Nothing Worked for Dark Spots

It's been over a month since I started using the moisturizer Aveeno Positively Radiant.  I use morning and night.  It has not made my face positively radiant, it has positively done nothing to improve my uneven skin tone.  Another disappointment. I guess I will have to just accept my face as it is.  I am thankful that I do not have face blemishes that cannot be at least partially covered with makeup. There are worse things in life than a few dark spots on my face.  The Estee Lauder Camouflage makeup that I purchased for $36 doesn't do what people say it does either.  Sure, it will cover the discoloration if you want to put on several layers of it and look like you have skin made of brown flour.  You won't look like you have smooth flawless skin, you'll look like you have layered on a whole container of foundation to cover something up.

I've started working out again and I've heard that's good for your skin, hair and nails so perhaps I'll see some results.  Groupon had a deal posted for Jazzercise and I like to dance (when no one is watching) and I saw the Jazzercise place just around the corner from my house so I bought the deal. Yesterday morning I got my workout gear on and had to keep telling myself that I had to go, it was going to be a hard workout but I would survive and I had to go.  So, I got my lazy self there and I was right...it WAS hard, very hard.  I pleaded in my mind, at one point, for the instructor to please start the cool down but she continued to keep our heart rates up.  Oh dear Lord help me.  Finally the agony was over and I had survived.  The instructor and the woman who worked at the front desk were super nice and a mature woman who was working out introduced herself to me.  She was so sweet. She was my inspiration. I'll go back tomorrow for another session and hopefully in a couple weeks I won't feel like crying in the middle of the workout because I'm just not strong enough to keep going.  Can we please just march in place for a few minutes while I catch my breath?

You know how unfair it is that you work out and get yourself in decent shape and then you stop working out and overnight you fall out of shape again.  Working out is not something you can do for a few months to get yourself looking and feeling good.  It's something you have to keep doing for the rest of your life if you want to be in shape.  It takes time and pain and motivation but it has to be a change you are willing to make for the long run.  How many times have you or someone you know gotten into great shape or lost some weight and then a couple years later they are back to where they started.  It's like giving birth to a child, we forget the pain we endured to get in shape and lose the weight.  Slowly the weight packs back on and the muscle we built up goes away and we have to start all over again.  I vow today that I will not let that happen to me again.  I am going to get my butt in shape (literally) and I will not let it sag again!!  Who's with me?

Frankincense and Castor Oil Didn't Help Me

I'm on this frustrating road to fix the sun spots, age spots, whatever their called spots on my face.  I wasn't a sun worshiper, I used sunscreen, I rarely burned and I've never been to a tanning salon. Since I've been married, 15 years, I think there was one vacation where I sat out and tanned.  My husband loves to sit and bake in the sun, I prefer to find some shade and read a book without having the sun glaring in my eyes. So, that is why these spots on my face are ticking me off.  I think that it's also genetic since my mom and aunt have uneven skin tone. I should have started using spot correctors earlier then I would have possibly been able to prevent the spots from appearing.

I used the castor oil and frankincense oil mixture for almost two weeks and then I switched over to just using the frankincense on my spots. Despite the awful smell of the stuff they did nothing for my spots or the pigment above my lip.  I am quite sure that the darkness above my lip is due to the Nair I used in my early 20s.  I seriously think that it destroyed some skin cells while it was burning the hair of my face! It's like burning the skin on a chicken, you can't just make it go back to golden brown once it's gone to black.  It's skin damage and the only way to fix it permanently is to go to a dermatologist. My quick fix solution is to buy makeup to cover it up.  So far none of the make up I have purchased at the drug stores have covered it up so I'm going to Belk to buy Estee Lauder Double Wear Maximum Cover Camouflage Makeup.  (with a name that long it's got to be good!).  It has excellent reviews by people who are over 40 which makes the reviews more relevant to me.  I see these reviews of products that say a product work great, it made their skin look so wonderful..ya da ya da ya da.  these reviewers are in their 20's!  Tell me how good the product works when you get past 40 please.  When you're in your 20's everything works.

So, I'll let you know how the Estee Lauder Camouflage makeup works and if it doesn't then my last resort is to go the dermatologist route.

I did purchase one more product in one last ditch effort to find something to fix the damage. Jennifer Aniston advertises this product, Aveeno positively radiant moisturizer.  I don't have high hopes for it but I just can't seem to stop buying products.  I also purchased some products from The Body Shop that I've been using for at least a week. These products had great reviews.  People said they saw a difference in their skin almost immediately!  The one product is Vitamin C Skin Boost.  It is supposed to give you a silky smooth finish and it really does.  If your goal is to have skin that feels silky then this is a product for you, however I don't stroke my face all day and no one else does either. Essentially this product is a primer with vitamin C in it.  If you purchase a primer to put on under your makeup you'll get pretty much the same thing as this.  The other product is a Vitamin C Facial Radiance Powder.  It's a powder that you mix in with a serum and that mixture is what you put on your face. You use it for 10 days and within that time the results you should see are improved skin tone and texture.  The reviews were so phenomenal that I bought a few of these.  My results?  No difference in skin!  Zip, Zero, Nada!!! Perhaps it'll take longer to see a difference.  I'll keep you posted.

Keep your chin up (but wear sunscreen).

Small Town Living

I grew up in a small town in Ontario (Canada) and enjoyed it. I could walk to the store, although it was probably a 20 minute walk but it was safe and there were sidewalks. I could ride my bike without care or concern.  I played in the woods down the road from my house and in winter skated on a small patch of ice there, running home to get hot chocolate when my feet felt like ice blocks.  The school I attended wasn't overpopulated like the schools I see here in the USA. We had 2 grade 8 classes, so a total of maybe 60 kids in our graduating class. We all knew each other.  It was a great small town life. That's one of the reasons my husband and I chose a small town to raise our kids. He grew up in a small town too.

Being kids in a small town, not adults,  meant we didn't hear about the gossip that went around town or in church.  I'm sure it was there but we were too busy being kids to notice.  Now we're adults and our eyes were rudely opened when we moved to a small town down South.  We thought the South was supposed to about hospitality and friendliness.  Apparently not everyone got the memo.

When we moved here a neighbor brought over a fern to welcome us and I thought that was so nice, even though I just have to hold a plant and it will wilt in my hands because it knows it's going to die soon so it might as well kill itself before I have a chance to kill it.  Anyways, that friendship with those neighbors lasted a few months before we saw the claws come out on the grandma, the head of that household, and we steered clear of anything to do with her and her grand kids from that day forward.  It was a bit tense in the cul-de-sac for a while.

I won't go into the gory details but suffice it to say that rumors spread fast in a small town.  If something happens at school then the kids bring home the details, not usually accurately, and then the parents talk to their friends about it and the details get even more skewed. Then there are the police who have nothing better to do than stop kids for just walking around town or riding their skateboards.  Kids can't just be kids and hang out?  As soon as the police in town knew a kid's name they were sure to let other people they were in contact with know that kid's 'reputation' and let the parents know they should stay clear of them.  Do you know that a kid will do what you expect them to do? So if they figure you don't have any confidence in them to do right then they'll think there's no use in doing right because you expect them to do wrong anyways.  They will be as good as your expectations about them are.  This plays out in schools, at home, in society.
The principal, I think, found it fun to interrogate kids.  He should have gone into police work instead.  His philosophy, as far as I can tell, was that it's better to get them out of 'his' school than to have them there contaminating the hallways and classrooms with their 'bad selves'.  Whether getting them out meant juvenile detention or alternative school, either one would work for him. And don't expect him to keep things confidential. He would call parents and tell them that the friend their kid was choosing to hang out with was bad news and they should do something to stop the friendship. There was no attempt to help the troubled kids at school. There were too many kids to do that. It's just easier to get them out of that school.

So, in the end I've come to the conclusion that small town living isn't for me (not here anyways).  Perhaps things are different in the town we moved from in Canada.  Before we moved I didn't see anything like what I saw in the small town down here.  Kids could ride their bikes and walk around without being stopped by police, parents stood outside school waiting to pick their kids up after school and we talked, principals cared and had time for students. There weren't arrests and suspensions like I've seen here.  We've since moved out of that small town of drama and gossip and are living much more peacefully. Praise God.

Castor Oil and Frankincense

I'm on the fence about the Hydroquinone.  The fact that a country banned the use of it is a huge factor in whether I should use it for 30 days or not.  If we consider the fact that the food we consume probably has cancer causing agents in it why would using a beauty product with a 'potentially' harmful ingredient in it concern me.  If I researched everything that is in my meat alone I'm sure I would find something the animals were given to increase their desirability to producers that is harmful to me. I breathe toxic air from pollution every day.  So why worry about using a beauty product that has an ingredient in it that dermatologists prescribe to their customers?

There's a natural route I am going to try for the next 2 weeks.  The internet said that within 2 weeks of using this mixture I should see results.  The spots won't be gone but I should see something happening.  It's Frankincense (the essential oil not a cheap oil you find at a department store.  it's from Young Living but you can get it another brand at health stores I'm sure) mixed with castor oil.  Mix 10 drops of frankincense with 1 tablespoon of castor oil in a container that doesn't let in light and can be sealed air tight.  Put the mixture on your dark spots or if you have a cluster of spots then use it over that area.  You can use this on your body as well.  Do NOT get it near your eyes.  It is reported that you should see fading of spots in 2 weeks and up to 2 months to see them disappear.  I'm not expecting disappearing of spots but faded enough to cover with makeup would be great.

The picture above was taken last September before I started using a cream with alpha hydroxy in it.  The picture below is today.  It's worse.  If you notice there's at the top left that's reddish.  After using two products from Selma Hayek's line of products one of the brown spots turned into a red scab and this is what the final result of that is.  I'm going to try the castor oil / frankincense mixture and post picture in a couple weeks.  In the meantime I'll be posting comments about products I've used over the last couple years, obviously all a waste of money although my face is hydrated and there's sunscreen in the moisturizer.  

Until next time....be an inspiration to someone.  

Update: I mixed the castor oil and frankincense.  I put it in a tupperware container that seals airtight then wrapped the bottom and top with tin foil.  I hope that keeps the light out.  I put the first application on with q-tips. It feels greasy on my face, doesn't absorb as it said on the internet. I'll use my daily moisturizer and see if that helps get rid of the sticky greasy feel.  

I hit the 40 mark last June and feel like since then I've aged 5 years. Have you ever looked at pictures of yourself from days gone by and wondered what beauty flaws you had to complain about back then?  I know that I never appreciated my unblemished skin, my naturally curly hair, my full lips.  Dang I should have appreciated what I had in my 20's and 30's.  In 10 years from now will I look at pictures of myself from right now and say the same thing?  Yes, probably.  It's not like I'm getting any younger and I can say in 10 years that I look better than I did 10 years ago (unless of course I get plastic surgery and that's not on the wish list unless they come up with a more user friendly version of face lifts).

When I look in the mirror I see skin that used to be firm and flawless but is now dull and scattered with dark spots of different shades.  It seems like just a short time ago I was able to go out without wearing any makeup.  Where did the time go? It seriously feels like I just woke up one day and my face had changed. What next? I didn't even get time to adjust.  Aging just hit me without warning.

So, what can I do about it?  Well, ladies, if you're in the same boat as me you've probably been online or to the stores searching high and low for a miracle in a bottle.   Since we're all aging there has to be something out there to help us slow down the process without having to get laser treatments or having all the dead cells scraped off our faces.  I've tried many products and I'll share the names of the products in another post but for now I want to tell you about an ingredient I discovered in a product I just purchased but have not yet used.

The ingredient is HYDROQUINONE.   You may also see an impure form of hydroquinone found in the ingredients TOCOPHERAL ACETATE and other ingredients that start with the root TOCO.  It is used in products that reduce dark spots because of it's ability to decrease melanin production in the skin.  Products sold as non-prescription can have up to 2% of hydroquinone and prescription strength up to 4%.   This ingredient has been banned in Europe because of its side effects and the USA FDA has proposed banning it and labeling it as a carcinogen.  The Campaign of Safe Cosmetics website (safecosmetics.org) stated that it is one of the most toxic ingredients being used in cosmetics.  In lab tests on rats it has caused leukemia. Some people who used products with this ingredient long term (it doesn't say how long the term was) and in high dosages (it doesn't mention what  a large dose is) developed ochronosis, a bluish discoloring of the skin.  This was mainly found to occur in persons of color.  The ingredient has also been found to thin the skin, leaving irreversible stretch marks. One other thing I read was that it causes a degeneration of collagen and elasticity fibers.  Well that's great.  We won't have the age spots but we'll have saggy skin.  I can sort of cover up age spots but I can't pin up saggy skin.  Here is an article I found helpful
http://www.jernehbysheilamajid.com/hydroquinone-dangers.asp.  A differing viewpoint can be found on Paula's Choice website where she disagrees with the research findings (or rather puts them in a different light. http://www.paulaschoice.com/cosmetic-ingredient-dictionary/definition/hydroquinone.

Personally I would rather be safe than sorry.  I don't want to take the chance that in the future the researchers will discover more evidence linking beauty products with the ingredient hydroquinone in it to cancer. What is the alternative to products with hydroquinone? Is there anything that's just as good that isn't super expensive?  I'll do some searching and get back here to report tomorrow.  I can tell you that there are some natural remedies that may work.  Lemon juice (didn't work for me though), castor oil (I bought a bottle last month but only used for a short time, not long enough to see if it makes a difference), buttermilk, yogurt, aloe vera, sandlewood, horseradish, papaya, red currants, onion juice.  I'll read up on these , as well as frankincense and let you know what I find.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder....and the only beholder we need to be concerned about is God.

Keep smiling because today is a blessed day.

And so the story goes...

I graduated from high school a semester ahead of most of my friends. I couldn't wait to get out of there.  Nothing really exciting happened in high school.  I wasn't a geek. Those girls who went to high school with me can correct me if I'm wrong, but if you were a friend of mine back then you better not say I was a geek because that puts you in that group right with me sweetie! I wasn't at all athletic (although I did tryout for soccer. During tryouts we had to jog around the track 13 times. If it wasn't 13 it sure as heck felt like 13 because I was needing CPR afterwards and that's what ended my dream of being a soccer star). I was one of the kids who very few will remember.  I didn't cause attention to be drawn to myself, not on purpose anyways.  One time I remember slipping on the ice going back to the main building from the portables (not port-a-potties. I think they call them trailers here in the USA but where I come from they are called portables).  I had on my lovely blue and gold quilt (not by choice, people!  It was a uniform. That's what they do to Catholic children, they give you rules and nasty fashion) with some sort of dress shoe that didn't have a grip (I would have worn running shoes but I looked so great in that blue and gold quilt, I didn't want to ruin the look with Nikes). Of course, I slipped on the ice in front of one of the good looking guys in school and of course the jerk didn't help me up.  Now, if I had slipped in front of a geek then you know he would have. If I could do over my high school years I would have been less afraid of what people think and gotten involved. Today, when I enter a building you know it because you can hear me a mile away. No need to comment on that, friends.  I'm making up for all the times I should have stood out in high school.


In January 1991 I finished my high school classes and in May I moved 3 hours away from home to attend the University of Guelph (Ontario). I didn't choose it for it's top notch education or awards they won in sports. I don't think they had sports. I never saw anyone playing sports on campus but I'm sure they must have.  I do remember that there was an indoor hockey rink on campus somewhere. When I tell you about my years in University you'll understand why I didn't know about what was going on around me on campus. (no drugs were involved)  Many of the students at U of G were AGGI's ... agriculture students/future farmers...and veterinarian students.  The University was known for those two programs.  I didn't attend hoping to be a farmer or to marry a farmer. I would have loved to be a veterinarian but science wasn't my forte so that program wasn't even a consideration.  Why did I pick the University of Guelph then? The campus and the buildings are beautiful.  There are old-fashioned brick buildings, trees lined red brick pathways and an arboretum.  The picture on the right is one of the dormitories, Johnson Hall. (taken from wikepedia.org). I didn't stay there, instead I stayed in a drab high rise apartment dormitory.  It wasn't anything to look at but it had a beautiful view and I didn't have to eat the cafeteria food.

I've heard the Universities in the US have some good eatin' but at the University of Guelph there wasn't Subway or Chic-fil-A. I really have no idea what they served because the only place I ate at on campus was at The Keg, a bar that had a little kitchen in the back where you could get counter service.  I worked in the kitchen for a year, cooking and yelling orders out when the bar was packed with drunk students. (good thing I have a voice that carries. See, it's good for something).  We had some good food ... eggs for breakfast, fresh deep fried nachos with cheese, fries we made ourselves by throwing huge bags of potatoes into a french fry cutting machine then deep frying them and serving them with chili and cheese, tuna melts, quiche. It was actually really good food.

University would have been a great time for me if I had not hooked up with a guy my second year there. I wish I could do it all over again, however I'm sure that going through that relationship helped me once I met Mark.  I knew exactly what I didn't want in a relationship.

I'll talk about that in my next post. Relationships that shouldn't last as long as they do, but the lessons we can learn from them (lessons I learned anyways).

I don't remember anything about the house I lived in from the time I was born until I was 3.  That house was in Chatham, Ontario, the city my dad grew up in, where his sister's family lived and where his mom lived.  When I was 5 we moved 30 minutes away to Tilbury, my mom's hometown where my meme (grandma) and pepe (grandpa), my mom's meme's, and mom's younger brother lived.  Dad was the assistant manager at the grocery store there for 2  years, then he was transferred to Kingsville, a small town 30-40 minutes away, to take the Manager position at a new store there.  

While we were living in Tilbury I met my husband.  I didn't actually know it then, of course, and neither did he.  The Drinkwaters, a British family who had just taken the boat (it was probably a plane but a boat sounds more exciting)over from England moved in next door to us on Crawford St.  Anne Drinkwater was the same age as my mom's older sister (same birthday even) and my mom helped her to feel less homesick being so far from home.  When my mom worked Anne would babysit me.  Their first Halloween in Canada we took the Drinkwater boys, Mark (9) and Steven (11), trick-or-treating since they don't do trick-or-treating in England. In England their Halloween is Nov 5 and they call it Guy Fawkes night. They have fireworks, set bonfires and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes. Sounds like a great kid friendly event. The Drinkwater's and my family took short trips together (see beach pic below) and the boys camped out in our living room once (I only know that because I have pictures).  In the picture below, from left to right : Anne, my sister, me on my mom's lap and Mark being goofy (I'm sure he brought that bathing suit from England. It doesn't look like anything I've seen a boy wear before.  It's a cross between a speedo and short shorts.)

Mark, who is now my husband, remembers having dinner at our picnic table in our backyard and he remembers the Halloween that he trick-or-treated with us. I wish I had memories of him from back then. All I can remember is that he was cute, like Beaver Cleaver, with chubby cheeks. In the picture above his cheeks aren't chubby so I'm not sure what I was thinking.  Maybe I was thinking of my own cheeks.

We moved to Kingsville when I was 7 and the Drinkwater's would visit us on occasion but as the years passed by the time between visits got longer.  I don't remember them visiting us at all but Mark remembers a New Years Eve get together at our house, probably the first year we were in the new house, and he had asked his parents on the way to our house if he had to kiss the Westman girls at midnight. (I don't hear him complaining about kissing me now.. LOL).  By the time I was in my early teens visits were mainly between my mom and Anne when my mom would visit my meme in Tilbury and afterwards she would go around the block and visit Anne. Before Mark and I started dating, the last time I can recall catching a glimpse of him (and that's all it was, a glimpse) was when I was with my mom visiting at Anne's house.  I was around 13 so that would have put Mark at 17.  He was in the living room watching tv and I couldn't see him well because Anne had this fabulous (not really) macrame door partition hanging between the kitchen and living room.  Mom, Anne and I sat in the dining room and Mark, being his typical social self  (not.. although who can blame him.  he's 17 and there's an awkward 13 yr old geek with braces visiting) didn't bother coming to say hi to the visitors. He left shortly after we arrived to go find something more entertaining to do (because the town of Tilbury with its 4000 people is a barrel full of fun!).

The next time I saw him  was at The RoadKill Cafe.  I was one week shy of 24 and he was almost 28.