Imogen’s blog is at Inside Out Style. Her webpage is at Bespokeimage, linked from View My Complete Profile under her picture.

I don’t buy into North America’s adulation with the winners of the fame and fortune lottery, so I particularly enjoy sites and blogs written by non-North-Americans. We hero worship celebrities and in trying to look like them, we don’t like our own looks. But it’s THEM that look crazy. We’re the ones who look normal.

You know I think the whole “anti-aging” gig is a marketing assignment to sell you more stuff. I’m all for health, but beyond that, I don’t agree that younger is worth admiring as much as we do. Which one of us was our best self at 25? or 35?

Colour Analysis and Style go hand in hand, but I find few sites showing clothing styles I could see myself in. This one, I relate to. There is advice here I really would use. Her posts of Jan. 7 and 8 discuss women’s sizes and body image concepts. Everyone of us has a position on these topics.

Imogen discusses many of the same colour theory topics that I do. Sometimes, reading another explanation of the same topic can help clarify it for you. If you have an interest in colour theory,  the posts filed under Colour Guide are great.

As an Image and Style Consultant, you’ll find many categories addressing clothing specifics for various body types and concerns, all described under Labels in the right side column.

Here’s a great video about why black is NOT slimming on light people, a point that can’t be made strongly enough.

She has wonderful taste, real-world, sensible taste, but she’ll still tell you to ignore the rules (and how to do so) and find ways to wear what makes you feel good. We tell others who we are with our dress, and it never feels quite right when our message isn’t truthful. We can’t settle in and feel fully confident in what we’re projecting.

The shoe section is a favorite. It’s the style choice that is most often forgotten or wrong, with little good advice out there. You’ll find so many good articles here. Seeing women hobbling around in heels that are too high, just to look sexy to some man, makes me feel humiliated. Heels are terrific, you feel long and look better and stronger, but within reason. If it hurts, you feel weak. If you’re unsteady, you look weak. You will not be taken seriously by anyone in either situation. Why do we do it to ourselves?

What Colour Shoes To Choose is great, illustrating the concept that shoes should connect with hair colour to present a unified (read “in control”, “organized”, and “strong”) appearance.

You might find a few places where our policies diverge. I don’t pretend to be an Image Consultant. When I talk about clothes and makeup, it’s only what I think looks good according to the principles for that Season. We use different Personal Colour Analysis systems. Imogen devised her own system and I look forward to reading about it.

With links to articles regarding the 100% meaningless truth behind most cosmetic and skin care marketing claims, encouraging the consumer to get herself informed, and her love of chocolate, Imogen seems a woman like us – intelligent, empowered, style conscious but not at the expense of sense, spending, and time.

I completely enjoyed wandering about her blog for when Sally introduced me to it. From an organization viewpoint, the Blog Archive is a treat. Just click on the arrow beside each month and the list of article titles opens. I visit frequently. It’s realistic, refreshing, and not about celebrity culture.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites To Know : Inside Out Style Blog by Imogen Lamport. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2010, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

The Maritimes in general, and PEI especially, have a heavier gravity than anywhere else. PEI magnetizes its children back. When Islanders meet, we discuss how our conniving to return permanently is progressing. I’ve got it down to July and December so far.

This is the story of Laura-Jane and Cameron. It begins 2 years ago in Victoria, BC. In December, they packed their possessions into trailer, sold the condo, put away the tight skirts and high heels, acquired a pair of snow boots, and headed East towards a hazy horizon on which sat an old blue PEI farmhouse listed on the MLS site.

They moved into a wood-heated, uninsulated old farmhouse in the midst of PEI’s worst month, a -20C February. They were told that they were going to die. As one who has hunkered through many a PEI February, believe me when I tell you that it is a miracle that they didn’t.

Dreams of growing their own berries and living the back-to-the-land dream soon gave way to the reality of melting snow in pots to have water, and shovelling out 3ft snowbanks from one single storm. The indescribably luxurious nearby motel, with hot water of all things, was home for a month. Miserable at the time, it somehow became magical in reading their account of it, probably because it wasn’t happening to me, and I’ve learned that you don’t die from it.

Eventually, windows and running water were installed. At some point, you’re committed enough to not be able to turn back. Like being 6 weeks pregnant, like taking on a new life dream and saying farewell to an old one that doesn’t speak to you any longer, there are still moments of questioning. So much of life, and of relationships, is about stability shifts. You just tip the scale a little and keep balancing on the side you made heavier.

Can you reach adulthood in Canada and not own a pair of these? I’ve been seen at the mall in mine. And proud of it.

Laura-Jane took up a blog to chronicle the daily progress and activities, but also the evolution and reflections of their life’s dream. You’ll find it at Whimfield: Modern Pre-Industrial Living.

Laura-Jane’s blog posts and photographs are wonderful on so many levels.  This site speaks of going after happiness and not denying restlessness, of not knowing all the answers ahead of time, of not looking back with regret, and of how little risk there really is relative to what we perceive there might be.

Reality transitions allow you to go back if you need to. I wonder how often that really happens. Seldom, I would guess. Doing that thing that lifts your feet off the ground has an energy of its own. It can take a lot of hits before it caves. Do read the About page, where you can be inspired by their message.

Why Bother? is a recurring theme in many posts. Laura-Jane’s answers are grounded in her relationship with Cameron. Slowly, she is defining the life she wants to share with him and what she’s willing to trade in to do it. Those discoveries are shared with a deeply touching honesty and exposure that few would be comfortable in attaining. The ultimate answer to Why Bother? is that it feels so good to love and be loved.

In many of her posts, Laura-Jane is trying to figure out HOW to contact her inner voices. Like so many of us, she trusts that they’re there to guide her, but how do you go about hearing them? How do you recognize them in the first place? In the very beautiful Big Wheels Keep On Turning , she expresses fear that the loudest that these guides ever get is a whisper. It’s up to us to do the rest.

I love the genuine voice with which she writes. So many of her feelings are simple worries that we all share if we’re trying to change the present. Fragile delights arrive every day, just waiting to be noticed. It feels like a daily dose of reconnecting to what really matters most.

About seeing what you want to see, in This Is Our Bedroom. The photographs are so honest, so not-postcards, that they glow with the unassumingly breathtaking beauty of this gentle place. There are no busy effects. It’s just life at its least complicated. Nature seems to express its beauty through a powerful, pervasive serenity that can be missed or too easily ignored.

About why it’s just good enough to live with those you love and not need more in I Love Living In The Country :10 Reasons Why.

As they work to experience this transition to the fullest, they grow and learn more about what they want to be part of their life and what they consciously choose to reject. As Laura-Jane says, “eventually the quiet voices get louder and the louder ones subside”. On the days when that seems too hard and too far away, eat brown sugar from the spoon and read the Sears catalog.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites To Know : Whimfield : Modern Pre-Industrial Living. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

This explains where the heck I went for 2 weeks.

You may know that I set up a  Colour Analysis studio in my house. I thought it would be so great to work out of my house. I could schedule appointments around exercising and family.

You know what happened? I started hating my house. I normally love my dumpy-falling-down-120-year-old-you-can-kick-the-windows- farmhouse. I love the acres of space. When I saw it through other people’s eyes, I only saw faults.

I was mad at my family all the time too. I had to keep it clean and nobody cared or helped.

Besides, how am I going to become a multinational corporation who would drive to a house in the country to meet someone they’ve never met? I wouldn’t.

I rented a great room in a hair salon. It’s fab. I’ll show you some pictures once I have more. Right now, it looks a bit like this. I hope to never paint another room neutral gray, ever.

12blueprints.com is a spin-off of AGT. I split it off to provide an information/content management site for the Colour Analysis business. It’s a place for people to learn more about Seasonal Colour Analysis and to book appointments or communicate with me.

There is a blog attached. The Colour Analysis (PCA) topics will now be happening there. When a new PCA article is published, I’ll post a notice here.

The latest article, in fact, is about Cool and Warm colours. I’m going back to basics.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites to Know : 12 Blueprints. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Nobody can pretend that looks and first impressions don’t make a difference. Absolutely, we should be judged only on the person we are inside, but how it should be is not how it is. Or will be in the foreseeable future.

When you develop and learn and change on the inside as well as outside, it feels like moving more towards what the world SHOULD be like.

Exercise is that way. It is about so much more than what you look like.

Tracy Effinger is well-known as a fitness personality. She created the amazing Squeeze workout videos.  You can read about the Squeeze concept here, on her site.

I spoke of the one that started it all in 3 Workouts You Should Know. Tracy e-mailed to thank me for the mention and asked if I’d be interested in another program. She sent me Squeeze Stronger.

I like this woman’s delivery. Her plain-speaking personality really shines through. She doesn’t soften the message just because she’s a girl. She doesn’t talk to you like you’re a girl and need careful treatment. Without being military, she is passionate and serious about helping you get this job done. You can watch clips at Collage Video.

She’s gorgeous, she’s powerful, and obviously doesn’t buy into the Barbie body mentality that fitness people are probably pressured with, especially if they work with celebrities. A fit body is supposed to empower you to resist that and love yourself as you are, so when they give in to the knife, it feels a bit of a letdown. If they, with their strong bodies and mental images, could not resist the social pressure, then how should the rest of us?

But she is also a painter and a jewelry designer, and very accomplished at both. You can see more of her art work at her website.

I love this pendant. It’s a reminder to all of us to “squeeze all we can out of life”.

In Tracy’s own words,

“I have actually gotten painting commissions from my website when customers went there to buy DVDs.  Also, all the art work in my DVDs are blown up versions of my paintings! It is very important to me to have my art in the DVDs and I do think of painting and exercise the same way…tapping into who you are and using your energy source to make more of yourself.”

She sees all the things she does as feeding into one another, in a self-perpetuating loop. It is not a question of carving out time for yet another thing, but rather that every element would suffer if one were to be lost. Like the most successful of businesses, when you own and value cog in the wheel, then you create a far more powerful and unified product with more ease. Your life is the most important business you are invested in, whether you wanted to be or not.

Tracy’s programs are shining testaments to how much you can accomplish by exercising at home with minimal equipment. The movements are so effective that you’ll feel them with a 1lb wt. They are so different that even experienced exercisers discover muscles they didn’t know about. Her cues are exact and the moves are not complex so you can feel the right muscle without any uncertainty. The workouts would surely be equally useful to men and women but it’s clear that an intelligent woman is teaching them.

It’s all in the visualization cues. “Pretend you’re pulling your belly away from your T-shirt”, or “reach and flatten your back as though you’re trying to place your chest on the wall in front of you and your buns on the wall behind”, or “imagine a set of cables on the wall in front of you and pull as though you are trying to resist in both directions”, these help adjust your body to do the movement correctly.

It also occupies my mind better. When you’re doing 3 sets of 10, having the instructor count all 30 makes time drag. I much prefer imagining, using your right brain to learn. It works so well that there are books using that approach in almost every sport, but I think they’re especially effective with women. Men think in terms of numbers and facts. With women, pictures and stories work better. That’s how Tracy writes the script.

Most every review at Collage is 5 stars for all Tracy’s videos. They really are that good. Some people had a few minor objections, none of them mine. As hard as it is to be negative when someone gives you something, goes against the grain of good manners, my personal thing was this : when I like an instructor a lot, as I do this one, I will buy every program they make. I’m really happy when no move, not even a stretch, is repeated. I like everything to be new and different. There is barely any repetition between the 2 programs, but there is a little in a couple of movements. Just something I’m sensitive to.

Is this not gorgeous? If I had a meditation room, I’d put this on the wall.

The first release of the DVD had a small glitch in the Lower Body and Abs premix, where part of the warm-up was left out. The track with Play Whole Workout was fine and it was easy to go from the warm-up back to the lower body premix. You’ll see it called The Dead Lift Glitch in the reviews at Collage. I asked Tracy if there was anything she would like people to know and her response was so interesting :

“I had wanted it perfect and had worked so hard to get it that way.  The imperfection was a great metaphor for impermanence and accepting imperfections….just like we have to do with our bodies.  I had to just accept it and let it go!  I had spent so much money on replication, I could not go back and fix it right away, another hard thing for me.  I had to accept whatever reactions were going to result from it.”

How fascinating would it be to have lunch with this woman. Her mind thinks way beyond the surface of things. Finding the connections between seemingly separate elements is one of the great talents of female brains. It always sends a spark in me when I see it.

We are all so much more than one thing. Each activity feeds and strengthens and inspires the others. In a man’s head, each part of his life is compartmentalized. In a woman’s brain, the screens all flow together. Every file contains some data from every other file. It makes our lives more difficult when we’re working mothers because we can’t keep the components apart, but in terms of making our lives richer and our problem-solving more textured, we’re got something special.

You don’t have to do it daily. You don’t have to do every set. I don’t. DVDs that I can complete the first time disappoint me. There is only 1 thing nobody but you can do : start. 1 minute. Just 1 minute. If you’re not doing it, it’s not because you can’t (unless you’ve been injured). It’s because you don’t WANT to. What defines who gets what they want, and who doesn’t, isn’t their ability. It’s how much raw want they put on it.

Then stand back and watch your arms change shape and your legs stop jiggling.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Squeeze by Tracy Effinger. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

This is me. How much time do you have?

Can a Season share makeup?

My good friend and sister-in-law, Holly is a Warm Autumn, just as I am. Over the years, I’ve noticed that we can wear exactly the same makeup colors even though her hair and eyes are not the same color as mine.

I started looking at women and have decided this holds true for all women within the same season in the 12 Season scheme. (What is a 12 Season scheme? Read more in Sites To Know : Pretty Your World). The overall color palette and degree of contrast are similar enough to produce makeup palettes customized to your coloring.

If you’re a Light Spring, the makeup that suits you will suit all Light Springs. There may be some that are deeper or lighter than you, so the makeup may look a little different but overall, you will look great in the same shades. 

Can you have intensity and light lips?

 I don’t like dark lips on anybody. Just a personal thing. They make us look older no matter how perfectly shaped the lips are.

 But Warm Autumn needs intensity in makeup to balance strong golden undertones in the skin and the rich clothing colors that suit us so well. I continue to make the mistake of wearing lip colors that are too coral, trying to get a light lip but with color.

Brown alone can look flat and dead… but Autumn does better with brown than anybody. Shimmer is the only way I know to get some intensity and add life to brown, without adding darkness or orange-ness. Brown and toasty/metallic work naturally to become gold and copper and bronze and everything in between. This is what Autumn is all about.

I make the mistake of too much orange in blush too. Candy colors don’t work on this season’s makeup. They have to be natural (meaning warmth added to brown). The strength of this coloring (actually the large amount of warmth in the skin) can cope with metallics in small doses better than the more delicately colored seasons.

Think about Julianne Moore. Her skin isn’t dark but there is enough golden-beige in it that the whole color picture is fairly intense. Dressing her in watered down colors wouldn’t have nearly the kick that deeper warmer colors would have.

Julianne Moore

You’d put a shimmery copper on her and have it disappear into the face long before it would on Gwyneth Paltrow. Why? Because that is already one of the colors nature put in her overall color design. The sign of a great color for you is that it just gets absorbed into the coloring your face already has. With that kind of color, you can load it on and look real. You can color a little outside your natural lip line and look believable instead of dorky.

Here’s your makeup

Lips: MAC Honey Flower (too brown, dark, and orange alone on me) mixed with MAC Ramblin Rose (more warm coral) or MAC Jubilee (more neutral).  MAC Plastique is a fabulous peachy brown metallic, too light on its own though (light and frosty is the formula for ash-colored lips, so it has to be mixed). With those 4 MAC lipsticks, you can create many many good shades. If you like more red color, start mixing in MAC Mocha.

From L, all MAC, Plastique, Jubilee, HoneyFlower, Ramblin Rose.

All this mixing, what a pain, ay? No, no, no ! This is how you learn to customize your colors and how a mixture of 2 colors always always always looks better than a single color alone. Just load a Quo Retractable Lip Brush with your color(s) of the day when you’re doing your AM makeup and you’re set. You can get enough on the brush for 3-4 touchups. Lipstick applied with a brush looks better and lasts way longer, no doubt about it.

Blush: Dior Sunkissed Cinnamon. The price of this stuff is deadly but I like the sheerness and softness of the color. It might look a little pink on you, depending on your skin, more true to its brown-pink name. My skin turns pink to peach, brown to peach, and peach to orange. 

Since the color is soft, you can’t see the edges of the blush. What does that mean? Go see the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic and see if you can pick out where Isla Fisher’s blush begins and ends. Also, as a soft color, it looks fresher and younger than a darker or browner color.

The photo is linked to the product at StrawberryNET, which holy cow, if you don’t know it, is worth a look around for the freebies, discounts, sales, selection, and that’s before we talk about Free Shipping Worldwide.

If you like more noticeable color, look at Dior SugarNSpice.

Eyeliner: Dark Brown; there’s thousands of them.

Eyes: MAC Brule, Cork, Soba.

This is a palette of those same colors on a white background. They look dark on the white. I just threw in the gloss for fun. It’s a Chanel Glossimer, color name long worn off. 

Fight with Photoshop though I do, every single day, this is the closest I could digitally match the lip colors (Honey Flower is not here). They’re close but not exact.

Look at what happens to those exact same colors on the golden beige skin of a Warm Autumn. Only the background layer’s color has been changed. Suddenly, they’re much closer to what they look like when a Warm Autumn puts them on her face.

Try this out next time you’re shopping and let me know. Convince me I’m wrong.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Makeup Model : Warm Autumn. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

No personal appearance tool can compete with getting your colors right every time.

You can have any amount of style and the best genetics in existence. If you don’t get your colors right, you will NEVER EVER be your best you. Not in appearance and not psychologically. When a woman has the right colors on, she carries herself completely differently, whether she knows it or not. Her demeanor snaps into place. It takes a whole lot more to rock her and the message comes through loud and clear.

It is in entirely within your power and budget to NEVER make a wrong clothing, makeup, or hair color choice again. To ALWAYS wear the most gorgeous colors on you when shopping for evening clothes.

The color systems are no less true for men. Power dressing will never be possible till you get your colors right. Men spend serious money on their suits and expect to wear them for years. A Winter man in a pea green shirt or a dusty grey suit – that mistake cost him in impression and in cash. None of this is lost on the other men in the workplace though they may not be able to articulate the hesitation. You either look sharp or you look dull. And if this is a good gift for a woman, it is such a good gift for a man, it hurts. They would NEVER take the time to figure this out and following it has to be easy, but they’re the ones who want to make the power impressions foremost.

You met Lora Alexander back in Sites To Know : Pretty Your World.

This is the age of the internet, the most accessible teaching tool there has ever been.

Watch Lora do an analysis of me. I filled out the questionnaire on her site . I sent her the pictures you see below, and a few others so she could choose the most useful.

First some general notes from Lora that apply to all Color Analyses:

1. All photos will help me get a general idea of your coloring…depth, intensity, etc. The more photos the better. Even if some are not in the greatest light, or you are wearing a hair color that you later changed, all pictures will help me analyze your coloring. The critical ones are the plain-faced photos (no makeup) in sunlight, and the close-up of your eyes. It is also helpful to send in some photos of you in a color you think suits you, or in several colors.

2. The plain-faced pictures will help me see any obvious undertones in your skin as well as any freckles. The sun reveals the “true” coloring of the skin. Any other light could alter colors dramatically.

3. The very first thing I look for is an obvious sign of one of the six dominant characteristics: Deep, Light, Warm, Cool, Soft or Clear. “Deeps” usually are the easiest to spot. “Soft” is the most difficult, because they can also be a “Light” and it gets more difficult to analyze.

An example of an obvious “Warm” celebrity is Clay Aiken. The first thing you notice (if he hadn’t died his hair a brown color) is his red hair and freckles. Danny Bonaduce ( remember Danny on The Partridge Family?) is another obvious Warm. So the first step for me is looking for that OBVIOUS dominant characteristic. If I don’t see one, and that happens more times than not, then I will automatically eliminate the seasons that they OBVIOUSLY are NOT.

Using Jennifer Aniston for an example, I can eliminate Deep, Light (she’s ‘light’, but not Gwyneth Paltrow “light”). Neither Warm or Cool are blatant characteristics on her. I don’t see a Cameron Diaz-like “Clear”-ness to her either so that leaves “Soft”.

I will then look for photos of her in the traditional “Soft Autumn” or “Soft Summer” colors and see which flatter her most. Along the way if I see her in a color that just makes her come alive…and that color is almost entirely exclusive to a certain season like Black is for Winters, and I’ve already eliminated Winter as a possible season for her initially, it’s back to the drawing board.

4. Regarding freckles : unless someone has been protected from the sun their whole life, they will probably have some sort of freckle or age spot on them. If you are a Warm Spring or Autumn, they will be more pronounced than others since they have less melanin to protect them; and they will be the traditional brown freckles, as Lindsay Lohan had in “The Parent Trap”. So looking for freckles tells me about how the skin reacts to sun. The color of the freckles gives me more information but generally speaking, the freckles are lower down the list of things I look at.

5. Last, the eyes will be the determining factor in most cases. This can be very important.

6. If I’m really undecided about a person, I will ask if they have a photo of them when they were little. Right around 4-7 years old is a time when your coloring is as perfect as any in showing the world your true colors.

Christine

In Christine’s case, eye color was the telling factor in whether she was a “Warm” or a “Deep” Autumn.

She definitely has warmth in her skin, so Warm is her predominant color characteristic. She could be an Autumn (Soft, Warm, or Deep Autumn) or a Spring (Warm type).

If her eyes were a deep dark brown, that could signify a “Deep Autumn”. However, the intensity level was much lighter.

If they were a very light color, that could signify a “Warm Spring” or “Soft Autumn”. But hers are more of a medium intensity, moving Warm Spring and Soft Autumn lower on the list. Yellow flecks in the eye almost always signifies an Autumn.

For a moment, I thought she could be a Soft Autumn, but one photo showing her wearing a pinkish-coral top seemed too “weak” of a color for her, which again signifies that her warm coloring needed stronger (but not too strong) coloring.

So I made my determination that she was indeed a “Warm Autumn”.

Christine’s picture at age 11 helped me determine her intensity level as well. Her hair was not a light blonde, which would have been an indicator that she might be a light or soft season. The picture helps determine the intensity level of the coloring.

To read 2 other great examples of how Lora does her Color Analyses, follow this link to her Q&A page http://www.prettyyourworld.com/Questions-and-answers.html . These are far more challenging analyses, on Hillary Clinton and Britney Spears.

Wanting a sense of your own colors starts like any change : by WANTING. There is nothing else you need to do. Eventually, you create a strategy that works for YOU. So, what can you do today? Can you send a few pics of you in an e-mail ?

Climb up to the next level of you.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Demo : Online Color Analysis. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Exercise machines always have great appeal for me because they’re different from how I usually work out. They involve so much repetition of movement that it makes a difference in the strength and appearance of those muscles quite quickly.

 Exercise bikes can cost about $100 on sale, are small and easy to move around, and really tone your legs fast. Most importantly, they’re easy on the knees and great for the thighs and rear view.

 The repetition has a downside, which is the incredible boredom that sets in. How can you make the time more interesting and have a little fun?

Here are the ways I use to distract myself, make time pass, and get more out of the exercise.

 Hey, the usual disclaimer right? Don’t drive holding coffee that’s too hot. Don’t do it if your body hates it. Don’t do what you’re not ready for.

 1.     Incorporate some core work by raising your arms above your head and waving them gently from left to right in a 1 foot- wide arc without letting your pelvis rock. Do it holding a 1-3lb weight and you’ll get it. It challenges the muscles along the side of the abdomen. You’re forced to vacuum-seal your abs against your pelvis to stabilize your body when the weights are off to the side.

 Mehdi writes the great strength- training blog, Strong Lifts. He covers a great range of topics from inspiration and nutrition to specific moves for certain muscle groups. There is no hype here. This is a serious but approachable site, geared to injury prevention. 

 In this excellent article called How To Perform PushUps Correctly , Mehdi describes stabilizing your abs as hardening the muscle as if you were going to take a punch. That can work really well. I also like the visualization of the vacuum seal. Have you ever watched the ads for those plastic storage bags where all the air is sucked out of them and they crinkle down against the stuff inside till it’s tight? That is the image I use, of my abdominal wall sucking in and crinkling down.

 2.     Raise your arms and practice the feeling of lengthening by pulling up longer out of the hips and waist. The shoulder blades stay in the same place as when your arms are down. As your rib cage lifts up and away from your hips, the sides of your body get longer. Feel how unloading your pelvis takes the weight off your low back and lets your legs move more freely because they don’t have to support the same load.

 3.     Imagine a weight from your tailbone, dropping to the floor. This is an exercise used when riding a horse in an English saddle.  It helps draw the stomach in towards the spine and anchors the pelvis while encouraging a neutral, flexible spine. The spine stays strong but relaxed and can be responsive to the spine of the animal beneath you.

4.     Adjust the tension on the flywheel to be very high and stand up on your pedals. Your pelvis does not rock side-to-side.  Think of your pelvis as a bucket you grow up out of. Your legs extend long to the ground. Cycle as fast as you can while holding the pelvis stable. You may find, as I did, that it will not be very fast at all.

 5.     Turn your toes in with the arch of foot on the pedal, weight on the inside of the ball of the foot. Turn your toes out with the heel on the pedal. Do each for 1 whole song. You’ll feel the inner thighs when the toes face in and outer thighs when the toes point outwards.

 6.     Put your hands on the sides of your butt cheeks and feel the tightening in your glutes (butt) . Activate your gluteal muscles and keep them switched on. Picture a sponge squeezing the fat out like water.

 7.     Pretend you’re running uphill and pushing the ground away behind you, but here you’re pushing the pedal behind you and pulling it upward at the same time. So the pedal is coming up because you’re pulling on it, not because the other pedal is being pushed down. It’s a feeling of making a distinct circle with the pedal instead of an up-down repetition. Feel your hamstrings tighten up in a hurry.

8.     Push your arms together hard in front of you. Try it pushing your hands together above your head, like a church steeple. The more you pull in your abs, the more pressure you can exert between your hands.

 9.     Increase the tension to rest. Instead of dropping the tension when you need a break, raise it but pedal as slowly as you like (but no stopping!) . When you release the tension to your usual workout level, it will feel much easier.

 10.  Alternate 15 seconds fast and slow. You won’t lose yourself in this workout because you’re always counting time, but it’s easy to work harder than usual because you get lots of rest periods. Even if you just do it for a song or two, you’ll burn more calories with the sprint intervals and the time goes fast. Practicing explosive speed and power is good.

Do each move for 1 song and you’ve sailed through 30 minutes on a bike. You’ll have worked in some core, cardio, and strength.

 Remember to make sensible decisions that reflect your fitness level. Start slowly and work up. If you can’t hold the middle strong, you’ve done too much. Remember to keep the fundament in place: heart leading and open, stomach sucked it till it pulls the butt under a little.

Hey, cupcake, get up! The workout’s not over till the 10 minutes of abs are.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: How To Have Too Much Fun On An Exercise Bike. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

 I’ve been waiting a year and a half to find Pretty Your World. I read the entire thing in 3 hours. There are other color sites out there but few hold a candle to this one because it is so much more a teaching site than a marketing site. In most cases, the marketing is only thinly veiled by an attempt to teach, but PYW is about teaching and it does so outstandingly well.

The most important image tool

You may know how much importance I place on getting your colors right to look good. The terribly overdone choice of black for evening. The ubiquitous blonde highlights. The supposedly safe charcoal gray or navy suit. They just don’t work on everyone. Ellen DeGeneres in black, Nicole Kidman in washed out blonde hair, even celebs get it wrong.

We all notice it, not just people who like color. The dress you complimented someone on but really thought didn’t look special at all. The friend who spent a fortune on a new coat and she really looks pale and washed out, but you felt you had to say something nice. The warm brown hair on women with no warmth in their skin, so the hair takes over the face.

I really like Color Me Beautiful’s first book because it was my introduction the 4 color season way to analyze people’s colors. It made the whole thing simple enough to understand.  It is unbeatable as a place to begin but there were still people I couldn’t fit into the scheme.  I get most confused by celebs with hair dyed the color of corn or Springs with brown hair (like Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music, who seems most often thought of as Spring). Or why some women that I’m certain are Autumns look so good in black. I’m hopeless with women of color. Ask and it shall be answered. Along came Pretty Your World.

Lora Alexander

Lora Alexander is an esthetician, a makeup artist, and a Certified Image Consultant. Color and Art are her primary interests, with close second loves of makeup, color analysis, and beauty psychology.

The 12 Season System

The system is based on a more complete 12 Season color analysis, which Lora believes to be the ONLY accurate system there is, and I absolutely agree. The 4 seasons we know are broken down to each have 3 sub-categories. You don’t begin by finding your season. Rather, you find yourself in the 6 descriptions of Deep, Clear, Light, Soft, Cool, and Warm. Secondly, you identify yourself among the 2 choices of Warm or Cool. Combining the first 6 and the last 2 gives you the 12 combinations. So you could be Deep Winter, Cool Winter, or Clear Winter. The breakdown is found on the Analyze Yourself page.  

 There are plenty of examples, using celebrities. There are excellent but not overly detailed explanations. The system is broken down in various ways, in a stepwise process, to help you find your place. There are links using Eye Color and Hair Color to help guide your choice. It is unbelievable to me that Lora began this site only 2 months ago. She’s already created THE best teaching site about personal color analysis on the internet.

A walk through PYW

I was completely amazed to see how much Lora and I have in common – like our love of Kevyn Aucoin, our belief in Paula Begoun’s work, our over-40 vintage, our season (Autumn), the fact that we colorcast people within a few minutes of meeting them (though I’m not nearly as good at it as she is), our thriftyness (but we are not cheap!) and our passion for finding beauty advice that works in the REAL world.

She doesn’t pull any punches. We are in perfect agreement when she states, in The Truth About Beauty , that the cosmetics industry lies to us day in and day out and we still can’t give them money fast enough.

Though it may be not be fair, she is also right that we are judged immediately by others and most of it is on appearance. We are not judged on whether or not we’re Gwyneth Paltrow look-alikes. We are judged on the use we’ve made of what we have. Following the “Even someone naturally beautiful…” link on that page will take you to the famous Dove billboard ad and how much artifice the beauty industry is based on. Empower yourself. Learn which products work. Learn your colors.

 I love Celebrity Style because it shows celebs in their various hair color tryouts.

Just for fun, but fun it is, there are 4 pages of celebs without makeup. Would we look twice at any of those faces in the mall or pushing a grocery cart? We would not. Their 5’10”, 110 lb bodies, maybe.

How to most improve your looks

I totally get that not everyone wants the bother of makeup. Most women probably don’t. But, listen. Makeup is EASY once you know your season. Your makeup colors ARE your clothing colors. It’s all right there. Even your hair colors are in your palettes!

What I don’t understand is why a woman would not take the time to know her colors just to make good clothing choices. It totally transforms how you look. Why spend $200 or $100 or $10 on something that not only doesn’t flatter your looks, but actually detracts?

You might prefer a certain style of dress or cut of jacket and nobody could argue with your taste. But only 1 of the 3 Springs will ever look gorgeous in black.  A Summer never will. You might as well paint a drab grayish foundation color on your face, darken the shadows under your eyes, and get it over with. 

 I know Autumn women reading this will be saying “I like ballet pink and I’m g.d. well going to wear it.”  Do what you gotta do. Hopefully the pink thing doesn’t cost a lot. You will never look rich, vibrant, and powerful in pink. Wear it but not to a meeting. Or an argument. Or a 10 year reunion.

Experiment with success

Many women have some sense of what colors suit them but there’s still a lot of confusion out there. The whole topic seems intimidating. They might have a sense of their general category or some good safe basics. To find a collection of 50!! colors that would be great on YOU – now that’s a gift. You could be more adventuresome, get away from safe, and look amazing.

Where do you start? How do you find your colors when you go shopping? Well, you start here. Like everything else, you get help when you need it, even if it costs money.  You send in your picture. You buy the swatch book. You take it shopping. The swatch kit on Lora’s site, and all the extras that come with it, looks fantastic. 

Remember the articles on Gift Ideas 1 – 5, back in December? Well, no gift, and I mean NO gift, NONE, could come close to buying a woman her color swatches. Gift certificates are available but the surprise and gratitude of giving a woman her own colors would be worth it.

The palettes themselves aren’t at PYW – or anywhere on the internet. Lora recommends looking at the book Color Me Beautiful’s Looking Your Best for good explanations and 28-color layouts of each of the 12 Seasons, with verbal descriptions of the full 48colors for each season at the end. (The Click to LOOK doesn’t work, it’s just coming from Amazon.)

I bought this book and it’s pretty good. The best thing about it is that it explains the 12 Season system quite well, particularly how a season can crossover and borrow colors from another season. This expands your palette but in a controlled way that is understandable. There is still the hair/clothing/style advice but it’s outdated (the first version was published in 1991). Most disappointing to me was that the 28 colors are hard to see. They look like they’re painted on concrete, grainy and rough. The swatches in the original book were better. Still worth it for the explanation of the 12 Seasons if you’re into it, though.

Have your colors done!

Still don’t believe your color analysis can be done on the internet? In a future post (once I know the date, I’ll post it in the Upcoming link on the front page of this site), Lora will do an in depth color analysis using pictures of me with makeup, without makeup, close-ups of my eyes, and pictures of my hair color when I was young. I’m off to her site to fill out the questionnaire.

Take a serious look at what you get for $89.95 on that same page.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites To Know : Pretty Your World. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

More women I know want this than anything else.  Would they really do it? Or are there still too many unknowns… like how do you know a good doctor when you see one, where do they inject exactly, and is it REALLY safe? A thousand questions. Now you can find answers.

Photo by EverJean

In Gift Ideas For The Real World 4 (items 9&10), I told you about this fantastic website called Skin Tour. How excellent to have found an authority site on anti-aging treatments for skin that we can count on.

To tell the truth

Skin Tour is the website of Seattle dermatologist, Dr. Brandith Irwin. It is dedicated to providing consumers with the facts about anti-aging skin products that work, be they cream or injection. I’m always looking for that. This field is desperate for some reality.

We need voices that will plough through all the rubbish and gimmicks and tell us what’s true. Skin Tour is full of informative articles that whittle the topic down to what you need to know. Specific products are shown but the anti-aging focus is more about cosmetic and enhancing procedures like Botox, peels, fillers, and the various types of lasers.

Under Resources >> Menopause and Your Skin, there is the most clear, concise article on what the options are for improving the skin – and there are loads of options !!. Love the comment about the greater confidence and self-acceptance that we finally have found. Yes, we have.

A learning site

I have an impression that the opinion of dermatologists is that every one  of us (with normally aging skin)  should be using RetinA or Renova afer age 35 or so. I’m not certain if that’s correct but Dr. Irwin seems to support the belief.  I haven’t cared enough yet to see a Derm to get some. I was thrilled (not too strong a word) to find Skin Medica Retinol Complex.

Terrific products are recommended, many that I’d never seen before. There are moisturizers, sunscreens (look at them when you go to the site; most interesting), antioxidants, both costly and affordable options. Look at the very neat Booster Packs while you’re there. Cute gifts, matched to a person’s activities.

Video treatments

Dr. Irwin has totally demystifyied Botox/Restlylane injections for me. I get this now. Watch the video blogs. See the questions that were asked, how comfortably the doctor could adapt to the face of each woman to produce a natural look, and how relaxed the patients are. What I can see for sure is that you need someone who can handle a needle.

After all, a needle is a knife.  This is far and away my biggest fear. How do you know how smooth a doctor will be as an injector? It takes huge left brain- knowledge and right brain- artistry to be that proficient at using a needle and syringe. It’s really a form of surgery. Conservative taste and a great eye for the end result as part of the entire face go a long way too. These procedures are as much art form as science.

If you’ve been thinking of finding a dermatologist but aren’t sure what to look for in technique or bedside manner, this woman sets a high standard.

Recovery

 I wish there were more After pictures on the site. I know exactly what the before issues are. I see them in the mirror every day. What I’d love to understand is what it looks like after. My inkling about Botox is the wooden look. Restylane? I haven’t a clue what that can do when it’s done well, though I can well imagine what done poorly looks like (lopsided and bumpy). It worries me greatly.

I also wish there were some idea given of how the recovery looks.  Am I wrong or does Restylane appear to have serious bruising potential? I’m sure it’s covered in depth in the consultation and each woman is different, but I’d like to see the average reaction.

Note the AntiAging Tour

Definitely do take The AntiAging Tour. Scroll down and key in your areas of interest. Mouse over the dots that come up on the face and your options appear in a table on the screen. What smooth and effective use of the internet this is.

To teach and provide information consumers can depend on is the best of what this medium can do. The 13 year old sitting in front of me looking at street level satellite pictures of Paris and finding the pizza place nearest to the Eiffel Tower is illustrating the same thing in a whole different way.

You and I can’t tell what’s in a skin cream by the feel of it. We sure don’t know Restylane from Juvederm from the many new options flooding the market. The next 20 years will be crowded with this stuff, which I personally am quite pleased about.

Photo by Julianne.hide

Feel better

What impresses me most is the Doctor’s desire to just send something good out into the world.  Though commission is made on the sale of products, it probably just pays for the site. The time and work seems to be a labor of love and a sincere desire to help people. Since every single molecule of good energy (and bad energy) you send out there boomerangs back to you, I would say there’s some good stuff coming her way.

So yeah. Pretty soon, the face on both sides of my nose will cave in enough and the lines will be so deep that I’ll be glad to have this option. I can almost imagine having these injections with no more worry than getting a hair color. In good hands, it looks like there’s little to fear, especially if you start with temporary treatments.

PS: The purchasing is redirected to Skin Care Rx. Let me tell you, they’re worth a look. Based in Utah, you’ll find an amazing list of hard-to-find brands. If you buy, do link to it from inside Skin Tour. We want to support that site. It’s going to help us a lot over the next 30 years.

I couldn’t link to Skin Care Rx directly or through Skin Tour. I don’t know if it’s a Mac thing because the 3  Windows XP IE7 systems I tried were fine. Oh, the stress! I finally had to place the order by phone. They have terrific tech support at Skin Care Rx and they helped me find a bypass way into the site with the Mac. Let me know if you have any issues.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Botox for Christmas. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

I was trying not to think about it so I wouldn’t get a pimple. One of the girls at work described the pain as “like labor”, something I was sure I’d never have to live through again. She said I’d be having a lot of hot baths.

For anyone new to the story, I began a period back in September that hasn’t stopped yet. Apparently, it’s common in early menopause. If you care to read the gory details, they’re in The Pill Or Mirena and What’s A Mirena IUD? 

I chose the IUD. The appointment to insert it was November 18. I went in there reeking of Rose Oil. The mean secretary was very friendly, surely meaning she felt sorry for what I was about to go through.

I was prepared for a 5 day convalescence. I stocked  2 magazines (InStyle and Oprah). I have the 5 movies (The Devil Wears Prada because I am the only person left in North America that hasn’t seen it, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, The Queen, and Death At A Funeral).

Sites To Know : FTC Who Cares

Nicole sent me a link to this excellent FTC site dedicated to filtering medical information for consumers, very much a Site To Know. In an ocean of information so overwhelming that you can’t decide how much applies to you, I look for good data that does the legwork in finding dependable outlinks for me. I looked up MRT  and really think the IUD is the right first choice. I followed the link at the bottom to the National Institute on Aging (never knew about it before)  which got me to more good info on MRT .

Though the intention is to keep the site updated, the purpose though is to provide a “short list” of the best and most reliable sources of information. How welcome is that, given that Googling these topics gets you hacking through a jungle of material that’s questionable at best.

Insertion

Ideally, you’re having your period when the device is placed so that the cervix is relaxed. Well, I wasn’t. I was on those pills!! I asked twice and they said “Stay on them”. Actually, in a step I’m sure physicians love, I self-medicated myself down to ½ pill a day. I crack them in half with my teeth because the pill isn’t scored. Those horrible little things were fogging up my head and becoming my enemy. I figure this isn’t utter quackery. It’s being faithful to the normal gradual physiologic drop in hormones before a period.

I feel a little embarrassed about this fuss and worry now. Doing a stomach crunch (1)  hurts way more than the IUD placement. BUT this adds yet another item to the growing list of why it is better to be loose and floppy!! After 3 vaginal deliveries, the last one 11 years ago, my cervix is permanently relaxed. I felt nothing when the rod went in. When the bars of the little T were opened, it felt like a large gas bubble for about 4 seconds, and that was that. This must be what I am inside:

I was expecting to be grinding my teeth, clutching the table, and trying not to scream. He told me I could scream if I wanted to, he was used to it, and blood too, and besides I was the last appointment of the day, so “whatever turns your crank”. He puts in 1 of these a week and he’s seen it all. This is the kind of doctor I love. If he’s not excited, you definitely do not need to be.

Go back to your regular life

Anyhow, I drove myself home and told my husband to stay at work. He told me to enjoy my Rosemary Wine, which is the closest he can come to understanding Rose Oil. I have a friend called Brigitte, pronounced “brig -EETA”. The closest he can come to her name is “briquette”. He NEVER says her name when they meet.

Watching the movie later, as Anne Hathaway walks past the Sephora store in NYC and I’m almost sobbing with envy, I do have a little tightening in my lower abdomen and have to sit up straight. I treated myself to hot chocolate made with real cocoa.

I haven’t felt anything since. I hope my boss doesn’t read this because I’ve booked 3 days off. I do not believe for one second that my friend at work didn’t have the pain she claims, or the other women as well. It’s just that at 48, I’m a walking, talking testament to the many benefits of flaccidity and mushiness.

 Onced it’s inserted, you can go home and exercise if you like. You can have vigorous sex, but it’s suggested to wait a few days for the strings to soften, more for his sake than yours. I stay on pills for a day or two till the IUD starts secreting its own tiny little dose of progesterone, and then stop.

Wait and see (and pray)

We’ll wait and see what happens in the longer term. One-third of women have no periods. Most have very light periods, with possible spotting only for the first 3 months. Since this is menopause, periods may come every 6 weeks or with some irregularity. It seems there’s no need to worry unless the bleeding is excessive.

Karen sent me a fabulous prayer that she says often : “Fulfill every purpose for which You allowed this situation.” 

Incredible. If more prayers were like that, I’d be more of a praying person. It focuses inwardly, instead of imploring someone to give you something. Please understand that I’ve done my share of pleading. I’ve beseeched. Sometimes, you’re really scared and can’t see any other option. It is all you have left. I have been there.

But I’m not there today and I am thankful in the extreme. I hope the little object does its job without incident. I cannot feel it. I marvel that it’s really in there, like when you did your first pregnancy test the day you missed your period and it came back positive.

If it doesn’t work, I know there are other choices. Many. Today, I’m reading Oprah, doing a mask, bleaching my teeth, wondering why my dog is chewing himself so much, and wading in Rose Oil. Tomorrow, I’m exercising, baking, meeting a friend for coffee, and pretending I live my ideal life which that of almost-a-hermit.

A choice that I might have run from, or not considered until forced upon me, has turned out to be (I hope) a blessing. 

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: The IUD Saga Continues. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Here is the website of two British women, Kathryn Hamlin and Laura Barker. Kathryn and Laura might holiday in Greece and think nothing of shopping and seeing plays in London. They use different products than we do. We’d have trouble driving each other’s cars.

The thing I love about this website is the reminder that beyond the superficial differences, women everywhere are the same. It’s especially so as we get older and develop a stronger sense of what really matters in life. We’ve coped with losses, raised children, seen our bodies change, all constants regardless of the language you speak or currency you use. They have a great balancing effect.

Kathryn (in front) and Laura, being cool on a Harley.

We’re all trying to keep our children happy, healthy, and entertained so they become happy, healthy, and successful. We’re trying to preserve our sanity and the last dollar in our wallets. We’re growing and finding ourselves as human beings and exploring the many facets of relationships. Many of us have finally seen how vital our contribution is within our families and to this planet’s wellbeing.

Kathryn and Laura’s site, like AGT, is dedicated to making the most of the mature years. They reject any notion that it’s all downhill, as do I. There is celebration here, not defeat. Hope and love for themselves and their families prevail, not resignation to superficial concerns like, oh heavens, wrinkles!

Kathryn Hamlin.

Laura Barker.

Kathryn’s About Page is sobering. Having lost her sister to accident when she was 14 and her mother to illness at 17, effectively the entire female side of her family, she somehow survived to become a happily married mother of 4. Today, she is 45. Perhaps because she has proven herself such a survivor, life seems to be sending her for a tumble once again with her own health difficulties.

Now this woman could have given in to depression, or simply self-pity. Instead she chose to provide an understanding ear and heartfelt support to those coping with adversity. In strengthening and supporting other women, she is also empowering herself in her own life. Her website provides “an oasis of tranquility”, a place to moan a little, and to receive a virtual hug from someone who’s been there.

stillGorgeous was created in May 2007 when Kathryn and Laura decided to find a new challenge once their youngest children had started school.  With no previous computer or business knowledge and after a lot of late night foraging on the internet for information, they built the website themselves.  The steep learning curve has continued but it’s a journey they are still enjoying and it fits in well with their family commitments, despite a few grumbles that the home baked goods are in scarcer supply than they used to be!   

At the London Premiere of Pirates, Dead Man's Chest (LB on left, friend Carrie, KH on right)

When you browse at stillGorgeous, you’ll find features on fashion, beauty, health, and travel. There are articles on homemade skin treatments, ways to save money and pass a rainy day, and recommendations for great reading or movies. They take on family issues and the working woman’s balancing feat.

Carrie's publicity board, signed by Johnny and Orlando!

 The Glam Gals from Fabulous After 40  visit now and again. Deborah and JoJami are Image and Style Experts, and write one of the best sites out there showing women over 40 how to look vibrant, fashion-savvy, and age appropriate. Their latest article at stillGorgeous is all about how to look fabulous in under 10 minutes this fall.

Style Experts Deborah Boland and JoJami Tyler.

Of course, I headed straight to the articles on makeup and looked at some of the Best Cosmetics as voted by the CEW (Cosmetic Executive Women Awards). Since this is a hot button for me, I had to wonder where European women go for independent reviews of products before they buy them. They have access to the same information we do, but what do they actually use?

Most impressive is the ability to create join the sG community by creating your own social network page. It’s a lovely site where you can upload videos and photos, and find women of our age group without having to filter millions of facebook and MySpace pages.

My thoughts are very much with Kathryn right now as she copes with her health concerns. I was very happy to hear that she found so much relief from acupuncture, and this was her first treatment!  Hang in there, Kathryn. You have more strength than you know. We all do.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites To Know : stillGorgeous. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Debby wrote a comment recently to an article that got a lot of heat, Why Do You Want To Look Younger? She speaks for many women (the majority?) in that she avoids telling her age.

Paula and Avis at BeautyBunch

Interestingly, I’ve been looking at the Paula’s Choice blog at Beauty Bunch lately. The site is an introduction to Paula and a few members of the Paula’s Choice team away from the office. This is not a marketing site. Topics range from travels, to pets, many of whom come to the office each day, to the TV shows they follow. It’s intriguing to meet them in their regular lives. I didn’t expect to find that Paula would be funny.

2 recent posts are especially pertinent to Debby’s comment. The first is written by Paula herself, at My Thighs Are Not My Legacy.

 Avis Begoun, Paula’s sister, is the author of the second article, at Growing Old Well. Avis is a clinical psychologist who specializes in women’s issues, and seems a thoughtful, interesting woman.

I was so happy to see women rejecting the notion that aging must be a setback. Could there be a groundswell of us out there who will decline to buy into the idea that something bad is happening when we get older?

We are stronger, smarter, richer, more independent and empowered, less fearful, healthier, and more vibrant than women of our age have been at any time in history. Why in the world are we the sorriest about it too?

Is younger better?

The young take better pictures. Of that, there can be no doubt. As the inside gets richer, the veneer has taken a few nicks and scuffs.

They need less sleep. Among the top three things I’d change would be the need for 8 hours each night.

Do I care that I have lines around my eyes? Not really. How did these lines get to be so important? They have so little significance. We have so much to celebrate. Why is this what’s in our heads?

Brian Clark wrote an article about Innovation at Lateral Action, a site dedicated to achieving success through creativity and productivity. He had some things to say that are relevant to our topic, and he said them well (if you’re language-sensitive, don’t go there). In Rule Number 5, replace “khakis” with “wrinkles”. Pause for a moment at Rule Number 8 as well. 

Does Your Deeper Self care?

I am not leaving this life without having been the best parent I could be. It is my highest calling. Do my children care if I have lines around my eyes? Of course not. They expect it. Someone has to be the Moms and Dads. They want us to look like we can carry the load, instead of trying to run from it.

The deepest, strongest, most meaningful bonds between human beings are ignorant of lines around eyes. Superficial relationships might have a thing about it but is that a goal worth going after? Our skin records the events that have shaped us. The lines are the map to our soul and our spirit. In the lives of the people for whom you are a blessing and a gift, how high does your skin’s elasticity rank?

Is it downhill now?

What of the notion of being “past your prime”?  Hey, the hard part is behind you. You’re setting up for the best years if you let yourself enjoy them. Your voice is finally coming on strong. You have some time and some clarity. At 30, I was distracted, careful, nervous.  The great real estate looks to be ahead of me, not in the rearview mirror.

There is no need to believe you should have it all figured out. Nobody does. Ever. The best that you can hope for is to have a strong guiding light. The ability to find great happiness in the simplest things is an accomplishment by itself. It’s a big part of “having it all figured out”. Not only are you not “past it”, you’re just arriving. Don’t shut the door in your own face. It took you fifty years to get here!

Can you look at the women you interact with and see those who are retreating behind an age barrier (of their own imagining) and those who are just coming into their own, who seem happier every time you meet them? That’ s not good luck or good genetics. That’s a choice to let luck happen.

 Your thoughts are your choice

The more you think a certain way, the more a reality that supports that thought process will exist around you. Things will come to you a lot if you think about them a lot. You will attract a lot. Get your thoughts on the right path. Keep moving forward and adapting to something you’ve consciously decided to believe in.

Through your thoughts and your actions, better things can and will happen. It doesn’t start from a position of having sorted all the variables into their neat little slots. It’s an ongoing evolution in your own head but it begins with choice and determination that you need to energize. These won’t get done for you. The energy for the first step is your declaration to the Universe that your beliefs are about to change. You are the medium for whatever message you choose to send out so MAKE your choice. Build it yourself from the blocks on the table in front of you.

The wisdom of age

Are there are 70 year old women reading this? Have you any advice for us? I try to think about difficult decisions from the perspective of my older self looking back at my life. I’m sure I will not wish I’d spent more time at the office, had a cleaner house, or worried so much about my age. Besides, there never seems any sense in thinking about what you can’t change. The number’s only going to get bigger so we might as well come to grips with it.

Living in a material world

 As the gears of your life grind forward, don’t waste your own time caring about fluff. Think about all you’ve done and all that’s part of you that wasn’t there 20 years ago. People just see us as we see ourselves. Be fifty and LOVE your life and where you are in it.

This is your moment. Live it well.  Take a stand against the part of you, the concern with age, that you want to evict. Say your age like it’s a good thing. Dredge up enough pride in how far you’ve come and all you’ve learned to say the number like the achievement it is.

 Feel the love, sister.  It’s real and we’re all here together.

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© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Many of you are probably familiar with this huge resource. AGT’s Sites To Know list wouldn’t be complete without a mention of it.

If I’m buying any skin care or makeup product, there are 2 places I check first. They are Beautypedia at Paula’s Choice (PC) and Makeup Alley (MUA).

For skin care, Beautypedia gets 99% of the weight – see the article 4 Wrong Ways To Choose Skin Cream And 1 Way That Works. The composition takes precedence over almost any other factor and consumers cannot know, or evaluate, this information. Do you know you can get Beautypedia for 2 days for free?

For makeup, the 2 sites are weighted more evenly. Beautypedia is still ahead because Paula’s and Bryan’s reviews are just so dang good. The Search function is so well thought-out that it is a pleasure to use. Every color in the line being examined is evaluated, which make these reviews quite unique. You’re getting not only ingredient lists, but application, durability, and color selection on this site.

Makeup application is particular though. Everyone has different preferences. The consumer is much more able to appraise the product’s performance than with skin creams. The strength of MUA is the voice of so many end users.

Reviews range from 1 line to 1 page or more. These are regular women of all ages, not beauty editors who will drop $30 for a concealer. Everyone at MUA agrees that it B-L-O-W-S when you buy $30 mascara and hate it.

The products are rated on performance by the consumers that use them… the power of the internet, right? By all of us, for all of us. You can learn from a woman in Sweden or find a fellow Thierry Mugler Angel lover in Tokyo tonight, and chat with them for 4 hours for free.  Awestruck just thinking about it.

MUA is also a great resource for application techniques, color selection tips (especially if buying products online), with many reviews about the  specific colors themselves.

You’ll learn to scan both sites in seconds.

At PC, I select the product category I’m interested in, then Customize Search. There, I select only the reasonably priced Paula’s Picks, which show me the best of the best at a price point I am willing to get with.

At MUA, I start in Preferences along the left side margin, and choose “Show full list” rather than “ Auto Suggest”. That way, I can scan down all the brands without missing any. Back in the main page under Product Reviews, choose a category, and look down the brands and click on those of interest. When the list comes up, I look at the %  in the Buy Again column. If it’s over 75%, I’ll take a closer look. When scanning the reviews for each product, I often select only reviews by women over 40 since they’re more representative of what I’m looking for and what my own opinion is likely to be.

Like Beautypedia, MUA is about a lot more than makeup. Hair products can be found here, as can nail polish, self-tanner, candles, men’s products, and body care . Even toothpaste is here – with raves about Crest Whitening Plus Scope and many of the natural (non-animal-tested ) products.

This is one of my favorite ways of finding a new fragrance : just as I described above, I go through the company list and find those with rave reviews. It goes on my Test List. So I clicked on Prada and found Infusion D’Iris.

You do need to register at both sites. PC will cost a little money  but it’s big time worth it because you’ll get info you can’t find anywhere else and you will save a bundle. MUA is a free, fast, easy registration.

You will add to your list of U&P’s (user names and passwords) for both sites. Mine is 5 pages long, and this is for my convenience. I’d eat my hard drive (both of them!) if I ever lost that document.  Listen, Apple, what better use for a webcam than retinal scan technology?

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites To Know : Makeup Alley. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Since finding Dr. LaPuma through Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks site (see the article Sites To Know : 101 Cookbooks), I find myself visiting ChefMD often. I get the weekly recipes in my Inbox. I’ve looked at all the video clips and searched inside his latest book, The Big Book Of Culinary Medicine. 

This book is now on my Christmas list.  The Table of Contents knocked my socks off. If there’s a healthy food you’ve wondered about, it’s in here. Now, learn the best way to use it to reap its fullest benefit.

Dr. John LaPuma, M.D.

Rebecca Powell Marx

Dr. John LaPuma and Rebecca Powell Marx

I place more faith in his advice because he has such impressive medical credentials. He understands the implications of your medical test results or condition in ways that someone without the M.D. training, let alone a boarded internist, just can’t.

I’m not saying that a nutritionist needs an M.D. to be effective. But, perhaps because I’m also a product of North American medical training, I don’t believe that the scope and depth of comprehension about health and disease that an M.D. provides can be replaced by any other teachings. An internist takes it many levels beyond that, with a truly staggering understanding of the human body. (In Canada or the U.K., his designation would be M.D., F.R.C.P. (Internist).)

Since he’s also a professionally trained chef, and not some guy who taught himself to cook on Sunday afternoons, he can provide recipes and cooking tips to create truly delicious dishes.

You can read about Dr. LaPuma’s medical and culinary training and accomplishments on his About page .  You’ll also meet Rebecca Powell Marx, the co-founder of Chef MD. She is a writer, TV producer, and marketing executive. Together, they bring you the art and the science of foods that can heal.

Food as pharmacy

Pills certainly have their place. So do acupuncture, SOME supplements, and many other conventional and less traditional treatments. However, we look to them all too quickly and bypass the power of food as medicine in the process.  For many conditions, especially common ones like joint pain and depression, your medicine cabinet begins in your refrigerator.

Just generally feeling great is hard to measure, except by comparison to when you’re feeling rotten. Immunity is hard to see; it’s not like a broken bone or a rash. It doesn’t actually hurt in the moment when it’s not working well, like cramps or headaches. So we forget how much it matters, but it’s the cornerstone to health, present and future. By being satisfied with it working at half-strength, you’re using yourself  as the gambling chips.

Overboard on pills and supplements

Why don’t we exploit the capacity of food for fighting disease all the time? There are no side-effects to diet and there’ s not a pill out there that you can say that about. It’s money you’re spending anyhow and it’s not more costly to eat this way. I’ve decided the problem is four-fold :

1.     Not believing how much food can actually do to improve how you feel next week. Either you don’t believe food alone can do that OR the payoff doesn’t outweigh the effort (or it’s more fun to complain). And, after all, you don’t feel that rotten.

2.     Feeling you just don’t have time to learn a new way of cooking. Life is too busy as it is. And cancer in 20 years is just too far away to take seriously.

3.     You might be like my husband who combines the philosophies of “Nobody’s going to tell me what I can and can’t do” and “I might die tomorrow so I plan to enjoy every minute”.  He would prefer not to live with back pain, but he’s not willing to do a thing to prevent it. He’d be anti-cancer if you give him a choice, but he doesn’t really believe the choice is his to make. I tell him he’s 70% wrong but he doesn’t want to hear it.

4.     You have to take a little responsibility. That implies that some of this not feeling so good is your fault. And if the diet change doesn’t work, will that be your fault too? so maybe it’s easier to not play the game at all than risk defeat? Pills and supplements… if they don’t work, can you blame the pill?

The thing is, food change works for everybody. Is it going to happen in a week? No way. Pills are what works in a week.

You can’t change your weight in a week with diet. You can’t change your cholesterol in a week either with food alone. But you CAN change it appreciably in 4 or 6 weeks. In the long run, it’s the better thing, the cheaper thing, the safer thing.

I love dessert too

Sometimes you just need sugar, right? Believe me, you’re talking to a woman who gets it. I mean, really gets it. But I don’t need it all the time. Dr. LaPuma’s is not just a world of barley casserole here.

The Ginger Snap Apple Crisp with Sweet Cinnamon and Walnuts  : fabulosity.

Warm Spinach Salad with Chicken, Grapes, and Toasted Pecans  : So good , and cool to make; it cooks in white grape juice!

The Food As Medicine News is my favorite. Quick bits of information I can absorb into my life.  I like the “Do this , don’t do that” style. Like “Add fat to your salad to absorb way more nutrients”. Oh, OK. Avocado and olive oil. Easy.

His blog is in Video format. He’s so into it that you can’t help but get a little excited. Like “yeah, yeah, I can do that”. He CARES about food as medicine like I CARE about skin care. I love this guy.

Can you tell I’m a true believer? Instead of salt and pepper shakers on my table, there are turmeric and pepper shakers. I’m finding places for fresh oregano in just about anything. I’m doing salmon twice a week (Pacific only). We all know about my commitment to quinoa. And I believe I make the Healthiest Smoothie out there, so I’m posting the recipe tomorrow. Wait till you see it! It’s not for everyone, but ChefMD’s recipes are.

In every recipe, as you browse the list, he’ll tell you what is special about the ingredients chosen from a health perspective. The same is true of the weekly recipes that can be delivered to you by email. The Health Tip and Cooking Technique Tip are included.

Some of the recipes are a little too fancy to feed the army of 4 that I have to fill up every day. The techniques are simple but the tastes are a little sophisticated. I have had kids for dinner that squeegee the sauce off each individual spaghetti noodle. So, adapt it. Triple the amounts to last the week and leave out the arugula, or substitute it for another food from that family.

The key is always about gaining knowledge to make better decisions in your daily life. It’s what you do every day that adds up to create the biggest impact. The 30 minute workout you get everyday counts; the hour every 3 weeks barely does. The flossing you do each day makes a big difference. Will the hour at the dentist once a year reverse the 340 days you didn’t floss?

All lasting change begins with learning.  It is consummated in baby steps and the awareness that you never have to be perfect.

Make EVERY day count. Time is passing.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites To Know : ChefMD. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

This link to Shutterfly came my way. You can create your own photo website.  It’s easy to do, takes very little time, and it’s free.

In organizing my photos, I thought I’d introduce you to my family.

This is a photo of my sister Sonja, taken in her computer’s PhotoBooth.

Sonja

Mother of 10 year old twins, superb chocolatier, school teaching assistant. Sonja edits the articles in this blog and transforms them from something that made sense to me, into something that could make sense to someone else.  Sometimes, she tells me they make no sense at all. She unwinds in her kayak. 

Sonja in her kayak.

You met Sonja’s husband, Xavier, in the article The Beauty And Power Of HDR Photographs. Xavier is a fabulous chef, trained in his native France. Presently, he teaches cooking at a college in his town. He Loves His Computer, so we relate on many levels.  Besides his cooking skills, his claim to fame inside the family stems from his impressive skills as a travel agent. He’s also the only one of the men who will spend any kind of time at Value Village.

Xavier at the VV.

Here he is on YouTube, for an interview of his school and teaching practices.

My brother Patrick is a father of three whose first words to you on the phone are “Are the tops of the trees moving?”. If they are, it means there’s enough wind to keep a windsurfer afloat. He’s also an expert sailor. His computer is almost physically attached to his body, except when he’s on water.

Patrick Mason

Patrick is the co-owner of  Social Media 404. We all know that the social networks provide anyone with an idea or a product to sell with a huge potential market or following. But how do you incorporate that into your daily activity? So you have a Facebook profile or a MySpace page? Should you also be tweeting over at Twitter? Do you belong at LinkedIn? And once you’ve identified your spot, how do you manage the conversation?  Patrick, along with his partner John Sheridan, work with individuals and corporations to customize the answers to those question for each application.

Here is Patrick’s beautiful wife, Holly.

Holly

A born hostess, Holly loves to entertain and will never feed you on paper plates. She is famous for her to-truly-die-for brownies and her ability to entertain 20 people in style with an hour’s notice. Holly is mother to her 3 kids, a speech therapist, and tries to fit in her 15 minutes of deep relaxation each day without looking at the clock the entire time. When she asks Patrick how she looks, he will only and invariably answer “As beautiful as the day I married you”. Very wise answer. And I know he really means it.

You met my Mum in the article My Mother Died. Here she is when my parents were married. Does anyone think Patrick and my Dad resemble one another?

My parents in 1960.

And this is my Dad. We made pie for the first time this summer. Here we are, the proud parents of our first pie.

Me and my Dad and our pie.

It was pretty good, though the crust was a little thick. It took us a few tries to figure out how to roll the thing out, with Sonja feeding us tips by phone. Although Apple doesn’t know this, my Dad is their greatest ambassador. He loves his iMac, has tons of pictures in iPhoto, and uses iChat to show us the piece of clothing most recently left behind by his grandchildren, so the parents can identify its rightful owner. Obviously, computer addiction is a genetic trait that his children are similarly afflicted with.

This is my husband Bill on the day we got married.

Bill Scaman

It was October 31, 1992. Bill is a farmer in his heart. He understands the soil, moisture, and the cycle of the seasons in ways he can’t really articulate. I’ve stopped asking what “When the ground is fit” actually means. Small things annoy him… small parts, small cars, small challenges, small risks… . He’s a modern farmer who can work huge acreage with enormous machines, and produce crop yields that are shocking. Other loves include good red wine, BBQ, and TV because he falls asleep almost instantly. He’s had his children sitting on his head to watch Barney because he’s taking up the whole couch, and dripping Popsicle juice down his neck, and he won’t wake up. Turn off the TV or say the word “overflow” anywhere in the house, and he’ll be up like a shot.

>> cspics

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© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Health and time … what woman doesn’t relate? These are two of the biggest concerns and interests in the lives of so many women. What if someone could hand you a list of terrific sites about every aspect of health and well-being over 40? It would save you hours and bring something greatly valuable to your life.

Kelly emailed recently to tell me that AGT had been included in Nursing School Search’s list of Top 100 Women’s Health Blogs.  I’m sincerely honored.

I am also grateful to have that list because it has done the legwork for all of us. I’ve spent a lot of time at Google Blog Search and other blog directories looking for a list like that one, but been discouraged by the sheer number of results and not finding sites that I felt were written with me in mind.

This list is compiled precisely for women over 40. The topics include nutrition with 11 great blogs, exercise with 10, as well as physical and mental well-being, blogs discussing infertility, pregnancy, and child-rearing, and just being fabulous over 40.

On behalf of all of us, thank you, Kelly!

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Top 100 Women’s Health Blogs. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Heidi Swanson

Super Natural Cooking

I certainly can. In fact, I have a rule that says No More Cookbooks. But listen to the focus of her book, SuperNatural Cooking : natural oils, natural sweeteners and alternatives, uncommon grains, cooking with color. There’s a chapter called Know Your Superfoods. I’d buy it for that alone. I looked at the recipe index on the Chapters site and it looks amazing. The book is $16. I’m thinking I’m to going to have to break my rule for this one.

Is that not an inspired title for a cookbook? It defines in 3 words, or 2 actually, my whole feeling about what cooking should be. This is the exactly the food I like and the food I eat. This is the food you eat to feel fantastic. Your body feels clean and light and strong. Your mind does too.

101 Cookbooks

I LOVE the recipes on this blog. They are sorted by type (Gluten-Free, High Protein, Appetizer, Soup, Whole Grain) and by ingredient.

The ingredients are generally organic and of highest quality. Since a recipe only turns out as well as your worst ingredient, ingredient quality really matters. I’d have to search for some of these ingredients. I’ve never seen agave nectar in a store and I don’t expect it’s cheap. I’m not really great at buying organic and I substitute ingredients in every recipe I make, but these always taste just perfect.

Every recipe has a great story behind it and incredible photographs. The pictures of the food are fabulous, and well-worth a visit to the site on their own merit. Heidi is a San Fransico-based photoprapher and shows many beautiful examples of her work, food and otherwise, on her site. Many photographs are available for purchase.

Grilled Potato Salad Recipe (linked to 101 Cookbooks)

Favorite Recipes

I love a fruit crisp. My absolute favorite is the Plum and Peach Crisp and I use orange zest instead of the orange blossom water.

Have a look at the chocolate recipes in the blog. If there’s a section like that in the cookbook, I’m going to have to glue the pages together or I’ll be making, and eating, nothing else.

Do find time to watch this beautiful video about making Big Sur Power Bars which I love for having coconut oil. The video is lovely to watch but Heidi’s kitchen is far too clean. I see one of my responsibilities as a parent to keep my childrens’ immune systems aware of what’s out there. This is the only reason my kitchen is just slightly messier than Heidi’s.

I find these bars a great way to use up a cereal my kids made me buy and will no longer will eat. I use sunflower seeds instead of espresso beans, because well, just imagine feeding children espresso. There are plenty of other recipes that span parent-friendly and kid-friendly – the BlackBean Brownies for instance, the most popular recipe on the site !

Black Bean Brownies at 101 Cookbooks

Just to prove I don’t only care about dessert, there are low carb, high protein, vegan, and vegetarian recipe sections, all excellent. I believe Heidi is a vegetarian herself, so the nutritional value of the foods is of personal concern to her as well.

Quinoa Forever!

I’m always looking for Quinoa recipes ( What The Heck Is Quinoa? ) , and look ! You just have to eat this food to be ‘au courant’. Don’t eat it and you’re nowhere.

Below is the fantastically easy and healthy Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa. It takes 20 minutes, 18 of which you’re reading and drinking your green tea while the quinoa is simmering or absorbing liquid ! How I know it’s the weekend is that I eat this for breakfast instead of AllBran. Sometimes I even make it for supper if I don’t have to feed the whole family.  With berries, walnuts, and organic yogurt, it is so good.

Heidi often writes about other fabulous cookbooks, and this recipe is from chef and internal medicine specialist Dr. John LaPuma’s Chef MD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine. It is vital to recognize the power of food to make you feel amazing and to act as medicine.

Food can be used to give you obesity, diabetes, intestinal disease, poor healing, and many other ailments. That’s a choice many people make, but I don’t believe it’s the easier choice. It’s just what’s been learned and made into habit. Food can also be used to strengthen immunity, breathe more easily, ease sore joints, and raise you to a level of feeling well that you’ve never experienced before. This book covers how to eat for specific medical conditions, how to shop, and which foods to eat to sleep better and think better. The 50 amazing foods we should all be eating on a regular basis often find their way into Heidi’s recipes.

Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa (linked to 101 Cookbooks)

Here is a beautiful big bowl Quinoa recipe! It is absolutely gorgeous, very much a buffet salad. Quinoa makes a great conversation piece. I also love the dressing in the Lemon Scented Quinoa. When you read that post, you’ll see that Heidi is working on using quinoa as a base for cookie dough. Well, alright, you go, girl!

Multi-dimensions

This is a multi-faceted woman. In her earlier days, Heidi set up a tech blog called ChickClick.com, a web site for teenagers. I am impressed with her talent for coming up with cool web names. In this day and age, that is a very marketable skill.

With forums, a store ( ) and iphone edition under Mobile Recipes , this is more than a recipe journal. This is the website of an inspired, creative, original woman who clearly loves her topic and loves the process.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites To Know : 101 Cookbooks. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Jacquie Lawson e-cards

The first card that I saw, indeed that many people saw, was the Christmas card with Jacquie’s dog, Chudleigh. The card is called Christmas Cottage. Chudleigh now has a wide selection of cards and his own About page , as you will see .

After the appearance of the Christmas card, Jacquie was soon flooded with requests for more cards. There are now cards for every occasion and every one is simply lovely. At $16 for a 2yr membership ($10 for 1 year) that allows unlimited use of the site, you will have many reasons to smile.

You can’t help but feel a boost just watching the card unfold. Children, whose happiness is complete when they receive any sort of mail, would be thrilled to receive one. You could send a card with a different theme and message every day, each personalized with your own text.

I have not met a child yet that tires of watching these. Some of the cards are more interactive, where clicking on certain objects makes things happen, but every one is joyful. In our family, many relatives live far from one another. Sending these cards to nieces and nephews, and other family members, is a wonderful way to reach out and keep a connection.

The music is perfect. It enhances the magical effect. The whole experience feels powdered with sparkly dust. Click on the card below, turn up the volume on your computer, and notice how happy you feel watching the card open out.

Jacquie Lawson e-cards

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites To Know : Jacquie Lawson E-Cards. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

CCIC
From their website,

The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics’ (CCIC) Leaping Bunny Program administers a cruelty-free standard and the internationally recognized Leaping Bunny Logo for companies producing cosmetic, personal care, and household products. The Leaping Bunny Program provides the best assurance that no new animal testing is used in any phase of product development by the company, its laboratories, or suppliers.

Do visit this site and download the free shopping guide and read the lists of who does and doesn’t test (and which companies own which brands; fascinating).

Temperate approach

Emily’s About page is excellent. There’s no raging and no blame. She discusses her personal reasons for doing this and how difficult it has been, but also how worthwhile.

Along with the wealth of information and insight she provides, I appreciate that she takes a moderate position. It works better in the real world, or at least with me, than being militant. Aggressive activists do play a vital role to bring the attention of the rest of us to the problem, but it’s not my style. The line between fact and personal agenda is too blurred. I feel no differently on this issue as a woman and a consumer than I do as a veterinarian.

Emily said:

I think I’ve also come to believe that cruelty-freeism is a spectrum. You can pick where you want to be on that spectrum. You can never be completely cruelty-free — it’s about finding the place that’s right for you. Don’t give up on being cruelty-free because you can’t promise to be cruelty-free 100% of the time.

Updated information

We’ve seen the pictures. We know about the types of testing that exists. Most of us aren’t sure how strict the regulations are, but we all regret that animal testing happens at all. I do not in any way wish to reduce the importance of the problem. It is huge.

However, it takes enormous time to research this issue. Like so much information in cosmetics marketing, it’s kept a little concealed and the language is layered with loopholes and half-truths. I am always a little confused by the status of which companies do not test on animals when the parent company does, a situation I believe true of Clinique and L’Oreal.

Living Cruelty Free showcases the beauty of blogs – to bring together in one accessible place opinions and knowledge on topics you care about, from people you can trust and think of as friends. You’ll find fair, no-gushing reviews on beauty and skin care products, sunscreens, deodorants, household cleaners, fragrance and pet foods, as well as discussion about the companies that bring them to you.

Emily brings you changes in company policies and exposure the products you might not know about, or never think of, like this razor.

Corporate influence

Sure, I can vote with my dollars and that helps, but I don’t think it helps a lot. Supporting the voices that the industry is watching, like Emily’s, has more impact because it connects your voice to the company directly, through your Comments.

Do read the first comment on the About page , with part of her response below. From June/07, from the Manta site :

While L’Oreal is, in many ways, an impressive company, it owns a number of cosmetics companies that test on animals […names 26 (--bold) companies].
Many people don’t care about animal suffering for the sake of cosmetics, but for those who do, L’Oreal products are very unappealing. Luckily, L’Oreal is looking into ending its use of animal testing (I suspect because the EU has mandated that European companies must stop testing on animals by 2013). L’Oreal intends to switch over to using “skin equivalents,” which are where a scientist takes a petri dish, puts a layer of collagen down on it, then a layer of human skin on top of that, and then runs numerous toxicology tests on it. This is a much more humane way to run toxicology tests than on live rabbits, rats, or mice.
Overall, I think it’s a great thing that L’Oreal will become cruelty-free, but I think it’s important to remember that as of today and for the next few years, L’Oreal causes and will continue to cause a lot of suffering to numerous animals.

In the Year in Review list of articles , you’ll be impressed with the range of topics, like humane farming and the changes needed in veterinary schools. The cosmetics company updates are eye-openers , like the news that L’Oreal is going cruelty-free . Read the article before you decide how great they are.

She pulls no punches, which I love, like in the article Burt’s Bees Sucks . Look at the letter Emily wrote and their response. Having had a similar experience with a call to Olay where I asked outright if they test on animals and was told, categorically not ever, I empathize with her mistrust of the whole organization. I read today that Burt’s Bees has gone cruelty-free though the parent company has not.

You will find links to lists of companies that do/don’t test on animals. I was impressed with this article on what cruelty free really means, the loopholes companies use to avoid consumer understanding and the standards that the CCIC maintains to include or exclude certain companies.

Other sites

There are very good lists of Companies That Do and Don’t Test, like this one at Caring Consumer . These are excellent because you see the parent company, but the subsidiaries are identified as well. This is an important site to know because you can download the lists of companies that do/don’t test as either Word or .pdf files. I just keep the Word file on my computer and check it when I want to buy something.

Nothing changes till we do.

If I’m going to put my money where my mouth is, I want to begin now. I bought J/A/S/O/N/ Shower Gel in Rosewater. It was about $10 for a liter, no different from the usual $5 for 500ml or so from the other companies. It’s right there at the Superstore along with many Kiss My Face products. It’s just fine and I feel better every time I look at it.

We dishonor ourselves by closing our eyes to what we know is taking place. We are better than this. It might take a little more time, and maybe even a little more money. I think most women would gladly support this cause with both time and money if reliable information were easy to find and utilize. Rants and pages of scientific data are difficult to distill to change our purchasing habits, much as we might want to.

You don’t ever have to be perfect. Whether you buy from the companies that are CCIC – listed or only from those that do not test the finished product, at least have an awareness that a living creature is paying a heavy price for us all to have longer eyelashes.

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© 2007–2008, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

There is a previous article on sun protection in the Archives, entitled The 28 Sun Facts You Should Know . It provides some background on sun protection. This is an area that evolves quickly because consumers, the skin care industry, the FDA, and the medical community all care about it.

The Coolibar objective

A private company based in Minneapolis, Coolibar’s mission is to develop superior sun protective clothing to allow people to safely enjoy life in the sun. They have researched and assembled an impressive inventory of effective and affordable clothing and sun-related products for the whole family.

Founded in 2001 by Australian, John Barrow, the company brings Australia’s world-leading approaches to sun protection to North America. They continue to be the only producer of sun protective clothing to receive The Skin Cancer Foundation’s Seal of Recommendation.

Here are 3 facts that set me up for a reality check :

• In Australia, 2 out of 3 people will be treated for skin cancer.
• In the US, skin cancer is the most common type of cancer diagnosed.
• 80% of skin cancer could be prevented.

This is a company whose product we need to be aware of.

Education

From an educational perspective alone, Coolibar is a great resource. There is an absolute wealth of information here about sun protection, the meaning of the term UV Index, the interaction of sun and certain medical conditions, and the role of sunscreen and sun protective clothing.

The most interesting thing I learned was about UPF, or Ultraviolet Protection Factor, which is how the clothing is rated. This is like SPF, but addresses UVA and UVB, where SPF is only a UVB rating. A UPF 50 means that 1/50 of the sun’s rays penetrate the garment , or 98% of the UV rays are blocked.

Organization

The entire site is exceptionally easy to navigate. You can find everything fast. I haven’t yet purchased anything, but I would not expect any issues here at all.

I loved Sunscreen By Ingredient. I try to look at the new sunscreens on the market each year before I decide which to buy. This year, I’m looking for titatium dioxide and zinc oxide products because they are so effective in a wide range of wavelengths of light, and very non-irritating. These are the ones that make your kids white, but they don’t sting if they get into the eyes. Interestingly, you can buy a gallon of Blue Lizard Baby SPF 30 at Coolibar for US $180.

Sun Protection by Activity (swimming, golf, etc) is a useful navigational aid as well. Gardeners can look at products of interest to them, instead of the swimwear.

Clothing, hats, swimwear for all ages.

The clothing is great. The choices for kids are especially great. Have a look at the page for Infants here. Now that is cuteness!! And so smart, with the throw and the beach tent. And these sunglasses, would these look good, I ask you ?? in one of the hats? best looking baby out there, and 98% UV-protected.

I know a young boy who would be quite taken with the dolphin swim shirt and I would guess there are many others like him. The clothes for teens are actually things my children would be pleased to wear, never an achievement to be taken for granted.

I have a daughter who burns very easily. I’m going to buy her this perfect swim top. It’s beautifully cut so I know she’ll agree to wear it.

Since I appear in a bathing suit once a year maybe, unless the temp gets over 34C (32C being my ideal temperature), I won’t be needing a suit. A hat, now…I’m a big hat wearer. There are 31 styles of women’s hats to choose from. Which one, which one? And there’s also the golf hat from the screenshot at the top. Oh, the indecision.

Durability

There was a concern with sun protective clothing that it washed out quickly, so I wondered if the protection factor would last an entire season, or hopefully longer, in salt and chlorine. My other concern was whether the clothing protects against UVA as well as UVB rays. Both questions are fully addressed on this page . The answers are yes and yes. The clothing has an SPF rating of 50. That much chemical in a lotion applied directly to the skin could be very irritating.

Merchandise can be returned within 30days, but must be new, unused, and with all original packaging and accessories. That’s not as generous as some return policies, probably because this is a smaller company than LLBean or JCrew. If you exchange an item, there is no return shipping fee, which I liked (presumably that applies to Canadian orders as well).

Holly tells me that the sizes run big. A Large is indeed very ample in its sizing. Holly also bought the Tucson hat and finds it excellent.

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