Skin care essentials - Tone.

To achieve naturally glowing complexion it is crucial to follow four important steps: cleanse (surface cleanse - every day and deep cleanse - once a week), exfoliate (once a week), tone (as much as your heart desires), and moisturize (from one to two and even three times per day depending on you skin type). I have talked about cleansing here and exfoliation here.

Now it is time to shed some light on the most neglected step in facial care regiment - tone. Use of toners is a connecting link between process of cleansing and moisturizing that helps to achieve ultimate goal - beautiful and radiant skin. Toners help to restore pH level of you skin, enhance your skin tone, tighten pores, remove leftover soap or oil residue, and prepare your skin for final step - moisturizing. How it works: pure water has a neutral pH, which is close to 7.0, when natural pH of our skin is slightly acidic and varies between 5.0 and 6.0. Hence, washing your face even with plain warm water, guarantees to throw off your pH balance, and cause all kinds of discomforts. After applying pH balanced botanical toners you will not only return your skin to its natural state but you will also get more out of your moisturizer! Why? In order for the moisturizer to deliver all of its benefits, your skin has to be prepared to properly absorb them. By removing the leftover residue from a cleanser you are allowing your skin to take-in all of the natural goodness of your moisturizer. Additional botanical ingredients will provide extra shot of natural vitamins and antioxidants that are irreplaceable components in any healthy cell function.
Marmalade Hills Facial Fusions have been especially formulated to be gentle on delicate facial tissue and with pH balance of about 5.0 to help restore natural pH balance of your skin. Base ingredients of our toners: gentle and nourishing botanical distillates, distilled water, natural astringent - witch hazel and healing aloe juice.
Botanical distillates are usually obtained by steam distillation from aromatic plants. During such distillation essential oils will float on top of the surface, leaving behind the watery distillate. Botanical distillates contain diluted essential oils and many of their therapeutic qualities, making them especially skin friendly. Another important ingredient that is used in every Marmalade Hills toner is Green Tea Extract. We love using Green Tee Extract in our formulations as it naturally contains the chemical ECGC - an antioxidant proven 200 times more powerful than Vitamin E. Antioxidants are extremely important in any anti-aging and healthy skin care, as they are capable of inhibiting oxidation of other molecules. Oxidation produces free radicals - micro elements that contribute to cell destruction and therefore aging of the skin, as well as abnormal mutations, therefore creating favorable environment for deceases to form and overtake our bodies.
After the water/witch hazel/aloe/green tea base is created we customize our toners according to skin types, by adding different plant distillates and infusing them with extensive variety of botanical extracts of Rosemary, Lavender, Rose, Nettle and Ginko biloba extract, just to name a few. In the end we create 100% natural, gentle, nourishing and soothing botanical toners that work in unison with your body and help to maintain not only healthy glow on the surface but also in deepest layers of your skin!

Hope you find this post useful. Take care of your skin and it will thank you!

Till next time,
Liana.

Summer Skin Care Regiment

During hot summer months we all have to adjust our skin care regiment. As a nicer and hotter weather moves in more people break out due to increased perspiration and increased time we spend outside. Because of this, our skin produces extra oils and accumulates extra dirt and debris, thus allowing more pimple-causing bacteria to grow. My skin type is combination and I find summer the most challenging time for my facial care. All I'm trying to do during summer is to keep my oil production down and milia or tiny bumps (with white heads or without) under control. You can't really cure these problems, all you can do is prevent them. During hot months make it a habit to wash your face with soapy water a number of times a day. If you have oily skin, wash your face at least twice a day with our Tea Tree Cucumber facial bar or Geranium facial bar. If you have dry skin, wash your face not only in the morning but also at bedtime to remove excess oil and makeup. Creamy Classic Lavender facial bar or Milk ‘n Honey bar would be your best choices. If you have combination skin, I recommend using Geranium facial bar or Milk ‘n Honey twice a day during hot summer months. You can also use our All-Natural astringent toners to clean your face as many times as you need. And here is a hint on how to get the most out of your toner: during especially hot days keep your toner in a refrigerator and use it all over your face and neck to wipe out the dirt, to replenish and refresh your skin.

Everyone spends more time outdoors during the summer, which means that environmental debris and pollutants can have an additional impact on your skin's ability to remain elastic, free of bacteria and excess sebum. I personally notice more problem spots after a day of gardening or day at the outdoor art show. The great way to deep cleanse, sooth, draw out extra oils and firm your skin would be to use of our All-Natural Clay Facial Masks once a week and even more often during summer. Clays are widely used in spas all over the world. I love them especially for their ability to detoxify tone, gently exfoliate and deep cleanse our skin. They are full of rare minerals and they are designed by nature to absorb impurities from skin as they dry. After 15 minutes of our clay mask treatment you will wash away (together with clay) extra sebum and dirt, and add a few years to your looks by returning natural elasticity to your skin. Oily Skin owners: Sea Kelp Detox is for you. Dry and sensitive skin owners: Strawberry Fig would benefit you best. Combination skin: Banana Mango would work great for your skin.

Due to hotter weather you may feel less need to use your moisturizers and it is perfectly fine. For our Facial Serum users I would suggest to play with your usage amounts or maybe even postpone use of it completely during the summer. Try using less drops per area and spread it thinner on your face. Just recently I started using my serum every other day instead of every day and I am thinking about cutting it down to once a week. I just wash my face with Milk 'n Honey soap (in my soap dish now) as many times as I need , use my new favorite Apple Twist Toner and I am good to go until evening! For Oily or Combination Skin owners I would recommend replacing your moisturizers completely with our All-Natural gentle Facial Toners. They are light, refreshing, soothing and moisturizing.

If you have extra oily areas, you can dry problem areas with Glycolic Acid pads. 10% Glycolic Acid and 5% Cylicilic Acid formulation is mild enough to not give you any skin irritations. You can get pads at your dermatologist office or online. Read list of ingredients carefully to make sure there is no Acetone!

Adjust your makeup regimen to the summer climate and your outdoor activities as well. Select powder blushes and eye shadows rather than cream products because they are less irritating and more likely to hold up in hot and humid weather. Use mineral foundations that will double you as SPF protection. If you need a good mineral foundation you can find some here and here. Learn how to apply natural-looking, barely there makeup for those outdoor occasions.

Enjoy your summer friends! Till next time,
Liana.

Healthy Tip - Green Tea

Our Healthy Tip Fridays have moved from notes area of our fan page to our blog. For our blog followers, who are not fans of Marmalade Hills' on Facebook, I have posted a few Healthy Tip Fridays already. You can find them here.
Tea is the agricaltural product of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the Camellia Sinensis plant, prepared and cured by various methods. After water, tea is the most widely-consumed beverage in the world, according to The Empire Of Tea by Alan Macfarlane.
I myself love to drink tea. In winter it is especially popular in our house, we can go through a box of tea in 4 or 5 days. I am sure everybody heard about many benefits of tea and especially green tea and probably I will not tell you anything new today, but I would like to bring to your attention the benefits of green tea once again. I think today's tip can be classified as "lazy healthy tip", right next to the fish oil :)

"More than a decade's worth of research about green tea's health benefits - particularly its potential to fight cancer and heart disease - has been more than intriguing, as have limited studies about green tea's role in lowering cholesterol, burning fat, preventing diabetes and stroke, and staving off dementia.

*Green tea's antioxidants, called catechins, scavenge for free radicals that can damage DNA and contribute to cancer, blood clots, and atherosclerosis. Grapes and berries, red wine, and dark chocolate also have potent antioxidants. Because of green tea's minimal processing - its leaves are withered and steamed, not fermented like black and oolong teas - green tea's unique catechins, especially epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), are more concentrated.

*Green Tea vs. Cancer. The American Cancer Society's strategic director of nutritional epidemiology, says human studies haven't yet proven what researchers like Chan have discovered in the lab: green tea's EGCG regulates and inhibits cancer growth and kills cells that are growing inappropriately. Still, it's difficult not to be intrigued by a few human studies that have shown that drinking at least two cups of green tea daily inhibits cancer growth. One of them, a study conducted in Japan that involved nearly 500 Japanese women with Stage I and Stage II breast cancer, found that increased green tea consumption before and after surgery was associated with lower recurrence of the cancers.

*Green Tea good for your heart? It seems to be, but there are conflicting results of a few epidemiological studies conducted in the East and West.
In a study that involved 500 Japanese men and women, researchers found that drinking at least four cups of green tea every day may be related to the reduced severity of coronary heart disease among the male participants. A Dutch study of more than 3,000 men and women found that the more tea consumed, the less severe the clogging of the heart's blood vessels, especially in women. As Goldberg suggests, lifestyle and overall diet are critical to the outcomes of these studies. But green tea's antioxidants are dilators, she says, because they improve the flexibility of blood vessels and make them less vulnerable to clogging - and antioxidant-rich blueberries and pomegranates do the same.

*Green Tea and Weight. Green tea and its extract have been shown to fight obesity and lower "bad" cholesterol - two risk factors for heart disease and diabetes - but in very limited studies.

*Green tea Straight Up. Taking weight loss supplements that contain green tea extract probably won't hurt, unless you have liver problems. But the best way to get the most out of green tea - even if your main goal is losing weight - is to drink it."

For complete article please follow this link: http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/health-benefits-of-green-tea

If you can not get enough of green tea in your cup try these products from Marmalade Hills' that are made with miracle green tea extract:
All Natural Facial Toners; Moisturizing Bath Bombs; Omega 3 Body Lotions.

P.S. if you have missed our previous healthy tips you can find them here:
Clean Truth about Antibacterial Soap
10 Foods that are healthier than you think
Healthy Nails Tips
Healthy Hair Tips
When to buy Organic and when it's ok not to
Benefits of Green Tea
Beauty Sleep
Fish Oil or Omega 3 & 6
How to add years to your life