Infusions for your skin
Reading the skin can be one of the most resourceful parts of my work but the hardest part isn’t actually acquiring the information but rather delivering it. I’ve slowly gotten more comfortable throughout the years with telling my clients that they are depleted. I know how I feel when someone tells me I’m less than full and it can be tricky information to receive. The panic starts to set in that you have to try to turn your whole life around in order to just get back to zero instead of chronically negative. We all don’t want to be operating less than what we optimally would need or want to but we also might not have the best time to refuel. That’s when herbal infusions come into the big picture of health-hacking. Today I want to discuss a few of my favorite infusion recipes for different skin conditions.
When simplifying skincare is key
Believe it or not, but great skin often is the result of a simplified skincare routine. Over the weekend I was delighted that the most common theme amongst my clients was that everyone had the intuitive instinct to scale back and simplify their skincare. This allowed them to fully allow the skin to do what it does best, which is self-heal. One of the most common things that can happen when we start simplifying is that we end up missing some important steps. The only issue for most people is recognizing how to simplify according to their specific needs. I’m going to walk you through how to successfully simplify your skincare without messing with your skin’s healing.
Understanding the importance of neck care
This past weekend I was so honored to take a class taught the brilliant Cecily Braden and Angela Peck. If you don’t know who these ladies are, they are some of the most esteemed leaders in the holistic esthetician education world. They host supportive, expanding workshops on everything from Gua Sha, lessons in traditional Chinese medicine, lymphatic drainage technique, Thai herbal poultice face massage, and everything in between. The class was so elevating and I was honored to surround myself with so many holistic estheticians who were looking to bring more intuitive modalities to their practices. Along with deepening my education on Gua Sha, there was a resounding theme that I felt I needed to share in this week’s blog. Most people think that skin care is just based on what our faces need. What about our neck? A lot of our neck health can be an indicator or the root of skin imbalance manifestation. Today I want to talk about the importance of neck care and how it will benefit your skin.
Is skin journaling right for you?
To preface, it’s important to acknowledge the transition of our skin throughout the course of our day. Your skin will not be the same from when you wake up, workout, eat, go to work, socialize, drive in your car to when you get home and wash your face at the end of the day. Your skin is working really hard to function with you throughout those transitions so that your fighting off free radicals, regulating your temperature, protecting you from UV rays (both sun and your daily screens), as well as how the rest of your body is responding to those same transitions. At the end of the day, our skin has exhausted itself from all of the work it happily does for us. So when we engage in negative self-talk throughout the course of its endless work for us, each cell hears your resistance and starts to respond accordingly. Call it woo-woo, but the more you shut down and think your skin isn’t working for you - the more it will start to dim your inner radiance. Believing in that inner radiance and showing gratitude for your skin is easier said than done, and that’s how skin journaling can help you get to that next step.
Intuitive Self-Care
Last week I was so honored to host an event with Michelle of Holisticism and Nicole Webb, who’s a reiki practitioner who uses muscle testing as a modality for intuitive healing. We were able to partner to discuss the innate wisdom that our body holds. I found myself speaking to a group of incredible women who were all prioritizing themselves by making the time to attend an event that would focus on their self-care. Sometimes I feel like a kettle boiling over and the burnout is real. I know all of you can get the same feeling when our work and personal lives get congested with the non-stop to do lists. This is where self-care comes into play, but only up until the last few years did I really start to determine the difference between self-care and escapism.
The secret to eye care
As usual, I get inspired to write about each subject on the blog from my experiences with clients. Over the weekend there were a few common themes, one of which I spoke about in an instagram live and the other I’m writing about today. Many of you may have noticed that I’m not big on recommending eye products. It’s not because I don’t believe in them because some eye products are fantastic. It’s more so that the work goes a little deeper than just an expensive skincare product. The eye area can correlate to so many different aspects of your health. Whether it stems from a reproductive, detoxification, endocrine, or simply genetic issue, the care can be tricky to uncover if you're not tapped in. With so many great products out there formulated for just the eye area, it's important to understand that it takes just as much of the inner work to obtain the benefits of the product. Let me break down common eye area issues and what to do to help support them.
Chronically tired skin
I’ve not shied away from sharing my health history with all of you on this platform so it’s no surprise that at some point I would write about adrenal fatigue. I first discovered this epidemic when I met a functional medicine doctor at The Detox Market when I worked there. She offered to evaluate my health patterns so we started with a cortisol test. I genuinely never thought about how being chronically tired wasn’t something that everyone dealt with in their life. I just assumed that all of us need a nap at 12, and 3, and 5, and then can’t stay out past 10 pm. When she called me to go over my results of this test, I was shocked at how uneducated I was towards this vital part of our health.
Skincare SOS
Have you ever woken up to a face flared in hives, a scaly rash, white head infections bursting everywhere, or heated in a flush that feels hot to the touch? The majority of you will answer with a reluctant yes. The reasons why our skin transitions from a normal, seemingly forgettable part of our daily existence to a skincare SOS can’t be simply explained. Try as I might, there are just some things I can’t predict or over-communicate in a session to help people prepare for such a skincare predicament. The last thing I want to see in my inbox after caring for someone endlessly for 90 minutes session accompanied with an email follow up that can take up to 2 hours to research and write up, is a subject line that screams: SKINCARE SOS!
Bonding with your breakouts
First, whenever I personally experience any type of skin imbalance I do have the mindfulness that it’s not the end of the world. I’ve spent years hating myself, my body, and every other circumstantial thing that may have caused my skin to flare. What I didn’t do was realize that of course, I’m going to break out if I neglect my health in any way. Now I can determine some of the markers that will lead to a breakout before it happens so I have the means to support myself or redirect my focus so that my skin stays calm.
Subconscious Skin Sabotage
When I think about the problems that come up with skin conditions, the worst one I think of has nothing to do with the skin itself. Our emotional wellness is oftentimes compromised when we are dealing with a physical manifestation of an internal imbalance on our skin. This could lead us to eventually believing in the worst about ourselves which is we may not be deserving the skin we want. There is an epidemic of people who experience the psychological effects of having a problematic skin condition that they often have a hard time seeing past imbalance even when it’s resolved. Regardless of when you have had a skin issue, it can come back not only physically but also the emotional effects can too throughout different times in your life. So what do we do when we happen to be one of those people? How can we shift into believing we deserve great skin and actually achieve it? It all starts with the right mindset and the proper tools to help you heal from the experience of having an imbalanced skin condition. Today I want to talk about how to balance this so you are not left subconsciously sabotaging your skin.
Our emotions and their energetically paired organs
Over the last couple of months, I have found myself being able to immediately put into application some newfound knowledge. In the past, I may have learned something from a class or a program and any connection it would have for my life or work just didn't really click right away. I can’t even begin to tell you how my career path has been limited in the type of education that I have been seeking. Most classes were repetitive or sales-driven so my experience with clientele was my preferred form of continuing education. Each individual would have such a special case that I would find myself needing to do extensive research to help them get to the root of their case. From doing this type of custom care I found myself really getting to know the ins and outs of how the body works on a physical level. What recently clicked for me was the connection between emotion and your internal systems. So when you are experiencing a chronic emotion, what physical part of your body is out of balance?
Consistency might be key, but why do we sometimes drop off?
Last week I got my first facial in well over half a year. Mind you I take great care of my skin but a true facial is rare for me. I felt so incredible afterward that I actually said: “wow, this must be why I’m in business!” People ask me all the time, how often do you get a facial? And it’s sort of embarrassing that the answer is almost always never. The reason why comes in two parts;
1 - I don’t work in a spa setting anymore where I am able to get treatments with my coworkers on my downtime.
2 - I’m really not the best when it comes to consistency with services.
My hair seems to always be a few months out from when I should have gotten it cut, I am a little late on follow-ups with my healers, I don’t get massages nearly as often as I need to, my exercise schedule is never consistent and most of the time an appointment gets prompted by someone else who is bugging me to book. I’m truly grateful for those prompts and utilize them just as much in my practice because of my own failure to launch when it comes to active consistency. So why do we get stuck? I want to explore a little bit of that today since I’m right there with you and what to do to navigate it all.
Acne without the stigma.
If you know me, you know I love movies. I especially love this time of year when all of the year’s best movies are recognized and the industry that rules the city I live in gets to showcase its most impressive talents. Each aspect of the movie-making process is honored, including the makeup department which is often overlooked as a vital part of the process unless the film includes impressive prosthetics. The film that really got me to notice their makeup departments artistic choices was Lady Bird.
Traveling Skin Blues
Over the last weekend, I had a lot of new and regular clients ask about the inevitability of stressed skin during travel. I was certain that I addressed this on a blog somewhere but realized that this subject has been skipped almost entirely in the last 2 years of the blog! What a disservice this has been! Traveling is already so frustrating and stressful so the last thing you want to worry about is your skin having a meltdown as a result. Though I’m not the expert on extensive travel (I’ve never been to Europe or across any major ocean), I have traveled for 24 hours plus before and to multiple climates. I also have experienced just about any major setback as in lost luggage, flights canceled, and the sprained ankle while crossing borders (remember that?), so I can speak to the unexpected. Since I have a major trip aka my HONEYMOON coming up soon as well I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about prep for in case of emergency so your skin doesn’t go crazy.