Beauty Facts and Myths Beauty Care Feb-2011

Beauty Facts and Myths

.1Beauty boosts income—but so do brains

Attractive people are assumed to be smarter and more capable than average-looking people; research shows that attractive job applicants are hired more often and offered better employee packages than unattractive applicants. However, evidence also reveals that education and intelligence still had greater payoffs than attractiveness when it came to their effect on people’s overall income level.

2. Personality makes you pretty

Your personality shines through to those close to you. According to studies published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, people who are considered by friends or acquaintances to be co-operative, brave, dependable, or hard-working are perceived as more attractive. People known to be rude or offensive are seen as less physically appealing. Personality traits are as important in determining beauty as smooth skin and symmetrical features.

3. Curiosity and confidence = cuteness

“People are flattered when you find them appealing—and they naturally reciprocate,” says Ann Demarais, co-author of First Impressions: What You Don’t Know About How Others See You (Bantam, 2004). One of the easiest ways to increase your natural beauty is to accept and be interested in other people. “Showing interest is a component of confidence,” she says. “And when you’re confident, you appear more physically attractive.”

4. A little wiggle in your walk goes a long way

“People have always tried to identify the magical formula for beauty,” says researcher Kerri Johnson of New York University. “We knew body shape was important, but we found movement was also key.” Her study shows that women who sway their hips and men who walk with a swagger are both perceived as more attractive.

5. Superficial cavemen and material girls?

Speed-dating research shows that men are attracted to beautiful women, and women to wealthy men. But this doesn’t mean we’re superficial or materialistic! Beauty indicates good health and future offspring; material wealth is a sign of security and commitment.

6. Wrinkles are welcome

Skin tone influences perceived beauty more than crow’s feet or laugh lines. An even skin tone offers positive clues about a person’s health and reproductive capability—and research shows that an uneven or blotchy skin tone, caused by cumulative sun damage and natural aging, can add 10 to 12 years to a woman’s age.

Read more

Homeopathy and Skin Problems

Homeopathy and Skin Problems

Had this boy developed a high temperature and not had the itching and the restless quality that suggested using Rhus tox, I would have chosen Belladonna made from the deadly nightshade plant and excellent for fevers that start suddenly and become high, with or without a rash.

If you’re puzzling over deadly nightshade for fever and poison oak for a rash, these are prime examples of homeopathy’s guiding principle: “Like remedies cure like diseases.” Rest assured, homeopathic remedies are prepared so that they are entirely non-toxic.

Unlike pharmaceutical medicines, homeopathy works with the body’s own healing agents; remedies not only act more naturally, they also reduce sick time and can prevent future recurrences. If problems do persist or recur, seek the advice of a homeopath, as there are many remedies for every condition, each chosen to match the individual.

Got allergies? You will find Apis, derived from the honeybee, most useful for hives, especially if the welts look like stings: very red, swollen, and hot. Another remedy is Urtica urens, made from stinging nettle. While both Apis and Urtica can be used to relieve the stinging, burning, and itching of hives, use Apis when there is more burning and stinging and Urnica when the itching is more prominent, and the person feels better lying down.

Pesky cold sores are painful and embarrassing. For small, transparent pearls that develop about the lips, you’ll find Natrum muriaticum speeds healing, especially for those with sun-sensitive skin. If your cold sores itch and burn in cold, wet weather, use Rhus tox, the poison oak remedy.

For boils and abscesses choose Hepar sulphur for an abscess you can’t bear to touch or homeopathic for slowly developing, hard, stubborn boils not quite so sensitive. Sulphur is a common homeopathic remedy for yellow boils that recur on oily skin, especially on the buttocks. Also consider Arsenicum album when pains are markedly burning and the person feels anxious.(Homeopathy )

Read more

Henna Plant: Lawsonia Inermis Figure

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

SubClass: Rosidae

Order: Myrtales

Family: Lythraceae

26

To establish criteria for henna, the plant must be defined. Henna, Lawsonia inermis, is a tall shrub or small tree, 2 – 6 m high. It is glabrous, multibranched with spine tipped branchlets. Leaves are opposite, entire, glabrous, sub sessile, elliptical, and broadly lanceolate (1.5 – 5.0 CM x 0.5 – 2 cm, acuminate, having depressed veins on the dorsal surface (Kumar, Singh, & Singh, 2005).

Read more

Systematic Investigation of Henna

Evidence of henna body art must be based on directly observing henna’s characteristics, and extending these observations into the past, to that which we cannot directly observe. We observe that henna leaves a rusty-red stain on skin. Henna’s dye is lawsone, the red-orange dye molecule. Lawsone stains skin and other keratin. The initial stain is orange, and that may oxidize to dark red, to brown, and nearly black. Human skin is presumably the same now as it was 8,000 years ago. The henna plant and its lawsone molecule are presumably the same now as it was 8,000 years ago. If henna leaves a brick colored stain on hands and feet now, henna should have left a brick colored stain on hands and feet consistently since the late Neolithic.

Read more

Henna Mehndi body art: stain on skin

Henna Mehndi  body art: stain on skin

“ I didn’t know white people did henna!” (Indian-American girl observing Catherine Cartwright-Jones apply bridal henna to her older sister: Mansfield, Ohio, 2005)

2

During the last twenty years, henna body art has emerged from South Asia, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa into the popular culture of the USA, Canada, Europe and the UK (Maira, 2000). The western world has little understanding of henna, its techniques, traditions or history, and no legal or commercial framework for definition or regulation of henna. There have been scattered mentions of henna in anthropological, botanical, medical, historical, economic and legal literatures, but there has never been an integrated multidisciplinary study of what henna is. There is no resource on henna that includes where it was used, when it was used, how it was used, why it was used, who used it, nor have these elements been linked. The lack of a coordinated source of information about henna hampers not only academic for discussion about henna’s history and traditions, but stands in the way of ordinary people’s understanding and enjoyment of henna.

In this first chapter, I will demonstrate the need for a scholarly investigation of henna, particularly the historic regions of henna body art. Chapter two will define the criteria for investigating henna. Chapter three will test the usefulness of the proposed criteria. Chapter four will show how historical regions of henna can be mapped based on these investigations. Chapter five will propose the potential use of mapping the geographies of henna.

Read more