I’ve decided I need to go back to the Dermatologist soon. I know this is sort of a dull topic to write about, but not to me! I haven’t been to the Dermatologist in about 2 or 3 years. The last time I went, I still had a face-full of acne, and I had been to maybe 7 Dermatologists in the previous few years because I was seeking clear skin, and more hair! Within 2 months of that last Dermatologist visit, my skin was completely clear, except for red acne spots, which are finally gone. On my own, with little help from the Dermatologists, I had finally figured out how to cure myself of acne.

Why I’m going to the Dermatologist
I don’t have good health insurance, so I try to make as few trips to the doctor as possible. Since it was me (and not the Dermatologists) that figured out how to cure my skin, I don’t feel much need for Dermatologists anymore when it comes to acne. I have been using Differin for the last several years, a topical retinoid, and always got the prescription renewed at the gyno.

My Differin prescription has lapsed, and I have no pending doctors visits. I’m afraid to go without the Differin! I use the .01% Differin Gel, but have learned there’s a new .03% version out. I want to ask the Dermatologist about the difference, even though I could probably find the info on the internet. I also want to get a prescription for Tazorac, which is another retinoid that is good for wrinkles, and acne. I’ve read this is the best retinoid for blackheads, so I figure I might as well finally try it.

I also have a sort of suspicious mole on my back, so a skin cancer screening is a prudent idea, since you should really have it done yearly to be safe.

Any questions I should ask the Dermatologist?
I like to get the most for my money, so I’m trying to think of any other concerns I can bring up while I’m there. Even though I haven’t resolved my hair loss issue, I’ve sort of given up on Dermatologists knowing anything whatsoever about hair loss. Why they are so clueless about women’s hair loss is beyond me. Oh, maybe I will ask them about my thinning eyebrows, though. If you can think of anything you’d like to know, let me know, and maybe I can work it into the 5 minute office visit! I’m also in need of a new full-time job, so I may drop my resume off (again) while I’m there. Now that I have a year of working at a Medical Spa under my belt, they might be more inclined to hire me, since they do Botox and all sorts of Cosmetic Dermatology there.

The Daily Cookie brings you the scoop behind Danity Kane’s Welcome to the Dollhouse album cover photoshoot. Check out her exclusive Q&A with makeup artist JJ Jacobucci!

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Every day a new breakthrough wrinkle cream, or state-of-the art moisturizer is released, and it’s amazing how far the beauty and skin care industry has come to bring us cutting edge anti-agers. This is what we are led to believe, but I realized most of my skin care staples are pretty old-school!

Retin-A
Back in the late 80s, I went to Tijuana with my parents and a bunch of my dad’s co-workers. All of the woman made a beeline to the cheap pharmacies there, and came back with tubes and tubes of Retin-A. My mom informed me that Retin-A was supposed to be a miracle wrinkle fighter, and it was the best wrinkle cream out there. Flash-forward 20 years, and guess what - Retin-A is still the best wrinkle cream! Now there is Renova, and Retin-A Micro, but it’s still basically the same thing. Thousands of wrinkle creams have come and gone, but Retin-A is still the best. It’s by no means a “miracle” but I view it as better than nothing.

Nivea Creme
Recently I started using Nivea Creme since it’s super cheap, and it’s a great moisturizer. It’s been around forever - since 1911! The other moisturizer I like is Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion. That’s been around almost forever as well!

There are, however, better moisturizers out there that are packaged in airtight stable packaging, that contain loads of antioxidants. But I have yet to find the perfect affordable super hydrating moisturizer that does come in stable packing, loaded with antioxidants, without pore-clogging ingredients. I know it’s out there, but I haven’t found it yet.

Sunscreen
All sorts of recent advancements have been made with sunscreens. The introduction of Mexoryl, Avobenzene, Tinosorb, and Helioplex are relatively new. But guess what - my favorite sunscreen ingredient is Zinc Oxide, which again has been around…forever! Actually I do concede that while Zinc Oxide has been around a long time, it hasn’t been in its micronized form for that long, so before that happened, Zinc Oxide sunscreens weren’t clear like they are now.

Chapstick
After years of sufferering from horribly chapped lips, blue Chapstick cured me! Petroleum-based Chapstick has also been around forever, and it never worked that well for me. There’s something special in the blue Chapstick, even though it only contains Petroleum, and two sunscreen ingredients. So since the blue Chapstick has only been around for 10 years, I guess you could say it’s new product, even though its ingredients are ancient. I also like using its retro cousin Vaseline for a variety of purposes - taking off eye makeup, slathering it on my lips or cheeks when I can’t find my Chapstick or Nivea Creme, and a few other random purposes.

There really have been some great breakthroughs with beauty products - much better self-tanners, excellent foundations, topical antioxidants, better pigmented eyeshadows, and I’m sure I’m missing a whole bunch of breakthroughs. But, despite all these advances, I’m still pretty old-school with my beauty products, even though I do fully embrace the newer Cosmetic Dermatology discoveries of Botox for wrinkles, fillers, and lasers.  

I’ve never had a car with tinted windows, and have never even thought about tinting my own car. However, I live in Las Vegas, where just about everyone has their windows tinted, and I realized that not only does it cut down on the heat in the car, tinting blocks UV rays!!!

Even though your car windows will protect you from UVB rays - the ones that cause you to tan and burn, the windows don’t block out UVA rays. That’s what causes you to get wrinkles, plus it damages your collagen and elastin, and prematurely ages your skin.

I just got my car tinted this weekend, and my only regret is not doing this 10 years ago!!! The tint is supposed to block out 99% of UV rays. Even though I wear sunscreen every day, sunscreen doesn’t offer 100% protection from the harm of the sun, so I want all the protection I can get. I don’t even drive that much, but even a half hour, or an hour a day in the car is a lot of incidental sun damage. I rarely drive with my windows down, but I still have way more sun spots on the left side of my face, than the right, so that’s proof that even the best sunscreen is not perfect.

Should you tint your windows?
Here in Vegas, the UV index goes off the charts for several months of the year, so I would recommend everyone in places like Las Vegas, Hawaii, Florida, and Southern California to get their windows tinted, if you care about preventing wrinkles. The UV tint also protects your car’s interior from fading. If you live in a colder climate where the UV index is usually low, then it’s probably not necessary if you wear sunscreen daily, unless you are in your car several hours a day.

The tinting I got cost $175, and it comes with a lifetime guarantee. Even though I got the lightest tint, the only thing I don’t like is that there’s more glare inside my car in the daytime, and it makes it slightly harder to see out the windows. I haven’t found out yet how well the tint blocks the heat. Make sure to confirm the tinting comes with 99% UV protection.

On a side note - remember how I was questioning if airplane windows have UV protection? They don’t!! Wear your sunscreen when you fly, because the UV rays coming though the windows are intense! Next up for me is looking into UV tinting for my condo windows! Yes, I’m obsessed! And because I do believe some sun exposure is good for you, here’s my post about the importance of Vitamin D.

I always turn to Ebay.com for any and every item I am desiring, because a lot of times you can get great deals there. And as the Ebay “shop victoriously” commercials say - it’s more fun when you win something!

Fake Skin Care Products
A few years ago I thought I’d look to see if my favorite moisturizer Clinique Moisture On-line was for sale on Ebay. Since this is one of my skin care staples, I thought I could save a few dollars this way. Sure enough someone was selling it, and the person had excellent feedback, so this seemed like a great deal. When the product arrived, it was in the correct jar, however the cream inside was different than the true product - its smell and consistency were different. Luckily I had used the product before, so I knew what to expect. And luckily I was able to return the product for a full refund. The seller told me he had purchased a bunch of Moisture On-lines from someone else, so he didn’t even realize they weren’t the real thing! Since Moisture On-line isn’t exactly expensive ($32 or so) it never dawned on me that someone would go out of their way to fake the product.

Also, Moisture On-line comes in a jar packaging, so it’s super easy for someone to reuse the jar, and just fill it with any cheapo cream. Never buy skin care products that come in a jar on Ebay!!!

Real Skin Care Products and Makeup
I have bought some legit makeup on Ebay. I buy those mini Lancome Juicy Tubes that come as gifts with purchase. Since they only sell for $7 or so, and they come in closed packaging, it’s highly unlikely some scammer is making fake mini Juicy Tubes! And I think the gift with purchase sets people sell are real too - even though some of the products are tiny jars.

I can’t say with certainty, but I would guess most products by companies like Avon and Arbonne are real, because the sellers buy the products from the companies at a discount, and then they can sell them to the public. So if the price is comparable (or a few dollars less) than what something sells for at an Avon store or website, it’s probably the real thing. However, again people can refill jars and pump bottles, or they can use them a few times and then sell them.

Other companies, like Jane Iredale, sell their products at a wholesale price to different independant stores and spas, who could then turnaround and sell them on Ebay. Most of the Jane Iredale stuff on Ebay appears legit, and you can possibly buy it cheaper there because the markup is about 50%, so Ebay sellers may only be marking it up 25% but still be able to make a profit, while passing the savings on to you. Whether or not Jane Iredale, and other companies that sell in wholesale approve of this, is another issue.

Fake Makeup
Makeup is pretty cheap, so you wouldn’t think there would be a need for fakes. I was astonished to read about all the fake MAC makeup that’s being sold on Ebay. Pursebuzz.com shows you how to spot the MAC fakes. Since MAC, and most department store lines are only sold at their own stores, department stores, and retailers like Sephora and Ulta, if you see brand new products on Ebay for way cheaper than retail, then that’s pretty fishy. It’s possible someone just bought the products from the store, and changed their mind and want to sell it. However, if an Ebay seller consistently sells the same type of items over and over for way cheaper than retail, the items are probably stolen, fake, or the whole auction is a scam and you won’t even get the item.

With the MAC Fafi collection, I think people bought everything they could get their hands on, so that they could sell it to people seeking the sold-out items. Again, though, I would be wary of buying a highly sought after item, fearing it would be fake. Ohhh, and I just remembered that I used to have a PPID/MAC Pro Card about 10 years ago when I did fashion photography. So with that 30% or 40% savings for industry professionals, that could explain how legit MAC makeup does end up on ebay for below store cost.

The bottom line
If it’s too good to be true, it probably is!!! Just know that there are a lot of scams on Ebay, so if you really want to save a few dollars with skin care and makeup, be cautious. It’s amazing how far fakers will go to make a few dollars. I like Juicy Couture charms, and they aren’t too expensive - $42 for the basic ones. I bought one on Ebay for $35, and it turned out it was fake! Luckily I got my money back on that one too!! The first tip-off was that the picture in the auction was the official picture from the Juicy website. It’s always suspicious if the auction has no picture, or if the picture is not one that was taken of the actual item.  When you’re searching for a product on Ebay, after you type in something like “arbonne,” on the left side of the page will be links to articles about how to spot scams and fakes about that particular type of item.

With all this Ebay talk, I think it’s time to win some new mini Juicy Tubes!

Recently I’ve started using self-tanners daily on my face once again. I don’t like to look overly tan, so I generally use self-tanners that do double-duty as moisturizers, so that I get a subtle look.

Currently I use:
L’Oreal Sublime Glow, Daily Moisturizer For Face
and
Neutrogena Build-A-Tan Face

These are good products because they don’t contain pore-clogging ingredients, so they should be okay to use if you are acne-prone. Most self-tanners smell horrible to me, but these are tolerable, and the scent fades after a few minutes.

Both the L’Oreal and Neutrogena contain SPF 15, but I kind of wish they didn’t. Neither product contains zinc oxide, which is the ingredient I look for in a sunscreen. Both products sometimes make my face sting a bit due to the chemical sunscreen ingredients. The results from them look the same, so it’s hard to recommend one over the other. They are both good, light moisturizers, which should be good for anyone with dry to normal skin.

Where did my tan go?
I’ve been using these self-tanners for a year or two and thought they were great. Within an hour of use, you have a subtle tan, and there’s absolutely no streaking, and the effect is very natural. With daily use, your tan is supposed to build to a nice, natural tan. It wasn’t until last week that I realized there was a problem with the self-tanners, and I was just too oblivious to notice. The tan washes away when you wash your face! Every morning I wake up, and my face looks just as pale as the day before. Maybe it’s ever so slightly darker, but not much. With regular self-tanners, the effect lasts several days. I exfoliate my skin quite a bit, which should help the tanner penetrate better.

I think the problem is that the self-tanner is tanning the moisturizer, which sits on your skin, and acts as a barrier. So little of the tanning product actually touches your skin. Do you have this problem? What self-tanners do you like for your face?

I’ll be looking into new self-tanners again soon, and will see what is available. I can’t remember the last non-moisturizer tanner I’ve used, since it’s been several years. I like how self-tanner moisturizers are foolproof, but I also want something that doesn’t require a daily application!

I think I have finally found a face highlighter/illuminator than I can wear without getting clogged pores. I wrote about how sad I was that I had to get rid of my Benefit High Beam because it has pore-clogging ingredients, and every other similar product I have seen recently contains problematic ingredients for acne-prone skin.

Origins Halo Effect
Origins makes a product called Halo Effect, which comes in two colors - Pink Potion and Golden Potion. I bought the pink version, and so far I really like it. It’s similar to Benefit High Beam, but it is not as creamy, and it dries with almost a powdery finish. Origins says “this lightweight pearly potion casts an ethereal aura over skin to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. Use it to give cheeks a glistening gleam. Make browbones subtly beam. Glistening mica shines a luminous light on facial features while taking focus away from fine lines and flaws.” I don’t know if it does all that, but it gives a nice subtle pink/silver shimmery sheen to my browbones and cheeks. I haven’t used it anywhere else. You can also mix it with your foundation.

While the product doesn’t appear to have pore-clogging ingredients, it has a lot of essential oils, which could be problematic for someone with really sensitive skin. Since I’m not putting it all over my face, I don’t think it will be a problem.

In the end, I might prefer a product that is a bit creamier since I have dry skin, but it’s more important for me that my makeup doesn’t cause breakouts. Have you tried Halo Effect?

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I live in Las Vegas, where you can’t even go to the grocery store or gas station store without having to walk past a slot machine. Millions of people come to Vegas each year, hoping that they will strike it big and win the Megabucks slots, or at least walk away with fistfuls of cash from blackjack or craps. But we all know that the casinos always win in the end, and our chances are extremely slim that we will ever win the lottery, or really win the millions of dollars we seek. Despite this, people still come back to Vegas year after year, and lots of Vegas locals gamble every day! Most people only remember their “wins” which is why they keep coming back for more.

The gamble for beauty
You know all those wrinkle creams and beauty gadgets that promise to get rid of all your lines and wrinkles, and give you the skin of an 18 year old? We all know they don’t really work, and that the fountain of youth has yet to be discovered, but we still spend billions a year on the gamble that the next product we buy will finally be the anti-wrinkle/anti-sagging “holy grail.” Each new skin cream is like the pull of a slot machine - maybe this one will finally be a winner, and my crow’s feet will be gone forever! If I buy a wrinkle cream that costs over $100, that must surely be the answer! Or how about one that promises to instantly smooth out all wrinkles?

A society of positive thinkers
We must be eternal optimists, because we are willing to continually gamble on wrinkle products, while even the best product doesn’t live up to its fanciful claims. When a product doesn’t work, we aren’t daunted, and keep using it anyway, according to this study. We fear the aging process so much, that we need something to give us hope that we can circumvent it.

I’m guilty too!
As for me, I’m guilty of playing video poker, even though I know it’s basically a costly hobby (but at least the drinks come free). I’ve also spent thousands of dollars on wrinkle creams and potions, because I completely fear getting old and wrinkly. I’m always on the lookout for the next breakthrough skin care treatment, and keep telling myself it’s only a matter of time before scientists come up with a way to turn our skin and bodies back to that of 18 year olds! There have been true advances when it comes to maintaining beauty - retinoids, Botox, fillers, lasers, sunscreen. For the time being, I’m betting on a wrinkle cure in my lifetime! I need that hope, but in the meantime, I’m being as proactive about anti-aging as possible, just in case that wrinkle cure never comes.