If someone tells you they made a soap without using this, I hate to tell you this- but they lied. All bar soaps are made with sodium hydroxide, also known as "caustic soda". All soap really is is the outcome of a chemical reaction that occurs when a high alkali (the lye) reacts to an oil, but with a well made soap there is no lye remaining in the finished product.

One wise soaper compared it to baking a cake.When you first mix the batter you have your flour, eggs, sugar, oil, etc. When you beat it all together it is still just batter- not something you would probably want to eat. (Unless it’s chocolate! Hehe..) Anyway, the point is when you put that batter in the oven, the heat creates a chemical reaction and cooks the batter. When that batter comes out of the over it’s no longer your original ingredients just stirred together- it’s something entirely new. Cake! It’s a similar idea with soap, only the process is called saponification.

Even liquid soap or "shower gels" are made with a form of lye called potassium hydroxide, or "caustic potash". Sometimes instead of using the ingredient "sodium hydroxide" on a label, people or companies may use the terms "saponified olive oil", "saponified palm oil", etc. It is the very same thing- just a different way of listing ingredients.

You can visit this author’s website at Chambers’ Essentials- free healthy beauty and household tips & recipes.

A patient of mine called me a few weeks ago complaining that her eyes were hurting. I told her to come by the office and I would check her out. After looking at her eyes, I noticed some redness and slight corneal swelling. This concerned me because she was a fairly new patient who had just recently begun wearing contact lens within the past three months.

After administering some tests and gathering some information, it was determined that the source of her eye irritation was stemming from storing her contact lenses improperly and not cleaning her contact lens case. The sad part about this situation is that it happens all too often when it could very easily be avoided.

Caring for your contact lens and the contact lens case correctly is critical to maintaining the ongoing health of your eyes. By improperly cleaning your contact lens case, you are allowing harmful bacteria to build up on your contact lens. Given time, this buildup will begin to irritate your eyes. If left uncorrected, this can seriously damage your visual health.

To avoid this, simply cleanse your contact lens case according to the instruction given by the manufacturer. This will usually include rinsing the case out at regular intervals with a specified cleansing solution or using very hot tap water and then letting the case air dry.

Remember to only use commercial cleansing solutions recommended by your eye care practitioner. Homemade remedies fail to properly destroy the bacteria that are found in contact lenses (and accessories). One of the most destructive known eye infections comes from an ameba named Acanthamoeba. It enters the eye through failure to properly cleanse, handle, and store contact lenses and cases.

In addition to proper cleansing/disinfecting the contact lens case, most eye care practitioners recommend discarding your case every month or every three to four months. Although this may seem like a lot, most designer contact lens cases can be purchased for less than $10 with very basic screw-top cases being available for under $2.

It is important to remember that cleaning the contact lens case is just as important as cleansing the contact lens itself. It only takes a minute to properly cleanse and store your contact lens and case properly. Use only the recommended cleaning solution for your contact lens case and discard your case at appropriate intervals. By doing this, you can eliminate the risk of infection, and ensure the utmost health of your eyes.

Mike Schwartz is the owner of the popular web site Best Contact Lenses Online. His site provides useful tips, resources, and reviews to help you make the best decision when purchasing contact lenses on the Internet.

Try henna- you’d be surprised the various shades of reds, browns, and burgundys you can get. And even better yet, henna is completely natural and can actually help strengthen your hair. Woman have been using this stuff since the days of Cleopatra and theres good reason for it!

It can actually be fun sometimes too- there are dozens or herbs, spices, and essential oils you can add to the concoction that can be great for your hair and can sometimes effect the shading of the color outcome. Henna is not just for the "Lucille Ball" kind of red! For example, rosemary essential oil and coffees are great additives for enhancing brown tones. For more golden tones you can add chamomile, black tea, or turmeric. Reds are even more easily enhanced with paprika, cloves, or beetroot powder. Though remember this is a natural alternative and cannot actually lighten hair! The outcomes is highly dependent on your original hair color. The sky is the limit- have fun experimenting!

The bottom line is this is the safest way to go for a new hair color or to hide the grays. Hair dyes these days are so filled with chemicals that can damage your hair in the long run and some research has showed that it may actually have negative effects on our health and the environment, that it is simply not worth the convenience anymore.

You can visit this author’s website at Chambers’ Essentials- free healthy beauty and household tips & recipes.

Beauty of the skin starts from inside your body! Your skin needs fresh air, exercise, a proper diet, minerals and vitamins and it needs protection from the sun.

Many people just put skin cream on their skin, thinking it is going to make it soft and smooth. Skin cream on the skin feels soft and smooth, but if you want your skin to benefit from that cream, you need to dampen your skin first then add the cream. The cream will help retain the moisture in the skin.

Start walking and building up your muscle tone. Muscle tone will keep your skin from looking so saggy.

Keep your skin clean. Do not scrub your face. The face does not need scrubbing. And, neither does your back. In fact, the more you scrub on it, the more acne you can get and more trauma to your skin.

A warm face cloth with a non-chemical soap, patted. Then a good gentle rinse. You next dry your face by patting with a soft clean towel. You can actually not use soap on your face at all, especially if you have dry skin.

USE Alpha Hydroxy Acids (AHAs) as a perfect exfoliate for your face. A good cream should last a long time and not be expensive. Use it at night when you wash your face before going to bed.

It is derived from fruit, milk and sugar cane and when used on the skin it helps remove the dead skin cells, which will give your face a much younger, fresher look.

Easy, effective and cheap ways to do a mask are: Use an egg yolk and honey mask. Just mix one egg yolk with a little honey and spread it on your face and neck. When it dries, rinse it off. It makes your skin feel very soft.

Another one:

Use plain egg yolk. It is good for acne, too. Mix it up. Spread it on your face for 20 to 30 minutes. Rinse it off.

Another one:

Take plain egg white, beat up the egg white, and then spread it on your face until dry about 20 minutes, rinse off with water. This leaves your face refreshed and helps clean the pores. You can make masks of many things that are right in your kitchen, such as oatmeal. Grind it up. Mix it with some skimmed milk and let it dry. Rinse well. Milk can attract bacteria so you don’t want to leave it on your face.

Ancient Chinese Secrets from Ning Hua: Wrinkles Reduction

Two tablespoons of fresh cucumber juice and same amount of egg white (about one egg), stir well, and then apply on wrinkles every night after cleansing. In the morning, rinse off thoroughly using warm water. Keep using for a month, your skin will be firmed, your wrinkles will disappear.

Pigment Fading:

5 teaspoons fresh tomato juice with 1 teaspoon honey, apply on the pigment, rinse off thoroughly. Keep using for 10-15 days; your pigment will fade away.

Fruit Mask:

Juice apple, cucumber and pear, mixed with flour, add a teaspoon of water, and stir thoroughly. Apply after cleansing, avoiding eye and mouth areas, leave on for 20 minutes and rinse off thoroughly.

Do you want to have beautiful skin every day for the rest of your life? Visit Skin Care Center for the latest news and information on how to get beautiful skin.

Shea butter ranges from an ivory, to pale yellow, to a slight green shade and has a mildly "nutty" aroma. It is derived from the Karite Nut tree in Africa and has been known for thousands of years for it’s many desired properties and it’s important role in Africa due to trade and also being commonly used as a food source.

Shea butter is mostly widely known today in most areas today as a skin moisturizer but it’s effects have been known to go far beyond this. Shea butter is not only hight in essential fatty acids and vitamin A & E and contains the rare vitamin F, but also has cinnamic acid which gives aid in protection from UV-B rays to the skin- giving it slight sunscreen properties. Shea butter has been known to increases local capillary circulation which triggers cell re-oxygenation which assists in the excretion of metabolic wastes from pores and is useful in the treatments of small wounds, skin ulcers and prized by the many cosmetic companies for the role it’s been known to play in anti aging skin treatments. The benefits of shea butter are both endless and priceless- especially to soapmakers. For all the reasons above and the fact that she has a high percent of unsaponifiables (unsaponifiables are parts of the oils that do not react to the soapmaking process, leaving it behind to nourish the skin)- shea butter is truly a wonderful addition to any soap.

Here are just some benefits & uses of shea butter to sum it all up:

skin moisturization, decongestant for colds, anti-inflammatory for sprains and arthritis, wrinkles, scars, stretch marks, psoriasis, massage, hair care, burns , chapped lips, sun damage, insect bites, small wounds and scrapes, diaper rash, etc.

Visit Lisa Chambers’ website for more free information, tips, and recipes based on a healthful and balanced take on beauty, home, and well being.

Looking tanned is such a great feeling, isn’t it?

There are three methods of getting that feeling.

1. Getting out into the sun. Great if you are young, and believe that all this hype about skin cancer has nothing to do with you. Goes hand in hand with high alcohol consumption, speeding and living on credit. It will catch up with you sooner than you think.

2. Solarium. Possibly a little more sensible solution if you take it easy, and build up your tan very gradually. Might lower your chances of getting skin cancer if you never burn, but if you tan regularly, it will definitely not save you from real bad skin damage and broken capillaries (very high temperatures boil blood in your capillaries- yuk).

3. Spray tan. A relative newcomer. It can take less than one minute to apply (in a booth), does not damage your skin in any way and saves you hours and hours on trips to and from solariums or lying on the beach.

Spray tanning seems to be such a great solution, so why doesn’t everybody, who wants a tanned look, do it?

Judging from the reactions that I encounter at my salon, it seems mainly to be the cost. A single session can cost up to $70 in some places, the average being about $50.

Isn’t it cheaper to go to the beach?

If you are asking this question, chances are, you are still very young. Look at your mum. She is probably spending hundreds, and hundreds of dollars per year trying to reverse the damage of frying on the beach in her youth. Unfortunately, our generation was told that getting suntan was healthy (whom can we sue for those lies?).

She also has to watch her skin very closely to make sure that she catches any cancerous changes early.

Solariums- a cheaper alternative?

Apart from also causing serious skin damage long term, how much does it cost in money terms?

A single session is on average about $15, so lets see:

To build up your tan safely: about 5 sessions, then two sessions per week to keep your tan that way.

First month: 9 sessions (5 to build up the tan+ 4 to maintain the tan) at $15 each=$135.

Subsequent months (8 sessions)=$120 per month

What about spray tan?

The beauty of this method is that if you spray tan regularly the skin gets used to the solution and then holds the tan much longer. You will need about 3 sessions 5 days apart to get your skin to this stage (but you will be wonderfully brown right after the very first session), after which (if you supplement your spray tan with tan extending products) you will only need a spray tanning session about every 2 weeks.

First month: 4 sessions (3 to get your skin used to the solution+ 1 to maintain the tan) at $50 each= $200 Subsequent months (2 sessions) =$100per month

So, after higher initial cost you will start saving money and definitely lots of time on trips to the salon. Of course down the track you will save yourself thousands and thousands of dollars on skin care products repairing sun damage.

Additionally, you will have a very low chance of developing skin cancer.

The above prices are a guide only, different salons will have different charges, but almost every salon will have packages, where you can save even more.

If spray tanning not only gives you a great tan, saves you from skin damage and cancer, but is also cheaper compared to other methods, does it not make sense to switch over ?

Go on. Do your skin a favour, and try spray tanning.

For advice and lots of spray tanning tips visit www.best-spray-tan-guide.com

Boshena is an owner of TanXtreme, a spray tanning studio in Byron Bay, Australia and author of spray tanning guide. Read it on http://www.best-spray-tan-guide.com

Oxides and ultramarines are commonly used as a colorant in many skin care products such as soaps, lotions, shampoos, make-up etc. They were originally natural minerals and clays mined from the earth, but there was one big problem- in the same earth came arsenic, lead, and mercury, just to name a few. These toxic metals were obviously a great risk to the public until the FDA created regulations that had these minerals manufactured in a lab. On a molecular basis they are the very same thing, only synthetically produced so now you can have the assurance that they’re non-toxic. Today, in the United States, only the "cosmetic grade" synthetic versions of these minerals are legal to be used in cosmetic and personal care products.

This is one of those rare instances that goes to show that natural is not always safer. Nowadays it seems like almost everything can be a potential danger in one form or another and there’s many with very strong views on subjects based on the entire natural verses synthetic debate. When it comes down to it in the very end, there’s not much we can do about entirely wiping out synthetic products from our lives because of the lifestyles we’ve evolved into. All you can do is be smart and do some research on the products you purchase to find your own balance of what’s best for our health, environment, and our pockets.

Visit Lisa Chambers’ website for more free information, tips, and recipes based on a healthful and balanced take on beauty, home, and well being.

While most people think tanning beds are completely safe, the truth is that there are two issues to consider with indoor tanning. First, indoor tanning can lead to skin cancer and you can experience eye damage from tanning beds. The key in both cases is to make wise choices and take the appropriate measures to ensure you are safe when using a tanning bed.

Keep in mind that tanning beds are big business - so big that about $2 billions dollars a year is spent by people wanting to get a dark, golden tan. One of the main problems seen in the tanning industry is that too many are so interested in the money that they make exaggerated claims just to get the business. The problem is that obviously, people are being put at risk and have no idea. Therefore, remember that tanning beds and eye damage can go hand-in-hand.

Now, to avoid both skin and eye damage from tanning beds, I want to give you some easy to follow instructions. First, always visit a reputable tanning salon that uses quality beds, disinfects them carefully after each person, changes out bad bulbs, and monitors the amount of time people use the beds. It can be far too tempting to go with a cheaply priced salon but in this case, you do not want to skimp on quality.

For the eyes, many studies have shown that increased exposure to ultraviolet rays actually increases the possibility of developing certain types of cataracts. While cataracts can be removed surgically, they can present as a serious problem. However, overexposure can cause other eye problems such as pterygium, which is tissue growth on the white part of the eye, and macula degeneration, which is damage to the retina.

Therefore, above anything, always wear the protective eye gear. Remember that not all tanning salons enforce the wearing of goggles so ultimately, you have the responsibility to protect your eyes. If you notice the goggles not fitting correctly, ask for another pair until you find one that does. Many people who tan on a regular basis will buy their own goggles, ensuring their eyes have the best possible protection.

Finally, if at any time you see a tanning salon advertising that their beds do not produce glare so goggles are not needed, you should run away as fast as you can. This is a false claim that is highly irresponsible on the side of the tanning salon owners. This is serious business and you only have one set of eyes so do everything you can to protect them for life.

If you´d like to read more tanning safety tips, visit http://www.tanninginfocenter.com now and learn how to avoid tanning bed dangers.

There are some mistakes commonly committed when manicure is carried out at home. So here are some useful hints.

1. Most people cut the nails back and forth using an emery board and deeply cut the nail from the left and right corner. So the nails are most likely to get split and worn out. Use the board from the left to the center by sawing back and forth a few times. Then move it from the center to the right a few times. To get the right texture and a smooth layer on the nail use a metal file.

2. Do not neglect the cuticular part of the nail as it can cause the problem of hangnails. Penetrate it with oil after taking bath.

3. Gently push the cuticles with a cloth and do not nip away at the cuticles, as it can cause nail infections.

4. Before you apply a polish to your nail you should first lace it with a base coat. If you apply a coat of nail polish on the bare nails they dry away quickly or the darker shades that are applied will turn yellowish.

5. Replace the nail polish after every five days because too many coats will dehydrate the nails and therefore remove the top layer of the nail.

Paul has been providing answers to lots of queries through his website on a wide variety of subjects ranging from satellite phones to acne. To learn more visit http://www.askaquery.com/Answers/qn1632.html

You are welcome to republish the above article only if you add our hyperlinked URL.

OK, so you’ve had a few days of steady rain, and going to the beach isn’t an option. But you’re starting to notice your pasty white skin, and you’d like to do something about it. Or … it’s January, and tanning outside is a little brisk.

So you head to a tanning bed, and — voila! — in a few short minutes, you’ve got that tan you wanted.

What’s the problem with this scenario? You’re inevitably going to get complaints from people who tell you that a tanning bed is somehow dangerous.

Nonsense.

A tanning bed is not "dangerous," is not a "voluntary coffin," (to quote my mother’s dermatologist) and isn’t silly.

It’s a way of getting tanned, a way of getting your body’s needed dose of vitamin D.

Your body doesn’t differentiate: the UV rays react on the skin whether you’re out on the sand for a few hours, or spending 10 minutes on a tanning bed.

10 minutes is a good rule of thumb: it’s roughly equal to an hour in the sun. It’s easy, relatively cheap (look for specials) and is especially good for those times when you don’t have time to spend in the sun, or can’t because of the weather.

Of course, watch your time. Most places won’t let you use more than 20 minutes at a pop, but even that’s a long time, if you haven’t had any UV exposure for a while. Start slow, ease in, and enjoy your tan.

And if it’s December, enjoy the envy of your pasty-skinned friends. If your looking good bothers them, suggest they get therapy.

Jim Huffman, RN specializes in natural and alternative healing therapies. His first book is ‘Dare to Be Free: How to Get Control of Your Time, Your Life, and Your Nursing Career,’ and is aimed at helping other nurses find satisfying, dynamic careers. His website is http://www.NetworkForNurses.com and his health blog is at http://www.shababa.blogspot.com