Crack the Color Code

Concealers operate on the principle of neutralizing the enemy. For example, if your skin's flaw is red (like a pimple), you can camouflage it with a concealer in the counteracting color, green. 

"It's the same basic theory that artists use," says celebrity makeup artist Joanna Schlip. You cancel out one color (your flaw) by using the color (a concealer) that's directly opposite on the color wheel. 

Typically, the colors representing skin flaws are on the left half of the wheel, and the solutions are on the right (yellow can be either).

• Use mint green concealer to combat redness (like pimples, rosacea and rough spots).

• Use shades that are yellow- or orange-based to help offset purple and blue (like dark undereye circles, broken capillaries or visible veins).

• Use lilac or pale blue to help even out yellow (like a bruise or a birthmark).

Key Spots for Concealer

• Wrinkles and fine lines: To soften their appearance, apply a creamy, lightweight concealer. And be frugal, or you'll highlight crepey skin.

• Dark circles and puffiness: Undereye skin is super-thin, so pat concealer on with your ring finger (it's the weakest digit).

• Broken capillaries: These tend to be in highly visible areas, so use the lightest-weight concealer you can - try a wand or a tube.

• Blemishes: To get the concealer directly on the pimple or red spot (and not on the surrounding skin), use a precise applicator, like a pencil, tiny brush or sponge.

• Unplucked brows and veins: Put concealer all over lids - it will also keep eyeshadow in place.

Published by realbeauty.com

1. Prep your skin with moisturizer.

Concealer is thicker and more concentrated than foundation, so it often cakes up on dry skin. To fill in fine lines and create a smoother canvas, moisturize a few minutes before you apply your concealer, says Philadelphia dermatologist Richard Fried, Ph.D., M.D. That way, your skin will have time to absorb the moisture.

2. Decide if you really need foundation.

Even if you've always used it, try experimenting with concealer only - you might end up looking better than you expected. However, if you really do want full-face coverage, apply your foundation at the right time: after a moisturizer but before the concealer. "If you do concealer first, you risk blending it away when you put on foundation," explains Los Angeles makeup artist Niki Pashalidis. A shade tip: Foundation should match your skin perfectly, but concealer needs to be a little lighter.

3. Identify your problem areas.

You'll use concealer only in specific spots, such as on undereye circles or pimples. Leave the rest of your face bare. "The point is to even out your skin, not to cover it completely," says stylist Erin Porteous of Willow Stream Spa at the Fairmont in Banff Springs, Alberta. "Clear skin shining through looks younger and prettier."

4. Be a minimalist.

Concealer contains more pigment than foundation and powder do, so a little goes a long way. Start with a dab and add more only if you must. For larger areas, apply with a finger, tapping gently until the makeup blends into your skin. For smaller areas, use a small angled brush.

5. Preserve your work.

Concealer generally lasts longer than foundation, but it needs help to stay in place all day. Sweep a large brush over translucent powder, shake to remove excess, then whisk the brush over your face to set the makeup. (But don't powder your undereyes - they'll look cakey.)

Short hair is sexy, no question and it looks set to have a revival for 2010. 

For every Hollywood babe tossing her long locks over her shoulder there is another, far hotter gal behind who's so confident in herself that she doesn't need to hide behind a curtain of hair. 

A short hairstyle can lengthen your neck, frame your features and change your whole silhouette. Just look at Erin O'Connor; her height and willowy frame is perfectly capped with a blunt, bold crop cementing her statuesque looks.

But we're not all supermodels with razor-like cheekbones I hear you cry. Fear not, the right short hairstyle can create cheekbones where there were none as well as adding definition to your face shape. 

Plus, as many short hairstyles have fringes in one incarnation or another they're great for hiding frown lines - so much cheaper than botox!

So check out our gallery of short hairstyles, from sweet to sexy, from catwalk to red carpet, we're sure to have a hairstyle to suit you.

Published by Handbag.com

Sun exposure accelerates the aging process, which is why fairer-skinned Latinas, who are more prone to sun damage, tend to get more wrinkles than their darker-skinned hermanas.

The principal ways to combat the onset of "experience" lines:

• Regular use of a sunscreen with either Parsol 1789 or zinc or titanium oxide in the formula. (Staying out of the sun goes hand-in-hand with this.)
• Don't sleep on your face; those nightly hours of pressure do have a cumulative effect.
• Don't smoke. Smoke is one free radical you can eliminate (except in the form of secondhand smoke). If what cigarettes do to the inside of your body isn't enough, eschew them for wrinkle prevention.
• Once you've got the wrinkle, options for minimizing its appearance are many:
• Prescriptions of Retin-A products applied nightly help to reduce fine wrinkles.
• Over-the-counter items with retinol contain Retin-A in less potent amounts, but can still be beneficial.
• AHAs also help to reduce fine lines by increasing exfoliation and stimulating collagen and elastin growth in the deeper layers.
• Products with anti-oxidants give preventive care due to their free radical-fighting powers.

Introduction

Cellulite is a particularly actual and uncomfortable theme. In fact, especially this time of the year, when summer is around the corner, women’s attention seems to be focused on this ‘terrible’ problem commonly known as ‘cellulite’.

With the support of our experts, like Doctor Catia Trevisani, we will try to understand which are the cellulite causes and try to suggest the best behaviors to adopt to actively counteract it. By the way, we should precise we won’t treat cellulite like a simple imperfection, but like a degenerative disease, as it actually is, that needs to be treated continuously and not merely during the summertime when its effects are more exposed.

Percentage

Cellulite, one of the most common problems among European and American women, is an alteration in the deepest skin layer, the hypoderm or subcutaneous tissue, which causes the cellulite imperfections. 

Almost all overweight women have to face it; among healthy weight women it affects 30% young women and 40% mature age women, 60-70% among women after the menopause.

The average age for cellulite onset is around 31 years, though in 70% cases it appears between 11 and 25 years of age. Cellulite is usually related to the following factors: oral contraceptive in 85% cases, lack of sport practice in 93% cases, circulatory diseases in 64%, water retention and menstrual pain in 85%.

Terminology/glossary

Actually, the term “cellulite”, usually used to identify this disease, is not the proper term, as there is no inflammation, as the Latin suffix “-ite” would indicate; researchers would preferably talk about liposclerosis or edematous fibro-sclerotic panniculopathy. Main symptoms include tired heavy-feeling legs and the orange-peel effect, which becomes noticeable by pinching the skin.

Brief anatomo-physiological considerations skin is constituted by three layers: from depth to superficies we respectively find the subcutaneous adipose tissue or hypodermis, the dermis and the epidermis. The subcutaneous tissue is constituted by the lax connective tissue and by the adipose panniculus: in particular, it’s constituted by a scaffolding made of connective fibers issued from the upper laying dermis, which separate ovoid areas containing the adipose tissue. Adipose cells (adipocytes) are voluminous and round shaped cells, which enclose an organelle containing cholesterol, carotene and fatty acids, in particular oleic and linoleic acids.

The physiological process cellulite is a gender bound concern, which particularly affects women, also due to the anatomic differences in skin texture between men and women. This difference is particularly evident in thighs’ subcutaneous tissue: women epidermis is far more subtle than men’s, the superficial layer of the subcutaneous tissue is thicker and the adipose cells are larger and separated by radially running partitions of connective tissue, while men’s adipose cells are smaller and spaced out by connective tissue fibers forming a criss-cross pattern.

Women’s corium, the connective tissue that separates dermis and subcutaneous tissue gets thinner and loses its firmness with age, thus allowing the extrusion of adipose cells in the dermis. Besides, the connective tissue branches edging the areas containing the adipose cells get thinner, too, thus determining the cells enlargement.

The break down and reduction of the connective tissue is a crucial factor in cellulite development and, furthermore, it is the cause of the sensation of coarseness that often goes together with cellulite. The ‘orange-peel’ effect is due to the alternation, on the superficial layer, of depressions and lumps in the adipose tissue caused by the extrusion of the adipose cells in the dermis. In addition, there may also be a distension of corium’s lymphatic vessels.

In the subcutaneous tissue we may see some nodules which contain adipose cells that have undergone an alteration surrounded by sclerotic connective tissue containing a few vessels.

Adipose cells are supplied by the microcirculation. When cellulite appears there is always an alteration into the microcirculation, with vasodilatation (microectasia: capillary dilation) and an alteration in capillary permeability. As a consequence, an edema follows, which causes the flooding of the interstices and the breakup of the adipose cells, thus leading to disruption and death of part of them. Subsequently, phenomena of connective neofibrillopoiesi appear, with formation of reticular fibrils, first around adipose cells and capillaries, then around the dead tissue areas. Finally, we find micronodular structures encapsulated by collagen fibrils at various evolutionary stages, whose aggregation leads to the formation of bigger nodules (macronodules).

At the final stage (the fourth stage) there is a profound alteration in the tissue structure; adipocytes become fibrocytes, so that in the tissue we’ll only find connective bundles.

Cellulite types

We find three main types of cellulite according to the skin appearance: compact, loose and edematous. The first type is painful when touched and is usually localized in the inferior part of the body. The second type is not painful, tissues appear loose and cellulite is particularly visible on the anteromedial surface of arms and thighs, it may appear together with stretch marks. 

The third type has a mellow consistence; it’s painful to the touch and is mostly localized on thighs, knees, legs, calves and ankles; signs of venous and lymphatic insufficiency localized on the inferior limbs are present, too.

Causes and prevention

The main cause of cellulite seems to be an alteration of estrogen target cells, and the absence of cellulite in prepubescent girls would provide evidence. The premenstrual syndrome (a collection of symptoms, such as tiredness and swelling, announcing the menstruation) seems to be a precise indicator of a general intoxication whose major manifestation is cellulite.

Cellulite causes are still object of study and research, but it seems evident that this manifestation is due to intoxicating factors, which, acting in different ways, lead to the alteration of tissue metabolism and open the way for a degenerative process that progressively damages the structure and the function of the adipose tissue. From this point of view, we definitely may say that cellulite is the symptom of a general intoxication.

Hence, a correct therapeutic treatment should act not merely at the symptomatic level, for instance sustaining and draining the microcirculation and normalizing the connective tissue, but it should also take into account, and eventually correct, a wide variety of factors such as: digestive apparatus diseases, unbalanced thyroid, pancreatic or ovarian hormones and even factors such as anxiety and depression, etc.

Among the various factors, which include lymph stasis, we may also add incorrect diet and lack of physical activity.

All this obviously impacts on circulation and intestinal functionality with significant consequences in the long term, in fact, cellulite clinical picture is usually composed of a range of diseases including constipation, hemorrhoids and heavy-feeling legs.

What causes stretch marks? 

Which are the most affected areas?

Stretch marks are the typical signs of a body that is undergoing rapid changes, that grows, swells and gains/loses volume. These troubles are quite common, since they concern all of us and may depend on a number of factors, such as hormonal concerns, rapid weight fluctuations and even the normal body growth. 

These imperfections mainly affect the body areas subject to volume changes, such as belly and breast, in particular during pregnancy, and the areas exposed to daily stress, such as thighs, hips and buttocks.