Sweet spuds for your skin! ♥

Solanum Tuberosum, the noble and helpful potato...it's been used for centuries to help get rid of skin problems like blotches, scarring, and any other discoloration.  It's also very useful for lightening your skin tone in certain areas, making it ideal for getting rid of those pesky under-eye circles. Another awesome thing these cool tubers can do is soak up any excess oil from your face.  They can even help soothe your skin after a difficult sunburn too!

 

There are lots of products you can buy at the store or online that contain taters, like many different varieties of wrinkle creams, skin tone lightening (or bleaching) products, acne products, and many clarifying and firming face washes and masks.  Neutrogena's Oil Free Cream Face Wash is my favorite product using solanum tuberosum because it pairs with salicylic acid, a beta-hydroxy acid that's used to help clean and revive your skin.  I also LOVE Fil-Lup Potato Essence Mask.  There's another great product using solanum tuberosum, LUSH cosmetic's Volcano Foot Mask, which makes your tootsies feel like you spent a long day at the spa.  Awesome.

Looking for more information on spuds and how they help your skin?  Try this article, and you can also check out this article for useful tips on using potatoes and other natural stuff in your kitchen to get rid of dark spots and blemishes.

 

Salicylic acid: What does it do for your skin?

If you check the ingredients list on many of your favorite and most effective acne treatments and face washes, you'll find an ingredient that tops almost every list.  Salicylic acid, a weaker beta-hydroxy acid, is fantastic for getting rid of many troubling skin conditions because of it's natural ability to hasten and replenish the desquamation process. This process is the natural way in which your skin cells are "sloughed away and replaced." (Need more information about what desquamation is and how it works? Read here and here.)

When your skin has a lot of trouble healing and / or recovering from bad bouts of acne, you probably have a problem with your skin's desquamation process.  This means that the rate at which your skin should be replenishing itself is either too slow, or could possibly not even be happening if you keep piling on products like heavy or thick cosmetics.

Salicylic acid, a lovely extract from willow bark and other completely natural and green sources, is not only the way we get rid of acne, oily skin, and blotch problems.  Salicylic acid is also how we create something great for our bodies AND skin -- aspirin!  (Remember aspirin face masks?  Bring them back, cause they work!  Try this video from Michelle Phan, and this article from yours truly. ♥ )

"Products that use salicylic acid normally boast the ability to help cure (or completely cure) cases of mild acne, dandruff, and psoriasis, among others. Since it is extracted from willow bark, salicylic acid is considered an organic ingredient in many aspects and is a key ingredient in many natural skincare products, as well as shampoos, conditioners, and acne-friendly moisturizing products as well. When this ingredient was extracted at first, it was used to help ease pain of injury and illness, giving us what aspirin is today. Aspirin is made by utilizing a reaction that occurs within salicylic acid, so using aspirin based recipes for your skin can also greatly improve an existing condition like acne..."

 (Read more of this article on salicylic acid and your desquamation process here.)


Looking for some products that contain salicylic acid?  Here are a few you may already be familiar with:

Neutrogena Acne Rapid Clear Daily Treatment Pads
Olay 7 in 1 Anti-Aging Salicylic Acid Acne Cleanser
St Ives Swiss Formula Medicated Apricot Scrub
Psoriasil Body Wash from Tao of Herbs


As always, there are people that have sensitivities and reactions to certain beta-hydroxy acids.  Make sure you check with your dermatologist if you have any serious skin conditions before you start a skincare regimen using products heavy in salicylic acid.

I hope this helped out! ♥ webcake xoxo

Fruit & Your Face ♥

The best thing for your skin, especially the skin on your face, is something 100% natural.  You need something gentle and effective, something that won't irritate your skin, and something that can help prevent skin issues in the future.  You also need something full of vitamins, minerals, and natural moisturizing properties.

It's really (really!) hard to find products that are completely natural, with nothing man-made in them at all.  But there's one thing you can always count on to help revive that natural beauty inside of you -- fruit!

There are plenty of ways to use fresh fruit to get great skin right at home, and you don't need anything else other than what's probably already sitting in your cupboards and fridge.  Here I'll make a quick and simple list of fruits and which skin types & conditions they are best used for:

Acne

Lemons

Apples

Strawberries

Grapefruit

Kiwi

Dry Skin

Bananas

Guava

Olives

Melons

Discoloration / Dark Circles

Tomatoes

Grapes

Orange

Tangerine

Wrinkles / Sagging

Any Citrus fruit

Papayas

Blueberries

Pineapples

These fruits all contain antioxidant properties, and also can help naturally cleanse and refresh your skin.  Another reason these fruits are great for your skin's health is because they contain alpha-hydroxy acids.  Find out why AHA's are good for your skin here.  For more information on how these fruits and others are helpful for your skin, check out this article from DivaVillage.

For some awesome home-made facial recipes using all natural ingredients like fresh fruit, check out these articles:

Exfoliating Grapefruit Facewash
Refreshing Banana & Orange Face Mask
Cucumber & Melon Face Mask
Deep Cleansing Lemon Face Scrub

Have fun and stay cute ♥ xoxo

Sexy bɨtches spotlight ♥

Well, as usual, I get agitated when all I hear about are thin blondies and heiress blowhards getting all of the media attention because they're so beautiful. A lot of people forget what makes a real beauty beautiful - a whole lotta tits and ass. Curvy women obviously rule, and there's some sexy ladies getting some (not always so positive) spotlight recently that have curves to match their confidence. I decided to choose one of my favorites to spotlight, since she's been looking positively scrumptious...

Nicki Minaj

Yeah, she's ghetto. Yeah, she's fly. And yeah, she's got half of the people that know her name absolutely HATING on her. But hey, every fly ass lady has a parade of haters behind her, that's kinda like a rule. Just because a girl wears some boss Barbie bling and has an ass that rivals a Sealy Tempurpedic mattress, everyone tries to make her look like a fraud. So maybe she got some puff added, and maybe she didn't.

My biggest peeve is that everyone's going nuts over what they think are "butt pads", and then in the same instance referencing her fluctuating weight. Well....if she gains and loses weight so much, how hard is it to believe she's just got a naturally phat ass?!

She's not claiming she's 100% natural. She's completely straightforward about her plasticy image and she (and her hoards of fans) don't seem to mind. She calls herself a Harajuku Barbie, and shapes her image around colorful makeup, hot hair, and outfits that accentuate all those lovely assets.

Nicki's favorite makeup item? According to this interview, it's MAC's Pink Nouveau Lipstick! Want to get some looks from her videos, or Nicki inspired makeup tutorials?

Check out this one from the "Bedrock" video. (Hate that song, love the makeup.)
Here's another awesome Nicki Minaj makeup tutorial...
And a super sweet Barbie-yumyum Nicki inspired tutorial here.

Interested in her music? Listen to her here, on Pandora Radio.