: As scrub, dry orange or apples, ground to powder and use as scrub on wet face.

CLEANSER: Milk, which brightens one’s complexion also firms the skin and reduce wrinkles. Rinse off with water

MASK: You can alternate between banana, apple and orange. You can also mix Banana with glycerine as mask.

Combine equal amounts of honey and carrot juice to reduce wrinkles. Mask should not last longer than 20 minutes.

Give these a trial and tell me how your skin felt.

cheers,

ene

Beauty, Online Magazine

Nutrients the skin needs

4 Comments
Image courtesy:www.eatingwell.com
Image courtesy:www.eatingwell.com

As I launch the maiden edition of my blog’s online magazine –

Nigerian beauty and makeup online magazine

I am kick-starting with my first post, which is on nutrition.

Since good skin begins with good nutrition, then it is essential that we eat a well balanced diet enriched with vitamins. Nutrients that are great for the skin consist of Vitamins A,C,E. While Vitamin A helps prevent aging, Vitamin C promotes clarity and Vitamin E defends our skin against the environment. It is recommended that we eat five (5) fruits daily to help our skin; nonetheless, our skin needs a balanced diet of healthy combinations of vitamins, carbohydrates, protein and fat.

here is a break down:

VITAMIN A: These foods – mostly dairy foods and egg yolks – contain anti-oxidants that are needed for the growth and renewal of skin cells.

VITAMIN B: Eggs, liver and vegetables contain Vitamin B, which promotes skin exfoliation and firmness.

VITAMIN C: Mostly found in citrus, fruits and vegetables; and gives the skin structure, tone and elasticity. Vitamin C aids the production of collagen, which keeps the skin firm, as such, anti-aging.

BETA CAROTENE: This converts to Vitamin A once it gets into our bodies, as such, makes a good anti-oxidant for our skin. It also aids the growth and repair of our skin. Foods that are good source of beta carotene are apricots, carrots, mangoes, pumpkins.

VITAMIN D: This vitamin is credited with developing skin cells and can be found in dairy foods and egg yolk.

VITAMIN E: This is another source of anti-oxidant that protects our skin by maintaining the good health of our skin. You can get it in nuts, whole grains and vegetables.

FAT & OMEGA 3 FATTY ACIDS: Fat is not an enemy; in fact, your skin needs fat as it gives the skin suppleness, softness and shine. Omega 3 fatty acids maintain the cell membranes so they can be effective barriers to toxins. Rich sources of this class of food are oily fish, nuts, and seeds like pumpkin, sesame, amongst others.

SELENIUM: This is an anti-oxidant mineral that protects our skin against environmental damage such as the sun. It helps maintain the skin’s firmness and elasticity and you can find this mineral in tuna, crab, oysters, whole wheat, eggs, shrimps.

You must understand that opting to take this vitamins in pill form will not suffice; if you love your skin, you should create time to eat well. Our skin is the foundation to our beauty, and not makeup. Do not expect magic from makeup because even makeup needs a good canvass to work on. And remember too that whatever you put into your mouth goes a long way to effect your skin. So before you take a bite, pause to ask yourself, “how is this food helping my skin?”

INTERESTING LINK:

http://www.joybauer.com/healthy-living/food-for-beautiful-skin.aspx

Cheers!

Ene