Farmgirl Beauty Secret #64: Using charcoal supplement as a detoxifying scalp treatment.

For those who purchased the Activated Charcoal supplement recommended in Farmgirl Beauty Secret #61, another great way to take advantage of this clarifying and detoxifying supplement is to use it as a scalp treatment! If you have oily, irritated or dandruff-prone scalp, Activated Charcoal is a godsend. Simply open capsule by pulling the 2 ends of capsule apart and pour content on dry scalp. Massage the charcoal powder into scalp and leave on for atleast 10 minutes (or for as long as you can withstand it. It’s not uncomfortable, your scalp just looks black!). Shampoo and condition as usual. Whenever I do this treatment, I am left with squeaky clean hair and AWESOME volume at the roots. It’s also oddly satisfying to see the charcoal tint rinse out of my hair and down the drain. Those with dark hair can also use charcoal powder as a dry shampoo when you massage a tiny bit onto scalp and brush hair to distribute. For those with light hair colors who are using this as a pre-shampoo scalp treatment, start by using only a portion of the capsule to make sure the residue isn't so intensive that it darkens your hair (any residue you see is temporary, which can be removed by a more thorough cleansing/conditioning process).

I got inspiration for this when I was given a sample of an expensive Japanese charcoal shampoo. While it did contain “charcoal extract” and I enjoyed the sample, the charcoal ingredient wasn’t particularly high on the ingredient list and they added iron oxides to give the shampoo that dramatic, glossy black shade (this tells me they skimped on the charcoal). By using the Activated Charcoal supplement, the cleansing and volumizing effect was dramatically increased, and at a fraction of the cost to boot! This treatment also turns any shampoo into a clarifying shampoo, so there’s one less bottle in the shower to clutter space.

Product-analysis: 100% Pure Cocoa Pigmented Bronzer + Farmgirl Beauty Secret #84

As discriminating as I am with ingredients, I have a perpetual soft spot for products housed in gorgeous containers. I’ve fell victim to the lure of beautiful packaging more times than I’d like to admit, having purchased beauty products solely for its outward appearance. Shallow? Yes. Ignorant? Blissfully! Now if only natural/green beauty companies would start realizing how desirable beautiful packaging is to the average makeup addict, I wouldn’t have to be so shallow and ignorant, now would I?! Imagine having the best of both worlds: acquiring a stunning compact that opens to reveal makeup that is good and nutritious for your skin. That is exactly what I found with 100% Pure Cocoa Pigmented Bronzer. Check it out, the ingredient list reads nearly like a chocolate fondue:

Cocoa Powder, Cocoa Butter, Powdered Pigments of Cacao, Apricot, Peach, Pomegranate, Blackberry, Raspberry, Coffee, Papaya, Tomato, Black Tea and Acai, Vitamin E (a-tocopherol), Lavender Flower Powder, Rosehip Oil, Avocado Butter, Mica (natural mineral shimmer), Vitamin A (a-palmitate), Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)

Since reading about the antioxidant benefits of cacao, I’ve been looking for a skincare treatment that contains this delicious ingredient. Before discovering this bronzer, I attempted to make my own chocolate bronzer by further pulverizing cocoa powder in a blender (Where do I come up with this stuff?!). My homemade concoction didn’t work out too well. It just didn’t adhere to the skin smoothly and looked, yes, like I’ve smeared cocoa powder on my face. This bronzer, on the other hand, provided a soft kiss of color that glided on like velvet (I apply with their Cruelty-free Kabuki Brush that is made of baby-soft (and animal-free) hair). The powder itself is matte but there a miniscule amount of shimmer particles throughout the matte powder. All in all, this is a great bronzer with natural ingredients. To think I can reap the benefits of chocolate in this decadent bronzer makes the beautiful compact an extra perk. I would happily use this even if it wasn’t housed in such a gorgeous metallic maroon-chocolate mirrored compact. But since it does, I can skip that thought and proceed with the ogling. This is the only beautiful compact I own that travels well as it is extremely sturdy and well made. I would absolutely go gaga if they housed all of their powder and solid-cream products in this case!

Farmgirl Beauty Secret # 84: Avoid the ingredients Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxide in bronzers and contour powders. This nifty bronzer also doubles as an excellent contour powder since it comes in subtle shades that are not orange-based and the 2 darkers shades are deep enough to contour with. Most importantly, it doesn’t contain Titanium Dioxide or Zinc Oxide. These are great sunblocking mineral ingredients but they also give a white, opaque appearance to the skin, especially when there’s a camera flash involved (ever wonder why your foundation look whiter in photographs?). Anyone who has taken art class in school knows that dark colors recede while light colors highlight and bring forward. For this reason, having Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxide in bronzers and contour powders is quite the contradiction, in my opinion. By avoiding these ingredients in bronzers and contour powders, you’ll find that you can bronze/contour with much less product. The sunkissed look you achieve will look more natural and less made up, especially in front of the camera.

Farmgirl Beauty Secret #61: Customize your masks with herbal/vegetable supplements.

For those who have read my blog from the very beginning, you may be familiar with Farmgirl Beauty Secret #12: plain yogurt as a daily face pack. This is the mask that broke the perpetual breakout cycle that my hypersensitive skin was in since high school. It also launched my passion for skincare and ingredients, which lead me to creating this blog. Who knew plain o’ yogurt could be so inspirational? My skin gives no indication of its acne-prone past and I’m grateful for that. I still indulge my skin with yogurt mask occasionally. To make it an especially nutritious treat for my skin, I customize the yogurt mask with various supplements. These are tried-and-true supplements that can be added into the yogurt mask or your choice mask for an added skincare boost.

With this type of usage, you want to look for capsules or gel caps, which I've conveniently linked for you below with the best prices I was able to find. Tablet supplements won't mix properly and are ineffective for this purpose. With any type of Do-It-Yourself skincare, adding additional ingredients to another group of ingredients (preserved or not) means it’s no longer preserved properly. As always, mix a single-use batch and use it immediately.
Grape Seed Extract: Not to be confused with grapefruit seed extract, Grape Seed Extract is essentially the seeds of grapes, concentrated in gritty powder form for internal usage. This gives a great antioxidant boost to your skin, which makes it great for all skintypes. Leaves my skin feeling ultra-smooth and somehow stronger against the environment.
Green Tea Extract: Another great antioxidant supplement. This may also have a skin toning and firming effect due to the natural-occuring caffeine in green tea. Smells amazing when mixed with the yogurt mask (like green tea ice cream!) If you are sensitive to caffeine, this would be more suitable during morning masks. Great for oily skintypes.
Olive Leaf Extract: I take Olive Leaf Extract internally and also use it topically so it totally made sense for me to break open one of my olive leaf extract capsules and apply it to my skin. Another great antioxidant and this will be great for acne-prone skin types. Olive Leaf Extract+Yogurt = best mask for completely broken-out skin that has ruptured pimples and has been abused by acne products.
Activated Charcoal: Yes indeed, food-grade charcoal comes in capsule forms to be taken internally! Activated Charcoal is a great toxin absorber and would work well mixed in a clay mask or yogurt mask for extremely oily and acne-prone skin. Keep in mind it’s extremely concentrated. Use just a little bit to avoid black residue (it cleanses off easily with a cleanser in case you are left with black residue). This is also extremely potent.
Flax Seed Oil: As the name implies, it’s an oil. I take Flax Seed Oil daily and it comes in a seamless liquid capsule. This would be wonderful for drier skintypes and may help shield skin from UV rays. Some people do this with vitamin E oil but I prefer flax seed.

Once you make you selection from the supplements above, you’re ready to customize your mask!

To use:
Place a dollop of your mask in the palm of your hand. Open the capsule by pulling the 2 ends of capsule apart. Pour the entire or half of the content on top of the mask dollop, mix with your finger and apply to face. For liquid/softgel capsules (like flax seed oil), pierce one end of the capsule with a clean needle several times and pour content on top of the mask dollop. Proceed accordingly. As always, do a patch test on your cheek or neck to test your skin’s sensitivity and never use any ingredients on your face if you suspect that you may be allergic to those ingredients.

Happy mixing!

Farmgirl Beauty Secret #78: Moisturizer+Cotton ball=Radiant, flake-free skin.

Hi y’all! Before I begin, I want to thank you all for your continued support and encouragement. I honestly have the most thoughtful and creative readers around. Beyond reading the posts, you apply it and provide AMAZING feedbacks via comments/emails that are so inspiring to me. Thank you for being so awesome! As a token of my appreciation, here’s the tip of the week:
Banish flaky skin woes this winter by combining the power of exfoliation and moisturization- no Clarisonic brushes necessary! After cleansing, add a 1-2 pump(s) of your favorite moisturizer to a cotton ball. Gently blot the cotton ball to your forehead, cheeks and areas prone to dry, flaky skin. Proceed to sweep the cotton ball in GENTLE circular motion on your entire face BEFORE the moisturizer dries, concentrating on dry, flaky areas. You can do this weekly as a skin-reviving treatment or daily as a new way to apply your moisturizer (you will figure this out by your skin’s reaction; thin, delicate skin may only need this treatment 1-2 times weekly). The combination of emollients in your moisturizer and the exfoliating action of the cotton ball helps to loosen dead skin cells and polish them away while moisturizing the newly revealed skin.
Bonus: For an even more luxurious exfoliating treatment, try using the Shiseido Facial Cotton. $10 for cotton pads, you say? This is quite the departure from my normal recommendations but the texture of this cotton pad is so different. It is completely smooth and ultra soft. It leaves skin completely lint-free and doesn’t “eat” up toners and moisturizers like conventional cotton balls/pads, which really allows you to maximize the exfoliating treatment above. Go to your nearest Shiseido counter and they’ll gladly provide a sample. If you decide you can’t part without purchasing it, cut each cotton sheet in half before use- tada, you just doubled the number of uses!

Farmgirl Beauty Secret #6: Fake a lit-from-within glow.

Feeling and/or looking sallow? Lightly dust cheeks and décolleté with a pink-based mineral blush in the color families shown above (if there’s shimmer that’s even better!). Then, liberally apply your favorite moisturizer to your cheeks, rest of face and décolleté. Voila, instant envy-worthy glow!

Farmgirl Beauty Secret #120: dark liquid foundation+body lotion=ultra-sexy legs.

Get your gams holiday dress-ready with this simple fix: Mix 1-part dark liquid foundation (regardless of the shade you are- use the darkest shade you can find) and 5-part body lotion. Apply the mixture to the entire length of your legs and smooth out thoroughly.

This concoction evens out skin tone (think: liquid panty hose) and magically adds definition and contour to your legs. It doesn’t turn your skin a gaudy shade of orange like bronzers do. Bonus: it’s fairly transfer-resistant (if you are wearing light colors or are worried about any transfer, opt for a transfer-resistant foundation). The secret is in using only a small amount of foundation. For extra oomph, lightly dust the length of your shins and knees with any shimmery champagne eyeshadow you have on hand.

Product-analysis: 100% Pure Blackberry Pigmented Gel Eyeliner, 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Satin Eye Shadow in Barbados

It’s official: I am head over heels in love with 100% Pure. As a little farmgirl, I dreamt of making my own cosmetics. 100% Pure Fruit-pigmented Cosmetics encompasses everything I wanted in my dream color line and more. Not only are their products pigmented with antioxidant-rich fruits, vegetables and cocoa, every item from tinted moisturizer to eyeliner more than qualify as skincare treatments. Instead of mixing pigments with fillers, waxes and silicones, they use only awesome ingredients such as aloe vera, anti-aging resveratrol and peptides as the base of their cosmetics. This is completely unheard of in the cosmetics industry- imagine eyeshadows and eyeliners that have more potent, anti-aging ingredients than your average eye cream. Excuse me while I hyperventilate! I can be quite dramatic when I find something I LOVE, but how can you resist from swooning when you see an ingredient list like this?
Ingredients: Black Tea, Aloe Vera Gel, Rose Hydrosol, Blackberry Pigments, Blueberry Pigments, Candelilla Wax, Hydrogenated Jojoba Oil, Red Wine Resveratrol, Extracts of Oregano, Thyme, Rosemary, Lavender, Goji Berry, Acai Berry and Goldenseal, Peptides of Snow Pea, Black Rice and Hibiscus, Vitamin C (ascorbyl palmitate), Vitamin E (a-tocopherol), Rice Starch, Mica, Japanese Honeysuckle Extract

100% Pure recently expanded their color line so I knew I had to get my hands on them. I was instantly drawn to the new Gel Eyeliner in Blackberry. Aside from the fact that it’s an anti-aging treatment makeup, I was also super excited to see that they use black tea, blackberries and blueberries to pigment this liner. This works great as both a liner and an eyeshadow. The color is the most gorgeous deep plum that looks stunning on my brown eyes. The color is both electric and subtle. It’s laced with the slightest hint of fine gold..er, let’s call it “shimmer” for a lack of better words. The shimmer is so microscopic and few that it looks completely shimmer-free unless you look extremely close. I have the hardest time finding purples/plums that looks good on me. With this, not only does it work but it provides the most flattering contrast.
The Satin Eye Shadow in Barbados is equally eye-catching. The ingredients in the Satin Eye Shadows are very similar to the Eyeliners in that they both have treatment ingredients (yay!). The texture of this potted cream shadow is like butter, soft-solid in the pot but it gives way to the brush when I dab at it. Like the Eyeliner, this applies like a dream. The shade in the pot is a muted coffee taupe shimmer but when I apply it to my lids, the color transforms to a gorgeous rose gold taupe. It has a beautiful copper glow but it still gives some definition like a taupe shade should. I love pairing Blackberry and Barbados together. When mixed together, I get the most amazing shade of plumy brown that actually defines as oppose to wash me out. The 2 shades look vibrant but not over-the-top, which makes the perfect holiday look! I’m addicted to the look of both together and haven’t reached for any other eye color as of late.

If I could change 1 thing about these products, it’d be the packaging. As much as I love glass containers, I always have it in my head that potted cream makeup products will eventually dry out. If these came in plastic tubes with a skinny neck, that’d be awesome! Nonetheless, I don’t think anything is going to prevent me from collecting more of these fruit-pigmented beauties.

Farmgirl Beauty Secret #121: Sprinkle peppers in your heels to keep toes warm!

Every bit of warmth counts when wearing heels in the winter! Simply throw a generous dash of black pepper or dried chili pepper (think: red pepper packets you get at pizza parlors) inside each of your shoes and the natural “heat” of the peppers will release itself when it interacts with the *ahem* moisture of your feet.

Farmgirl Beauty Secret #4: Keep usage of heaters to a minimum.

Don’t get me wrong- in no way am I suggesting that we freeze! Sometimes we just can’t avoid using heaters when snow is plenty and little toes are frozen. However, I live in Southern California, where the sun shines nearly 365 days of the year. Around this season when the morning air is getting ever so slightly brisk, I can’t help but notice people misusing heaters when heaters have no business being on. Growing up on a farm has tought me how valuable energy resources are; I have it pounded in my brain that we should all conserve when possible. Aside from spending precious energy, turning up the heat for a prolonged period of time ages your skin. Heaters drain moisture from the air inside your home and literally move moisture from your dermis. Unless there’s snow outside, bundle up with your favorite sweater(s) and/or favorite person before you turn the heat up. When using the heater, drink lots of H2O, use a thicker, richer face cream and place bowls of water around the house to help counteract the drying effect.

Mineral Makeup 101

Mineral makeup’s growing popularity has been counterbalanced by some of its shortcomings. While mineral makeup is definitely more natural and simple in its ingredients, it is messier to use and its high physical sunscreen content often causes the makeup to look thick, chalky and “kabuki-like” when worn. Some of the more well-known mineral brands, such as Bare Minerals, contain an ingredient that causes itchiness and irritation called bismuth oxychloride.

Once you have knowledge on it, mineral makeup is not difficult to figure out. It’s basically a concentrated version of regular makeup without the emollients, waxes and filler ingredients. Here are some guidelines to follow if you’re venturing out to the world of mineral makeup.

** Read the ingredients and ALWAYS avoid bismuth oxychloride.
** If you still itch after avoiding bismuth oxychloride, you may be mica-sensitive. Contact me if you need recommendations. I'm always searching for mica-free minerals!
** Use minerals that are NOT “micronized” or “nano-particles”. While they’re not always advertised, these are to be avoided and a reputable brand should be able to provide this information. My top 3 brands of non-micronized minerals are Larenim Minerals (they make pressed minerals too!), Barefaced Minerals and DreamWorld Minerals.
** Avoid food-type ingredients, the most common are rice starch and corn starch.
** Good mineral sunscreens tend to have a lighter-colored finish from the natural physical sunscreen titanium dioxide and/or zinc oxide. To avoid looking too pale or pasty, make sure the color you choose is not too light.
** Minerals are easy to apply. Forget the buffing, lightly dust face with a thin layer of minerals and build up with additional thin layers if you need extra coverage. Use a small taklon brush for a high-coverage concealing effect. If you prefer a liquid makeup, mix a small amount w/ 2 pumps of your favorite moisturizer.
** Some people get oilier while wearing mineral makeup. This is due to the natural physical sunscreen and the fact that there are less filler ingredients to block and absorb excess oils. If you’re wearing mineral makeup, I suspect that wearing something natural is important to you. If that’s the case, blot with powder-free blotting sheets regularly and know that you’re doing something good for your skin.