I Didn't Know You Had Freckles On Your Nose!

One of the first indicators that I was not born with flawless skin was an incident that happened on the little-yellow-school-bus many years ago. One of my best friends and I were sitting on our afternoon ride home from school when she blurted, "I didn't know you had so many freckles on your nose!" You see, I didn't have any freckles...I was cursed with blackheads. Nothing suited me more than to crawl under my seat, leaving my plagued skin and I alone in a dark, isolated cave. Thanks to progressive technology and advanced research, any skin problem has its solution. Have some hyperpigmentation? Laser treatments, peels and dermatologist- performed microdermabrasion can fix that in no time. Frown lines won't go away? Botox injections can fill in those wrinkles asap. Always remember this and never fret about your skin...there's always something out in the vast universe that can fix it!

After getting over some embarrassment, I mustered up the courage to get off the bus, walk home and figure out what the next step was to clear my complexion. All throughout high school, I turned to Biore's Deep Cleansing Pore Strips to remove blackheads and clean out my pores. For four years, these strips did the job and never again did someone ask if I had freckles (I still feel so embarrassed recalling the situation!). However, once I moved to Manhattan and started college, I found that deep-cleansing masks worked more efficiently and weren't as abrasive as the skin-ripping pore strips. I haven't found a better one than Kiehl's Rare-Earth Facial Cleansing Masque. This morning I used a Biore pore strip (after having not used any for about three years) on my nose and used two of their face strips on my chin and forehead. I followed each instruction step-by-step and allowed the strips to dry for about ten minutes. When the time came to remove them, I started pulling the strips and experienced quite a bit of pain. My face was beet-red and looked super-irritated. I can't imagine this as being healthy or good to do to my skin! Perhaps the most unfortunate part was excitedly looking at the strips and seeing nothing on them knowing full well that blackheads could have been pulled. Perhaps Biore changed their original formula for the strips? I don't remember them being so ineffective. What are your experiences with these pore strips?

Dove and Eucerin: Solutions for Sensitive Skin

How I long to be one of those women with a bathroom filled with scented cakes of soap. I would have bars galore of lemon verbena, lychee, grapefruit and, to be daring, cinnamon bun-scented soap! But, alas, I am not. For some strange reason, my facial skin can tolerate all the peels, scrubs and liquid nitrogen treatments(as performed by my dermatologist) imaginable, but when I rub a dollop of coriander scented lotion on my body, all hell breaks loose. After hearing endless praise over Fresh's Hesperides Soap, I decided to try it, knowing full well what the consequences would be. This nonsensical action would be equivalent to someone who was lactose intolerant eating a large bowl of yogurt, finishing it off tall glass of chocolate milk. Let's just say that the soap waged a war on my body. Welts and irritation flared up on both my arms, putting me into state of panicked frenzy. I had to immediately toss the culprit and go back to my lifetime go-to body cleanser, Dove beauty bars. My skin wasn't only irritated, it was super dry and flaking. Eucerin Calming Creme nursed my body back to health. It's super rich formula intensely hydrated the dry patches and soothed my skin by taking out the redness and stopping the itch. The calming cream contains natural oatmeal, dimethicone (which seals in moisture by creating a glove-like barrier) and, just what my skin needs, no fragrance. Perhaps one special perk from lacking an arsenal of scented bath products is that it keeps those friends, also known as bathroom snoopers, from spending twenty minutes in my bathroom!