Got Dry, Cracked Hands? Try This!

Washing your hands can deter the flu, but wreak havoc on your skin! Here's how to remedy this...

If you are like millions of people who are washing their hands frequently to avoid catching the flu, you may be suffering from dry skin that is so irritated it may even crack and bleed. What can you do to remedy this?
1. Wash your hands with a mild soap or cleanser. Look for one that contains tea tree oil, which is anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal.

2. Use a gentle exfoliant to smooth rough skin. You can make one at home by mixing honey, brown or white sugar, and a few drops of oil (extra virgin olive oil works great!). Apply this to your hands and rub gently. Rinse when done.

3. Moisturize your hands immediately after washing them and seal the moisture in by applying a heavy lotion or rich cream onto still-moist skin and massaging it in until it is absorbed. Look for one that contains vitamin E, botanical oils or shea butter. This will help create a barrier between your skin and the environment. Make sure to reapply cream every time you wash your hands.

4. At night, after applying cream, cover your hands (and dry, cracked feet too!) with light cotton gloves. This will help the moisturizer soak into your skin, and you may see and feel a significant difference by morning. Severely dry, cracked skin will require diligence, and can take days or even weeks to heal.

5. Don’t use scalding water to wash your hands.

6. Wear (latex-free) rubber gloves when washing dishes or using cleaning products to limit your exposure to water and abrasive chemicals that can irritate your skin.

7. Drink more water!

This blog is brought to you by La Isha Natural Skin Care!

You Might Want To Think Twice About Getting a Tattoo If...

Part 4: If You Have Any of These Medical Conditions You Might Want to Think Twice About Getting a Tattoo…

1. Allergies and Skin Sensitivities: Having an allergic reaction to the dyes and inks used in the tattoo process is fairly common among people who have sensitive skin. An allergic reaction can lead to an itchy rash, scarring and other dermatological symptoms that can linger for a long time after getting a tattoo, and actually take years to clear up.

2. Acne: If you tattoo skin that is prone to acne, you can get one heck of a rash that could result in permanent scarring.

3. Keloids: Are you a keloid healer? Unlike regular scars, keloids are hard, thick, red or purple raised scars that sometimes form after trauma to the skin, and often spread to the surrounding tissues. They can develop anywhere on the body and are an over reactive response of the fibrous connective tissue of the skin to anything from minor abrasions, burns or piercings to surgery and severe injury. If you already have a keloid on your body, you stand a pretty good chance of developing more from a tattoo, so think twice before you go ahead with it.

Here is a picture of a keloid that occurred as a result of a tattoo.

This blog is brought to you by La Isha Natural Skin Care!

Things To Do and Not To Do Before Getting a Tattoo

Part 3 of La Isha's series on Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Tattoos, and Then Some...

Things To Do Before Getting a Tattoo
1. Take the time to visit the parlor and observe the tattoo procedure on someone else before you have it done to your body.
2. Check the tattoo parlor for cleanliness. Make sure they use disposable needles, and/or sterilize them and the rest of their equipment with a professional autoclave.
3. Make sure the artist uses disposable gloves and changes them between clients.
4. Disposable towels and cleaning products should always be used to wipe the skin as the tattoo is being applied. If not, or if the tattoo artist is not wearing a glove, leave.
5. Make sure they are opening brand new tubs of ink and disposable needles that they have not been previously used. This will lessen the chance of catching something communicable.

What NOT To Do Before Getting a Tattoo
1. DO NOT take pain killers like aspirin or ibuprofen beforehand as they may cause increased bleeding.
2. DO NOT get tattooed on an empty stomach because it may make you feel faint, dizzy or even nauseated.
3. DO NOT get tattoed while you are drunk or drugged… your taste in art may be impaired, and you may live to regret it later!

This blog is brought to you by La Isha Natural Skin Care!

Part 2 of La Isha's series on Everything You wanted to Know About Tattoos, and Then Some...

What exactly is a tattoo?

A tattoo is essentially a puncture wound, where the design is made by piercing the skin with an electrical machine that has one or more needles that deposit dye into the dermis layer (the second – not the top layer of the skin). The cells of the dermis are considered more stable than the cells of the epidermis, and are responsible for the tattoo pretty much staying in place for the duration of a person’s life.

The tattoo process is done without anesthesia and can cause varying levels of pain and even a little bit of bleeding. What determines this is how experienced the tattoo artist is, where on the body the tattoo is being drawn (some spots are more tender than others!), and last but not least, your pain threshold.

btw - The word tattoo comes from the Tahitian word 'tattau,' meaning 'to mark'.

Next Installment: What you need to do before getting a tattoo.

This blog is brought to you by La Isha Natural Skin Care!

Thinking About Getting a Tattoo?

Tattoos are a form of body art that have been enjoying a resurgence in popularity over the last few years. If you are thinking about getting one, make sure you know what’s involved ahead of time. Over the next few days, we will show how you to assess whether or not to get one, based on long-term beauty and the potential health risks involved. If you are considering getting a tatt, you will certainly want to do it safely, so be sure to read our series on Getting a Tattoo!

This blog is brought to you by La Isha Natural Skin Care!

How to Fix a Fake Tan That Has Streaked!

Okay, it's definitely winter, and in some parts of the country the weather is too cold, the sunlight too sparse, and some of you feeling the need to add a healthy-looking glow to your pale face by applying a self-tanner. Before using one, you should always exfoliate your skin with a loofah or a body scrub to eliminate dry spots that could attract and absorb too much color.

Even if you do this, mistakes do happen. If you have ever gotten streaky or too orange from using a self-tanner, here is an easy way to help minimize the damage, using ingredients you probably already have at home!

You can make an exfoliating paste by combining baking soda with water, and using it to exfoliate the areas where your unnatural-looking color has accumulated. Going over these areas with the baking soda paste will lighten the globbed-on "tan" spots and rub out the excess color in the streaks. Please remember to be gentle, though, and not scrub too hard! This is a gradual process, and may need to be done more than once.

This blog is brought to you by La Isha Natural Skin Care!

Are you over 35 and still applying blusher to the apples of your cheeks?

Today’s Natural Beauty Tip from La Isha!
How many of us were taught that the best way to apply blush is to smile first and then apply the color to the apples of our cheeks? I recently read an article suggesting that women over the age of 35 should never do this. Why?

When we stop smiling, the face falls, so the blusher winds up lower on the face than would be natural. Smiling also creates little creases in the skin, making it hard to get a smooth finish. Instead, try applying the blusher over the upper cheekbone, and blending the color higher up toward the eye, rather than lower down on the face. This creates an illusion of high cheekbones.

Try it, and let us know what you think!

This blog is brought to you by La Isha Natural Skin Care!