We all remember those days from our teenage years – acne is a horrible affliction.

It’s most definitely NOT the end of the world, as we know as mature sensible adults. But darn if it doesn’t feel like it when you’re 13 (or even younger) and your face just starts to break out in hideous red sores and pussy nastiness. Right when you’re becoming highly conscious of the way you look too! Isn’t life cruel sometimes.

So my daughter was one of those teenagers who was hit moderately by acne. Certainly nothing severe, but enough to cause her a lot of upset, and I totally get that too, despite the inner me wanting to say “don’t worry, it will all go away in a few years”..! I fought that back because a few years really is a lifetime when you’re that age, so that won’t help anyone.

Instead I went on a quest to find some kind of solution for her. After all, acne treatments have come a long way since we were young, haven’t they..?

Well, the marketing certainly has, as has the sheer volume of products for sale. But the more I look into them, the more I realised they were very much of a muchness despite the clever branding.

We tried a few, they helped a bit, they cost a lot. Not very satisfying really. At least we were taking action which made daughter at least feel a bit better.

Information is what I wanted most of all, and being a bit of an optimistic hippy type I was convinced there was an inner solution to all this. It’s just the body getting out of sync right?

So, long story short, I found a book. It’s called Acne No More (great title) by a guy called Mike Walden – a Certified Nutrition Specialist. He fixed his 7 years of acne, and my what an information overload! So does acne no more really work? I don’t know if it works for everyone, but it definitely works amazingly for some people. It also helps you avoid a lot of the nonsense and marketing hype too.

It certainly came as a surprise to me that there are vitamins for acne control – I mean, they didn’t tell us that when I was a teenager!

Daughter is much happier now. She also feels she understands acne a lot better too, and has even been helping out her friends with advice to improve their acne.

No one likes it when their face gets oily. It can clog up pores, and cause pimples and other blemishes. But how can you make sure that doesn’t happen? Luckily, there’s a few simple, easy things you can do to help make sure you avoid those annoying skin blemishes.

The first thing you should do, for the low cost, low stress solution, is simply make sure to wash your face daily. Use a moisturizing soap to help keep your skin soft and supple, and washing daily can make sure your body is clean of any oils and dirt. The moisturizing soap is the important part however. Washing too often using regular soap can dry out your skin, even leaving it cracked and painful.

This is particularly important if you’re using any type of skin whitening products such as Civant’s Meladerm (more about that at whiteningcreamreviews.com, and also on Twitter). Some whitening creams do include skin conditioning and moisturising ingredients anyway, but it’s worth understanding exactly what’s in the product before you change your overall facial cleansing routine.

These products are also commonly used as creams for underarm whitening too (see here), where oily skin is never really a problem, but drying certainly can be.

You can also avoid skin drying by using plenty of skin moisturizing lotion. There are a number of lotions that also help keep oil off and away from the skin, and using these after you bathe can help make sure your skin stays soft, smooth, and most importantly, oil free.

Another low cost solution you can use is rubbing alcohol. Don’t use too much, as rubbing alcohol does run the risk of drying out the skin too. Simply grab a cotton ball, put a little bit of rubbing alcohol onto it, and use it to dab at your face. The alcohol will break down the oil and then evaporate away.

And if your face insists on being oily, then you can pull out the big guns. Make a paste using baking soda and water, and cake it onto your face. Let it dry, and let it sit on your face for at least ten minutes. Then wash it off. This will help pull the oil away from your face, and leave your face feeling clean and smooth.

Lastly, you can try a scrub. Be careful when using scrubs, as they can dry out your skin. But a popular one is one made from honey and sugar, which are simple household items you probably have sitting in your cabinet. Just be gentle when you use them.

You can also take a closer look at your diet – if you’re not eating healthily to start with this will show in your skin. Organic food may help, particularly if you suffer allergies, but at least try to eat lots of fresh produce.

We now live in an age where we are surrounded by technology no matter where we go. Even when we get inside a vehicle these days it can have LCD screens, which emit low level radiation, and Bluetooth which transmits over the airwaves. Both of these have shown themselves over the years to be pretty safe, even if you spent your whole life sitting in front of an LCD screen it would be unlikely to be a health risk (except for the lack of exercise, and no, I’m not recommending it!).

However, one piece of technology that has been in the news a lot over the last fifteen years about whether it is safe or not is the cell phone.

Cell phones work by broadcasting in the microwave spectrum, and so this makes people instantly think of what their microwave does to a chicken. However, the microwave spectrum is quite wide and so different parts interact with the environment in different ways. A microwave oven uses the high energy part of the spectrum, and is also targeted to one specific point. Whereas the part of the spectrum that mobile phones use is low powered and dispersed over a wide area. Although cell phones are designed to lock onto the nearest mast, they do not target the signal at it (they don’t really know which direction it is anyway).

Due to the fact that they use microwaves, it has led to a lot of people believing that cell phones can cause brain cancer. This is because they are often held to the ear, and so by linking the signal to microwave ovens, people concluded that they must be cooking their brain in some way, and that in turn results in brain cancer. This was not resolved either way in the early days (a bit like the early debate over organic food) when cell phones became popular, as a lot of research papers were simply inconclusive.

With cell phones now so prevalent in society, with well over a billion in use around the world, research has been much easier for the science community to carry out, as every demographic now owns one. Regardless of how the data is looked at, there is no evidence relating cell phone use to brain cancer. Research has even been carried out on the cell phone masts, often located on school buildings, but again, the conclusion is that no link exists between them and brain cancer.

Maybe long term use will start to show different results, but I suspect we are at far more risk from the mild stress caused by constant social media apps nagging us on our devices. And poor quality sleep this causes for those that sleep next to their phones. Tip: at the very least, put your phone on flight mode before you go to sleep.

Organic food is becoming an increasingly popular option for families who wish to adopt a healthier lifestyle. However, purchasing organic food on a regular basis can be expensive. So is organic food really worth it?

The food that is not labeled as organic may be exposed to a number of potentially dangerous substances before it ends up on the shelves of your supermarket. For instance, fruits and vegetables are exposed to pesticides while meat is packaged with preservatives to make it last longer. These substances are supposed to be safe – or rather, within legally defined ‘safe’ limits.

Quality organic food should be free of these potentially dangerous chemicals. And reducing your exposure to chemicals such as pesticides or preservatives may even reduce your risks of developing a number of health problems.
Organic food has more nutrients when compared to processed foods. Canned vegetables and processed meats lose the vitamins they contained during the preservation process. Fresh organic food is more likely to contain all the vitamins and minerals you need.

Organic food is better for the environment. Buying food that was grown organically will help your family reduce its footprint on the environment. Organic farmers use methods such as crop rotation or natural fertilizers to avoid having a negative impact on the environment.

The USDA has established some standards organic foods have to meet. Producers who sell less than $5,000 worth of food in a year do not have to obtain a certification from the USDA but they have to follow the guidelines established by the USDA. Before you buy organic food, make sure the USDA label is present or make sure the producer follows those guidelines.

A product can be labeled as organic if 95% of its ingredients are organic. You will come across products labeled as containing some organic ingredients, which means they contain anywhere between 70% and 95%.

You should also watch out for products labeled as ‘natural’. You will come across products presented as natural or free of hormones, but this does not necessarily mean they are being particularly honest! Organic food can be expensive, which is why you need to make sure what you buy really is what you think it is.

Choosing organic food can help you and your family adopt a healthier lifestyle while reducing your environmental footprint. This is a good way to reduce your exposure to chemicals and additives, some of which have been linked to specific health problems. But learn how to recognize organic labels to make sure you get the real deal.