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Make sure your Valentine’s Day is perfect by pampering yourself with a Striking Mini Facial.
You will need:
A wash cloth & hand towel
Very warm water
1 cup regular oatmeal ground in blender to a fine powder
1 T honey + 3-4 T Orange or Grapefruit juice, warmed in the microwave
Striking Multi-Vitamin Creme Cleanser
Striking Rejuvenating Eye Creme with SmartPeptides™
Striking Multi-Peptide Serum with SmartPeptides™
Striking Restorative Moisture Creme with SmartPeptides™
Steps
1. Clean your skin as usual with Striking Multi-Vitamin Creme Cleanser. Rinse well with warm water.
2. Mix oatmeal, honey and juice, adding enough juice to make a spreadable paste.
3. Apply to your face as a mask avoiding your eyes and hair line.
4. Relax for 10 minutes while the betaglucans in the oatmeal soothes, the gentle fruit acids help loosen congested sebum and the honey plumps and hydrates your skin.
5. Wet the hand towel in very warm water (not too hot). Wring until still moist, but not dripping.
6. Lie down and wrap the towel on your face avoiding your nose. Relax and leave it until it becomes almost cold.
7. Then rinse off the mask with warm water and use the moist towel to gently clean the skin.
8. Apply Striking Multi-Peptide-Serum to your face and neck and let it absorb in.
9. Finish with a layer of Striking Rejuvenating Eye Creme and Restorative Moisture Creme.
Add a smile for perfect valentine beauty!
Valentine’s Day should be full of romance and sweet surprises, but sometimes things can just go the wrong way, even with the best of intentions. So to help your Valentine stay on the right track here are our top 5 do’s and don’ts for Valentine’s Day, suitable for posting on the refrigerator in large font to help your guy get it right.
Definitely Avoid for Valentine’s Day
1) Weight scales, exercise videos, low cal sweets or anything that suggests you think she needs to trim down or change her appearance.
2) Gift certificates for make-overs – goes along the lines of number one above.
3) Unless she has specifically expressed a desire to get tools, TVs or video games, skip these too.
4) New tires for her car.
5) Dinner with your mother.
You’ll get bonus points with these:
1) Champagne and a single red rose.
2) Two absolutely decadent double dark chocolate truffles, cupcakes or brownies beautifully wrapped.
3) You make her favorite dinner and do the dishes.
4) A gift certificate for a relaxing spa experience.
5) Send a Tweet-sweet message or email telling her you can’t wait to see her. Or an “I Love You” note under her pillow.
And to make sure you are Valentine perfect, pamper yourself with a Striking Mini Facial.
I’m in my mid-forties, but ten years ago, a supervisor of mine told me I had the neck of a fifty-year old. I went home and studied my neck in the mirror for hours and much to my dismay, she was right. I forgot about my neck.
I, like so many other women, spent so much time concentrating on my face and hair that I forgot about the important part of my body on which my head rests. Oops! From the day that my saggy, wrinkly neck was pointed out to me, I made it my personal mission to tell everyone, “skin care shouldn’t stop at your chin.” My goal is to rid the world of sagging necks and wrinkly cleavage. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. I’m the self-proclaimed head cheerleader of neck and cleavage rejuvenation.
If you’ve found yourself in the same boat as so many other women, read on and learn about what you can do to get your neck and chest to match your perfectly maintained visage et coffuire:
1. Lower your sights. Take a good look at your neck and décolleté. Do you see lots of fine lines and loss of firmness? Do you see sun damage on your décolleté? Have you spent your precious time and money making sure your face and your hair look great? Hate to tell you, but your neck and décolleté might be giving away your age. Time for some TLC!
2. Start repairing. The easiest thing to do it is to extend your skin care regime below your chin to include your neck and your décolleté. That means include those areas in all facets of your skin care regime especially the application of anti-aging serums and treatments with high performance ingredients as well as application of an SPF product. When you have a professional facial performed by a licensed esthetician, she will always include your neck and décolleté during the treatment. Why don’t we do this at home?
3. Major remodel. If good skin care isn’t enough and you need a little more help, there are several treatment options available from a full neck lift, to procedures like a thread lift, thermage, and laser for the neck and injections of fillers for wrinkly cleavage. Procedures in both of these areas can produce dramatic results and those results can be long term if you are complaint with your post-procedure instructions and if you continue with proper skin care maintenance (see #2).
4. One last thought. If you, like 300,000+ other women in 2007, had breast augmentation surgery, you’ll want to make the most of your investment by keeping your décolleté smooth and wrinkle free. They can lose their allure when they’re mired in wrinkles.
The thing to keep in mind is that it’s never too late. Over the last ten years, I’ve managed to salvage my neck and while it isn’t perfect, it certainly isn’t 15 years older than my face anymore and I’m definitely not a candidate for surgical intervention at this point.
What about you? Did you forget about your neck? Do you care? Why or why not?
If you watched my routine at home, you’d never know that I work in the skincare industry. I use three products religiously (cleanser, serum, moisturizer) and a fourth, eye creme, only when I think about it. I love my Clarisonic, but I forget to use it most of the time. Most nights I’m too exhausted to wash my face before I hit the sack and wake up with eyeliner and mascara smeared all over my face. I’m lazy. I know.
My skin really started to change this year (I’m 44) and in an attempt to continue to chase the fountain of youth and with a sincere of goal of having great skin to start 2010, I decided that I’m going to get a winter face lift.
Not that kind of face lift! I’m talking about the do-it-yourself, no knife option. Want better skin by the Valentines Day? Follow along:
1. Commit to a skin care routine. Of course, I prefer Striking Skin Care products, but whatever you use, make sure you have the basics: cleanser, serum, moisturizer and eye creme. Use them twice a day religiously.
2. Add a retinol, vitamin C or AHA product to your routine at night. Each of these products will help to resurface and rejuvenate the skin which aids in the absorption of the active ingredients in your serum and moisturizer. Once you’ve added one of these types of products into your routine, it’s imperative that you add a SPF during the day as well (it can be in your foundation or in your moisturizer) as retinols, vitamin C and AHAs can make your skin photosensitive.
3. If it’s in your budget, try a Clarisonic brush. I am a HUGE Clarisonic fan. Their brushes range from $225 for the Clarisonic PLUS to $149 for the Clarisonic Mia, and it’s worth every penny. The brush gets your skin 6xs cleaner than with manual cleansing which helps the performance ingredients in your skin care products to penetrate more efficiently. When I use mine, I see a difference immediately. Mine is sitting in the charger, ready to be used tonight!
4. Get a deep cleansing facial. In a perfect world, I’d have the time and money to get a facial once a month. For my winter face lift, I’m committing to one facial a month for the next three months. It’s time to do a clean sweep of my skin.
5. Drink water and lots of it. I’m in a constant state of dehydration and it shows up on my skin with tiny little fine lines and a sallow complexion. It doesn’t help that I live in the land of Starbucks and have a serious caffeine addiction. Time to double up on water (and trips to the bathroom). Not only does staying hydrated make your skin look better, it also helps with brain function!
6. Get a brow wax. I know this doesn’t really have to do with skin care as we traditionally think of it, but it does work wonders for the no-knife face lift. I’m religious about getting my brows waxed and I’m amazed at the number of friends that I have that have never had it done. If you want an instant “lift” to get yourself inspired for your winter face lift, find a great esthetician and schedule a brow wax NOW!! You’ll love the results!
All that being said, the next thing I’m doing is calling my esthetician to schedule a brow wax and get this regime jump started. The goal is fantastic skin by Valentines Day and glorious skin by March.
Are you in?
Posted by Brigette, contributor
When I hit 40, everything changed. My eyesight went south, my occasional gray hairs became an entire crop and my skin dried up. I could hear my mom and my aunt snickering “I told you so” in my head as I complained about how my body was betraying me.
I skipped the box of hair color (I’m just too lazy to keep up with it, so why start?), got a new prescription for my contact lenses and then contemplated what the heck I was going to do about my skin care. I’ve been in the skin care industry for a long time and have tried hundreds of moisturizers, but I knew that I needed something different this time. Gone are the days of my carefree 20s and my simple 30s. I need something serious in my 40s, especially with perimenopause right around the corner. I’ve got to undo some damage and prepare for the slow down in collagen production.
Striking Restorative Moisture Creme is just what the doctor ordered. It feels extremely rich at first, but within 5 minutes, my skin soaks it up and feels renewed. Because I’m an ingredient junkie, let’s talk about some of the performance ingredients that make this moisturizer worthwhile:
It’s full of shea butter which my skin drinks up. Shea butter is the natural fat from the karite nut which grows in Africa. It’s an excellent emollient ingredient that also smoothes the surface of the skin.
It contains sodium hyaluronate which is a super-humectant that can attract 1000 times its own weight in moisture to the skin.
Green tea is added to soothe the skin (inflammation contributes to the aging process)and provides antioxidant protection. Couple green tea with antioxidant vitamins C and E and you have got a powerful defense against free radicals.
The most powerful ingredient however is SmartPeptide Palmitoyl Hexapeptide-14, a patented ingredient that has been shown to increase collagen production, reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and even skin tone. In a clinical study 97% of subjects said they had firmer skin in 14 days and 93% said that the overall appearance of their skin had improved in 14 days. This two week time mark seems significant to me because when we get feedback about Striking products, invariably the customer always mentions that she saw a different in that time frame.
Are you ready for something more serious? Are you ready to transform your skin?
Posted by Brigette, contributor
Winner drawn 10/2 is Roxy. Congratulations Roxy!
Question of the Day:
How many products are in the Striking Skin Care line?
Prize:
1 free Striking Restorative Moisture Creme, 1oz ($42.00 value!)
Post your answers here or email us at strikingskin@gmail.com. All answers must be posted by 9am Pacific time on Friday, October 2, 2009 in order to qualify. Winners will be randomly selected and then emailed for contact information. Please do not post your address or other contact information to this blog other then your email address.
