One Secret to Aging Gracefully

My secret: Enjoy the process of getting older.

Another secret: If you fight it, it just gets worse. I’m on the train with everyone else (the aging train). The difference is I’m looking out the window, enjoying the ride. Many (women) are focusing inside the car, fighting with the train conductor about the fare!

For more information, see:

• To age or not to age: Is that the question?
• Radiance—what makes a woman radiant
• My Gray Hair Story

True or False: You only need to wash your face at night

FALSE! You should wash your face morning and evening. Why? You wash in the A.M. to clean off the film that has deposited on your skin during the time you were sleeping—similar to the film on your teeth in the morning. You want to wash your face in the evening to get rid of all the dirt, oil, and debris that has accumulated on your skin from the entire day—even if you never left the house! Not to mention any makeup you may have applied. Make washing your face a twice-daily habit. If you do, you will enjoy cleaner pores, which means healthier skin.

For more information, see:

• CLEANSERS 101: What IS a cleanser? What to look for and what NOT to use—updated
• Advanced Steps for Cleansing
• Cleansing Quick Tip

Kiss Chapped Lips Goodbye!

Why do lips get chapped in the first place?

The tissue that comprises your lips doesn’t have any oil or sweat glands like the rest of your body does, so the lips can quite easily become chapped. Did you know that simply habitually licking your lips can cause chapping? We may think that the moisture from our saliva will help hydrate our lips, but in actuality it dehydrates them due to moisture evaporation. Licking your lips just makes things worse.

If you are on medication you may experience chapped lips. Medications alter the body’s natural functions and may induce dry skin on the body as well as the lips. For instance, dry, chapped lips are a common occurrence while taking Accutane, an anti-acne drug. Also, if you are on chemotherapy, you have probably discovered that your lips are continually chapped due to the harsh chemicals that are infiltrating your body.

In addition, dry air (like in the desert or Colorado) or the cold air of winter can cause chapping. You may find yourself wetting your lips with your tongue to overcome the dry feeling, and as I’ve already said, licking your lips actually creates dry, chapped lips. Last of all, lipsticks in general have a lot of drying ingredients in them and if you wear lipstick, no doubt you have had chapped lips at one time or another.

Although it is a common problem, chapped lips can become a thing of the past. What does it take? Diligence and consistent use of proper lip products. And in the case of severely chapped lips, a vacation from lipstick—a product that probably caused much of the chapping in the first place.

Using a lip balm is going to be your best and safest bet to stave off chapped lips. I prefer non-petroleum lip balms, which can usually be found at health food stores. Buy several, and then put them everywhere! Typically they are about $3 apiece. So I buy five or six, and spread them out in my home, office, in my jeans, and regularly used jackets, so I don’t have to worry about being without. They last for an eternity since I have so many in use at one time, and my lips are never chapped because I am consistently attending to them.

One last recommendation: don’t bite your lips! Trying to bite off the chapped skin that is sometimes hanging off your lips just causes more problems. It creates tiny tears in the lip tissue, which can bleed and take a long time to heal. Instead of tearing that delicate skin, just slather your lips with a non-petroleum lip balm and stay away from lipstick for at least a few days and let your lips heal. I know it’s hard to leave the lipstick off, but treat your lips as though they are injured, and give them loving care—and lip balm!

Chapped lips no longer need to be a problem. Sometimes you can’t avoid the causes, but you can always contribute to the healing of chapped, dry lips—primarily by using lip balms as often as possible. No matter what you use on your lips, do use something, and you can kiss chapped lips good-bye.

For more information, see:

• More Help for Chapped Lips 
• “What can I do about severely chapped lips?” Plus a gift from COVID
• Chemotherapy & Skin Care

Is Your Skin Truly Dry or Just Thirsty?

Many people think they have dry skin (because it feels dry), when really they are simply dehydrated. Although true-dry skin and dehydrated skin feel the same, their causes are totally different, and the treatment of each, separate condition is also very different.

BACKGROUND: Dehydrated skin feels dry, but this is actually just an indication of a large build-up of dead cells on the surface of your skin. It is the job of these cells to retain moisture in the form of oil and water. If there are too many dead cells on the surface, more water is needed to keep all the cells moist.

True-dry skin is a condition where your sebaceous (oil) glands are not producing enough oil to lubricate your outer skin. The outer skin is kept moisturized from both water at the surface (and from the air) as well as sebum being excreted from your oil glands. Simply put, true-dry skin does not produce enough oil to keep the outer skin moist. 

TREATMENT: With true-dry skin, the treatment is fairly basic. The skin needs to be kept moisturized at all times. Because the sebaceous glands are not producing enough oil, you want to provide a sufficient amount of oil through product application.

Dehydration means there is an excessive dead cell buildup on the surface of your skin, and you need to exfoliate. No amount of moisturizing will truly fix the problem, but through regular and thorough exfoliation, you can greatly reduce or eliminate dehydration.

Understanding this simple difference between these two separate conditions can keep you from experiencing a skin care catastrophe when purchasing your skin care products. 

For more information, see:

• True-dry Skin explained
• Dry vs. Dehydrated Skin 
• Is your face in need of extra hydration? (This article talks about a few Yonka products that can help keep your skin feeling hydrated.)

A Note to All Pickers—you know who you are!!! Important Instructions: A must read!

Throughout the years I have come across a lot of people who regularly pick at their skin. I have learned that trying to get them to quit is futile. A picker picks! It can sometimes be an obsessive pastime or just a bad habit. Regardless, far be it from me to take away one of your life’s pleasures. What I do request and truly insist on is that you do your lovely picking job correctly.

1. You MUST wrap your fingers in tissue. Take a Kleenex, fold it in half and tear it in half, then wrap your index fingers. If you go at your skin with your bare hands/nails, you are encouraging bacteria to form, more so than if you wrap your fingers. So wrap them up.
2. You MUST see a clearly defined white or yellow pus-filled head on the blemish or else it is NOT extractable and you can really cause some damage if you try anyway.
3. Please please PLEASE treat the place(s) you picked at with something. If you don’t have any pure essential oils at home (like lavender or geranium) then dotting clay mask on the area would suffice. If you don’t have clay, if you have a toner you could soak a small piece of cotton with it and compress the spots for a few minutes each. Put something on your freshly picked at skin to help encourage the healing process. Don’t leave your (possibly) damaged skin bare to the world without giving it some TLC.
4. My highest recommendation is DON’T PICK. There are numerous things that can (and usually do) go wrong and you really leave yourself open to having little scars on your face—forever.

When you go to pick at your face, instead pick up your bottle of essential oil or a clay mask and put these healing products on the spots and walk away. Know you have done something great for yourself and your skin.

For more information, see:

• Does picking at my skin cause scarring?
• Geranium (or Lavender)—spot remover for breakouts
• Yonka’s Juvenil—purifying concentrate and spot treatment
• Help for Breakouts