What are the different types of spas? Beauty Tip Tuesday

Choosing a spa that's right for you can be daunting. To help you differentiate Spa Finder has created categories that explains types of spas. However, Surface Beauty is pioneering a whole new category called Mobile Spas.

MOBILE SPA: SurfaceBeauty.com

A company of professional estheticians and or cosmetologists who travel on location at the convenience of the client. Since there is no overhead (rent) the savings are passed on to the customer

DESTINATION SPAS: spas where guests come to focus purposefully on lifestyle improvement, health enhancement, and self-renewal. Choose a Destination Spa if you seek total immersion in everything spa. Destination spas are places to go for a few days, a week, or even longer to enjoy the spa experience in the company of like-minded people. At these inspiring retreats, you find all-inclusive programs that integrate fitness, spa treatments, healthful cuisine, and lifestyle education.

RESORT SPAS: spas in resort settings. Choose a Resort Spa if you want to combine a wide variety of recreational activities with a renewing spa experience. At these vacation resorts, spa treatments and services complement such activities as golf, tennis, horseback riding, skiing, and water sports. Healthful spa cuisine is on the menu alongside traditional fare, and alcohol is available. In the evening, guests can enjoy resort pastimes such as dancing and live entertainment. Children´s programs may also be offered.

DAY SPAS: local spas offering hourly services. Choose a Day Spa near your home or while traveling when you want a spa experience for a short period of time. Day spas are designed to provide a beautifying, relaxing, or pampering experience with individual treatments that last for as little as an hour or multiple treatments that may take up to a whole day. Day spas are freestanding or located in health clubs, hotels, shopping centers, department stores, or even airports.

CITY HOTEL or URBAN SPAS: spas in city hotels

Choose a City Hotel, also called Urban Spa, when you are traveling or wish to have a day spa experience with hotel amenities like a health club and a restaurant. Steam rooms, saunas, pools, exercise equipment, and fitness classes may also be offered. Located in metropolitan hotels, some of these spas are open only to hotel guests, while others are accessible to the general public.

MEDICAL SPAS: spas with a focus on wellness and preventive healthcare or cosmetic and aesthetic procedures. Choose a Medical Spa if you are interested in healthcare in a spa setting, either at a day spa or at a spa with overnight accommodations. Medical spas offer traditional and complementary medical services supervised or administered by medical professionals. The spa´s specialty may be diagnostic testing, preventive care, cosmetic procedures, or a combination of these.

CONNOISSEUR SPAS: spas that are the world´s crème de la crème. Choose a Connoisseur Spa if you wish to experience the very best the spa world has to offer. These spas have been specially selected for their extraordinary ambience, luxurious accommodations, high staff-to-guest ratio, exceptional spa services, outstanding cuisine, and awards for excellence.

source: spafinder.com

Farmhouse Fresh!

After attending the Las Vegas International,Esthetics, Cosmetics, and Spa Conference this past weekend, all I could think about was jumping into my shower to experience my newest discovery!
Farmhouse Fresh luxury body scrubs and lotions are undeniably "decadent"! It takes almost all my will power to not scoop up the BourbonBubbler(an ultra fine brown sugar and bourbon infused body scrub), and devour it. Their Whoopie!White Velvet Shea Butter Cream is just that, velvety-sweet! Not only do these scrubs lotions and creams smell devine and bring back childhood memories of sugar cookies and jelly sweets, they perform. Their products consist of the highest grade natural oils, pure fruit extracts, and are vitamin rich. No one can resist the vintage packaging, the adorable catch phrases that add to each products unique personality such as,"Our cows eat cookies" for the sweet ceam body milk to ,"Mushed-up stuff is better for you" for the Strawberry Smash Double Moisturizer.
OH! Let me get my spoon!

The Paraben Factor

One of the biggest topics in cosmetics is the concern towards preservatives ie: Parabens.

Found in most of our skin care,make-up, shampoos, yes, and even baby products. The cosmetic counters have become more and more bombarded with confused women who seem to fear that our lipsticks and lotions contain cancer causing ingredients and are demanding paraben-free products.

Understandably, we want the healthiest for our skin and bodies, but it's time we took a closer look at what parabens are all about. Not all parabens are "bad".

Methyl Paraben, one of the most widely used preservatives in cosmetics, having a broad spectrum of ant-microbial activity and is relatively nonirritating, and nonpoisonous. We need preservatives in most anything we put on our skin. Especially that which sits around the bathroom for more than three days. Unless your o.k. with tossing away a $250 eye cream, bacteria growth and other microbials caused by outside contaminants thrive in moist dark areas(jars). There is a need for parabens physically it seems as well as financially.

Then we have Benzoic Acid, a commonly used anti fungal preservative, which occurs in nature from cherry bark, raspberries, tea , anise, and cassia bark. Now because it is more "natural", more studies have shown that this ingredient is more likely to bring on asthma and eczema if a person is prone. This can make one think twice about the word "natural" when deciding what's healthier for them.
As temporary alternatives, in nature we can find helpful preservatives such as, caraway, cinnamon, clove, cumin, eucalyptus, lavender, lemon, rose, rosemary, sage, sandalwood and thyme. Wonderfully delicious ingredients, who wouldn't want to include these within any spa experience,yet, it has been found that people can react adversely to these natural ingredients due to allergies and skin sensitivities. So skin care specialists should always take note.
Now there are many forms of parabens out there; natural, man made, and something in between. Knowing your own skin, keeping aware of it's sensitivities and your potential to reacting to certain ingredients, is the most important defense you have when approaching a cosmetic counter and preventing adverse reactions to your skin and personal health.
For more info on organic preservatives and hormone free preservatives visit www.specialchem4cosmetics.com.

BEAUTY TIP TUESDAY - Has Your Make-Up Expired?

I have been asked if makeup should come with expiration dates, and actually, most have them.

Skin care and cosmetics, especially liquid, usually come with expiration dates.
If you are like many of us women across the world who collect countless lipsticks and eye shadows, and have more pencil eye liners rolling around your bathroom drawers(even the ones down to a nub)than you could name, there is a time to throw it away.

Beginning with lipsticks: One year is the general time frame. Yes, I have some over two years old, but I wipe them down regularly with alcohol, I smell them to make sure they aren't rancid, I can even taste them, if they are bitter, they've gone bad. Most the time though they don't make it past one year. DON'T share lipsticks, highly NOT recommended to anyone. Cold sores(Herpes) are easy to transfer and once you contract Herpes you are prone to it forever.

Your eye and lip pencil sharpeners: Should be separated! Meaning, a separate sharpener for eyes, and another for lips. The quickest way to pink eye, sharpen your black kohl eyeliner with the same sharpener that you sharpen your lip liner with (especially if you've had a cold sore before), and play Russian roulette with an eye infection. SO MANY have fallen victim to this mistake.

Liquid foundations can last quite a long time (estimate 2-3 years), especially if they are in a pump format. No air is getting in to contaminate and oxidize the product. But, if you have to constantly touch the base with your fingers whether from a pan or pot, no matter how clean you think your hands are, you're contributing bacteria and unwanted microbials every time you open it up. Give that foundation no more than three months. Trust your senses (common helps too), look for, sour or bitter (smell), color change (sight), and texture change (touch), these will be your best remedies in detecting if something has gone bad.

Eye shadows as well as powder blushes can last you years, especially if they are oil-free. If they aren't moist, nothing is growing on them. Take good care of your shadows, keep them covered and in a place where they can't get jarred (to prevent breakage), and you can enjoy them for probably a good five years or more! I have come across some heavily metallic shades that gave off an odor, in that case toss it! Let's say your shadow or blush did break. You don't want to throw it away just yet. Get yourself a small pill boxes or containers (CVS, Bed Bath& Beyond, etc) and crush the rest into it and it's now in loose form.

A real fun thing to do with your make-up (This could take an afternoon):

Fetch yourself some brightly colored labels. Collect all your cosmetics and place it in front of you. Go on, dig it out of the bathroom drawers, dump it out of your makeup bag(s), pull open your makeup case and separate it all in these categories:

- Treatment (moisturizer, eye creams, SPF)
- Base (liquid, cream foundations)
- Lipsticks (stain, matte, cream, sheer)
- Gloss (pot, tube, wand)
- Eye Shadows (liquid, pressed, loose)
- Lip liners
- Blush (cream, powder)
- Tools (brushes, tweezers, sponges)
- Eye liners (pot, liquid, pencil)
- Mascara
- Brow (powder,pencils)
- Powders (translucent, bronzer, foundation, contour, highlighters).

Place them ALL in their own piles. Note the most recently purchased to the ancient. If you're looking at something that you're not sure why you still have it, TOSS IT!
Open up those lipsticks, if they are at the nub, and or smell funky, TOSS IT!
If your mascara is one or all of the above: more than four months old, smells bitter, doesn't make that moist sucking sound when you pull the wand out, or makes your eyes sting while applying or wearing it, TOSS IT!
If your eye shadow takes more than three tries to get any color effect on your lids, TOSS IT!
If there is a giant hole in your powder, blush or eye shadow compact, TOSS IT!
If you have a cream or lotion longer than six months (unless it's in a pump or squeeze top), TOSS IT!
If you have a brush or tweezer that doesn't do it's job, bristles are falling out or scratches your skin, TOSS IT!
If your brushes are just dirty, cleanse them with shampoo, and even conditioner! (Lay them flat to dry on a clean towel). If your pencils are shorter than two inches, TOSS IT!
Otherwise sharpen them and even dip them in alcohol and leave them to dry. (Don't forget to have a separate sharpener for lip and eye). Dip the sharpeners in alcohol too, wipe with a Q-tip and dry off immediately.
Once you've cleaned, "weeded", and organized your makeup and accessories; label anything liquid with your best knowledge of it's expiration date(or, the longest you feel you would keep it). Whether you have a makeup case or just store your cosmetics in drawers, separate it in the above given categories, using cosmetic bags to storage cubbies.

Create a personal, bag or case of all the products you use and rely on, on an everyday basis. Store this at arms length from your bathroom sink. So right after you wash your face in the morning, you reach for your "Go-to" bag that you can trust in having exactly what you like and need daily. No more digging around and wasting time guessing what to put on.

Stick those pretty brightly colored labels on each bag and or cubby to label your newly organized cosmetics, and if you're a makeup connoisseur like me, you may even enjoy the realization that it's time to go shopping for a new mascara, or fresh lip gloss to update your collection!

Effortless Tanning-Beauty Tip Tuesday

There is bronzer, and there is tanner. A bronzer is usually a mica based powder or cream that provides a superficial orangey-glow to the face and body. It's temporary and if not applied well, can become a streaky mess on a long hot summers-day.
A tanner is a semi-permanent cream, milk, lotion, or spray that along with the ingredient DHA, creates a chemical reaction with the "dead" layer of our skin(corneum) causing a browning process. This is an amazing creation, and for us "tannless" wonders, a god-send. Spending most of the 80's and giving up in the 90's, on the sun tanning rituals of burning and blistering for just a "base" tan. I can now safely obtain a healthy bronzed glow minus the dangers of cancer and the painful, unsightly stinging red impressions of a sun burn.

Today's women and men alike can go about their summer, heck, even winter days, sporting a healthy realistic tan, without the damages of the suns UVA and UVB rays. We can avoid the dehydrating and painful effects of the sun and still look like we spend our waking days lounging about on the beach soaking it all in.
Surface Beauty uses an aloe vera based spray tanner with eco/animal- friendly, 100%non-toxic ingredients that dries in less than five minutes bronzing you instantly so NO surprises in a few hours, NO streaks and NO orange hues of any kind.

Most self tanners come with the understanding that we will smell that of a fried potato for the next week or so, but this is not the case with Surface Beauty's spray tanner. In the past, topical tanning products cause us to express some sort of off fragrance, especially during heightened activities, but you'll experience nothing more than a pleasant sweet aromatic tone.

A Surface Beauty professional airbrush artist, applies this unique self tanner anywhere from the delicate features of the face down to your toes, and can personalize, even sculpt, areas of the body to give an individual any desired level of tan.

Nothing beats an immediate tan, that can't rub off, slims and tones the body, hydrates and softens the skin in one sitting. Save your skin, help your skin, improve your skin, all in one step with a healthy spray tan!

Beauty on Board!

That's right...We did it! We pampered the lovely ladies of OC Parenting Magazine's Pampered Ladies Cruise!

Surface Beauty enjoyed themselves just as much as the energetic beautiful moms, grandmothers, and single ladies who gathered on the Endless Dreams yacht in Newport Beach Sunday, March 21, 2010!

OC Parenting magazine put on a majestic three hour cruise offering 150 ladies an afternoon of giving back to themselves. Sharing the variety of talents of South Orange County's finest, from the art of dance with Cheryl Burke Dance to enjoying the culinary delights of A La Carte Catering; Imagine a boat full of decadent treats and champagne delights, to make-overs, pampering feet, and even learning to "dance with the stars"! From the music to the jewelery, to chocolate martinis, these ladies had it all at their fingertips for three whole hours!

We had such a great time watching these women relaxing and breaking away from life's daily "drags" and take that well deserved moment for themselves.

We also love the idea that OC Parenting donates a percentage to Susan B. Komen's Foundation. Surface Beauty wants to personally thank the OC Parenting team for allowing us the honor to join this event and all the lovely ladies we encountered that gorgeous March Sunday.

We look forward to doing this again Sunday, July 25, 2010!

Check out the article on Parenting Magazine page 34 in the April 2010 issue.