Colin's Beauty Pages

Stretch marks. I am covered in them, some from growing, others from weight gain and loss. I have them on my thighs, my behind, my lower back, my chest, my stomach, my arms and shoulders….ugh. UGH. They are gross. I know where they come from and I know how they form but how on gods name do they go away???? Especially the white ones. I’ve heard a mixture of zinc, vitamin e and c is the best way and I’ve read then only way is to cut them out, which seems quite extreme to me. As the skin is constantly regenerating I do not understand why stretch marks cannot be eradicated. Rant over, I really would appreciate your input. Thank you.

I am afraid stretch marks are very deep seated problems and as you have already worked out they are difficult to treat.  When I say difficult, I mean almost impossible.  The reason is that they are located a long way below the surface of the skin and the skin is a pretty good barrier to most of what we apply to it.

A lot of interest was generated online a few years ago when some people reported getting good results against stretch marks using a product called BioOil.   I think this actually took the manufacturers themselves by surprise and seems to have been quite sincere.  But the data the firm actually has is not all that strong and in the UK the ASA (the body that monitors adverts and claims) made them tone down what they were saying quite a bit.

I have a feeling that any very oily product might have a small benefit simply by making the skin a bit more elastic and so reducing the physical strain on the stretch marks.  But I don’t think it will have a huge effect.

There is one other thing you can do, which is to avoid rapid changes in weight.  This is obvious enough but is also not a bad thing in its own right.

As to the skin constantly regenerating, this takes place much closer to the surface than where the stretch marks are.  But there is a similar process that goes on deeper down whereby the body is continually breaking down and rebuilding itself.  So over time stretch marks do disappear, although very slowly.

With this in mind I think the best thing to do about stretch marks is to try to get into the best frame of mind you can.  It might not be immediately obvious, but they are steadily diminishing.  Every day that passes, they will be a bit less obvious.  Sooner or later, they’ll cease to be a problem.

Spats between people you don’t know are rarely interesting, but here is one that interested me.   Read the rest of this entry »

The UK television series QI delights in exposing facts you have always believed as being untrue.  And very entertaining it is.  If they are reading this, here is another one for them.  Which country first used gas in the First World War?  I was absolutely convinced it was the Germans.  But it turns out that it was in fact the French.  It’s understandable that this hasn’t been remembered.  The attack was so ineffective that the Germans didn’t even realise that gas had been used. Read the rest of this entry »

Cocamidopropyl betaine is a bit of a mouthful, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the most widely used ingredients in shampoos and foam baths.  Wikipedia is a good source of information on cosmetic ingredients as a rule, but the entry on CAPB is a bit opaque and was clearly written by someone who knew their chemistry but probably hadn’t had much to do with this widely used material.  In particular, he missed the main thing that motivates people to us it, which is bubbles.   Read the rest of this entry »

Lapiz lazuli has been mined in Afghanistan for about 6000 years.  For most of that time it has been the only source, but early in the twentieth century another deposit was found in Siberia, and since then a few other locations have been found and exploited.  Despite this there still isn’t that much of it around.  Its rarity made it fabulously expensive.   In most of history it has been more expensive than gold and is not far behind it even today.  It was well known in the ancient world as gem stone in its own right, ground up to produce a pigment for paint or used as an ingredient in make up.  By the time Cleopatra was using it in her eye shadow, it was already a practice that had gone on for thousands of years.

Egyptian Bracelet with Lapis Lazuli

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Ingredient lists have been a feature of cosmetic and personal care products for so long now it is hard to remember that they are fairly recent.  When I started in the business in the early eighties they were being talked about but a lot of people didn’t think anything that radical would ever actually happen.   Read the rest of this entry »

I have looked at the benefits of organic skincare to you as a consumer in the first two posts in this series.  I concluded that the risk posed from pesticides in conventional products was zero for ones that didn’t contain natural ingredients.  And as we don’t eat through our skins, there is no advantage from the extra nutrients that organic products might contain.

But I have a feeling that most fans of organic products are not simply looking for benefits for themselves.  I think they believe that by purchasing organic products that they are helping to make the environment better.  This is a noble motive and I applaud people who think that way.  Lets have a look at how much this public spirited behaviour is really achieving. Read the rest of this entry »