Tricks to Avoid Getting Caught with a Spot

For the first time in years I have broken out with two very red, very visible pimples...smack in the middle of my forehead.

Back when I had acne, this would be a daily occurrence - and people around me would give me tips on how to treat them. I know, I know they were trying to help, but often it was simply bad skin advice (and embarrasing!). I have heard so many bad blemish tips that I am surprised my face is not full of scars - like when my aunt told me to swim in chlorinated water to dry them out, or my former drama teacher's bauty wisdom: to take a bit of my mother's perfume and dab it on each spot. Not only would the high percentage of alcohol blast them of my face, but I would smell like the first floor of a department store.

Well, for those of us who get the occasional zit, here is what you should really do, from an esthetician who went through a decade of terrible break outs:

Germinating Break outs

Like with all things, pimples do not simply appear, but evolve. Sometimes you even have the pleasure of seeing a pimple mature -starting as something small, a little red bump with no visible white pus, slowly gets bigger and bigger, becoming more and more gross. This is commonly when people try to pick their faces, leaving them looking scabbed, and the blemish returning in the next day or so. The best thing to do is to moisturize them - and that is what I did.

Because they had not formed a head, I just slathered on a heavy cream with oil over top of the cream, for a layering of anti-pimple antidote. In two days my blemishes were gone - I avoided them getting to full-sized pimples, but more importantly, I avoided scarring. Now, if you are too late and the pimple is on its way to full blemishdom, this will still help it come out faster, and the faster it comes out, the faster you can get rid of it.

Mount Fuji on Your Face

When you have to deal a blistering pimple, (probably right before public speaking with your ex boyfriend in the audience), there are a couple of things you can do.

If you must get rid of the spot the day of - you need to pick it. So get down and dirty and steam your face for 5 minutes (after cleansing of course), tissue your fingers, and extract it. The pimple should feel flatter and you should have removed all of the pus. Quickly disinfect with an alcohol-free antiseptic like Organic Witch Hazel (using alcohol can lead to scarring), dab the spot with Green Clay and let it sit until the clay is dry to touch. This will not only close up the picked pimple, but also calm the irritated skin and draw out any impurities you didn't take out. After you remove the spot treatment, apply a soothing moisturizer and apply make up.

But this is only in beauty emergencies, if you have a couple of days, I suggest the gentler, less risky solution: dry it out. There is more than one way to do this, but the objective is to dry out the spot, but nor your skin. I recommend applying a Clay Mask just on the blemish and leaving it overnight. After two nights the pimple should be gone or at least significantly reduced. Don't use a very diluted clay or a kaolin clay - they will not be potent enough.

Another route is to use Himalayan Salt. A friend of mine told me that she mixes a pinch of salt with water and dabs it on before bed. Whatever you use, I suggest it be natural and only on the blemish itself - you don't want to dehydrate your healthy skin.

The Cystic Pimple: An underground killer

Sometimes you get those deep, underground boil-like blemishes that do not come to a head at all. We call this Cystic Acne, or Blind Pimples. In these cases, bacteria has gone into the dermis layer of your skin and this deep seated, infected fluid is what causes the painfulness of Cystic Pimples. If you have many Cysts, and break out with them often - you may need to disinfect internally. This is why anti-biotics are so effective for this type of break out - but I have prescribed Neem capsules with excellent results. Neem is a blood cleanser, anti-parasitic, anti-bacterial and also anti-inflammatory.

Topically, you must stimulate the area. Because this stagnant fluid is Kapha-like in its quality, it can stay on the skin for months at a time in some situations. Applying arnica cream of water heals the area and promotes circulation which will break up the cyst and encourage it to drain. I have personally extracted my own cystic pimples by puncturing it with a sterile needle and removing the fluid, but I would not recommend anyone doing this without a professional. The arnica route is much gentler, and again, evades the risk of scarring.

Below: Dalila at Pure + Simple Oakville, extracting her client professionally with steam.

Strategies to Preventing Skin Scarring (and the anxieties which come with them)

I have burnt myself three times this week, causing three beauty tantrums - they all began with my wailing about inevitable scarring! And they all ended with Ben comforting me (and probably rolling his eyes discretely) while I devised a scar-preventing game plan. Despite the fact I have resolved to be less OCD about my skin, scars are something I cannot help but obsess over. Its a good thing I know a thing or two about treating scars.

So, this week, I thought to help those who scar easily (and as sort of a pledge to myself to stop being so clumsy) I would devote this post to solutions for preventing and healing scars.

Scarring is caused by skin trauma. Whether its the aftermath of a large blemish or the melanin response to a sun burn, a scar is caused by inflammation. Skin which is darker will scar more easily, as will skin which is dehydrated. But when preventing the onset of a permanent skin mark, the source of the inflammation will be key in dictating what route of treatment to take.

Acne scars: If the scar is from acne, the best thing to do is nourish your skin. Vitamin E and Organic Rosehip Oil have done wonders for many of my clients - but if your skin is still breaking out, I would alternate the Organic Rosehip Oil with Jojoba oil to prevent over-stimulating your skin and causing another break out. Encouraging collagen production with skincare loaded with Vitamin C is also excellent, or just go straight to the source and use a Collagen Serum.

Now, if the scars have been there for some time, you must determine if they are "young" or "old". Young are red or brown marks which can still be cleared up by Organic Rosehip Oil, Vitamin E, Vitamin C or Collagen. Old scars are whitish silver in colour, or come in the form of pitted marks. These scars must be deeply exfoliated follwed by the previously mentioned nourishing topicals. Pitted marks the hardest to reverse, and extensive Seasalt Microdermabrasion or Laser Treatments are the only effective options.

Burns: When you burn your skin, preventing pigmentation is very different from how we treat potential acne scars. Avoid oil and keep the skin cool. Oil increases heat in the skin (think of how we use cooking oil to increase the heat of a pan) - and the more inflammation, the deeper the burn. Use water-based ingredients like Aloe Vera gel until the skin loses its redness. Apply cooling gels multiple times per day to keep the skin moist as dehydrated skin does not repair properly. If the skin is hot to touch apply cold compresses. In my case, it took an entire week's rotation of Aloe Vera gel, Collagen gel and Pure + Simple's Soothing Mimosa Emulsion (excellent for burns as nit contains the restorative Japanese Honeysuckle).

When you start to peel, just keep moisturizing and do not exfoliate. I always say, Peeling is healing - and any itchiness you may feel from this peeling is a small inconvenience to endure to prevent a permanent mark. When the redness has gone, your skin will either be completely back to normal or left with a brown mark. If this happens, begin using Organic Rosehip Oil everyday.

Burn scars which have been there for a long time often disappear after 1-3 years as the skin turns over. But often cases of multiple sunburns translate into pesky pigmented lesions which are resistant to fading. In these situations, IPL is a highly effective option.

Nicks and scrapes: For the pigmentation-prone, even little nicks and scrapes can result in a scar. In these cases, ensure the area has been cleaned, then use Organic Lavender Essential Oil straight onto the affected area. This oil with disinfect and promote faster healing. A scab will firm, and be sure not to remove it.... not matter how tempting. I'm talking to the same people who pick their pores when they know they shouldn't(!) When the scab falls off, the skin should not show any remnants of the trauma. Lavender oil is the only essential oil you should use straight onto the skin without dilution and avoid the eye area.

I personally used it for a tear on my face a few years back. After putting dozens of products on it without progress, I stumbled into using Organic Lavender Essential Oil in my frenzy. I found that this simple oil both healed and disinfected my skin, promoting scabbing almost immediately.

An Ode to Oils!

An Ode to Oils - For those of you who know a bit about me, you know that I used to have terrible acne. I did 70% peels, took anti-biotics and applied drying prescription creams without much success. What I did find that worked, was nourishing my skin - This led to my love of oils.

Now, I know that many of us view oil as "too heavy" and "clogging" -- I did too! I wouldn't even put sunblock on because I was afraid it would make me break out -- but in fact, oils are restorative for our skin as well as cleansing. Some oils are even used in Ayurveda to kill parasites internally and externally. It is also important to understand that each oil is unique: some oils stimulate, some oils calm, some oils rebuild tissue and some oils are anti-microbials. So, as the cold winter descends (and oh, has it started) - I thought I would write about the beautifying and therapeutic properties of oiling your body for detoxification, rejuvenation and to combat this dry, dry weather.

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1. Oil as a facial moisturizer: I use oil as my last step of moisturization day and night. Actually, if I don't, I start to break out. What I have tried to do at Pure + Simple for many years is to educate people that oils actually help regulate our own skin's oil-production. When our skin is dehydrated, it produces more oil to compensate for this lack of protection. So the more we dry out our skin, the more oil we produce. This is why applying an oil on our skin will cut down our sebum production - and an oil like hazelnut is particularly beneficial to do this with. But for something more general - Jojoba oil is the same consistency as our own skin's sebum and it balances our our complexions nicely.

2. Oiling our extremities: In Ayurveda, oiling our extremities is so important that this Oleation is actually part of a recommended morning ritual. Oiling our hands and feet with a warming oil such as sesame oil, helps bring circulation to our outer body - and this is especially good in winter time. Foot massages nightly with Sesame oil also have been said to draw heat away from our eye area, improving eye sight. This is particularly good for those of us who touch a lot of people (massage therapists, nurses etc.) as we pick up the heat and inflammation of others easily.

The scalp is the gateway to our minds and oils have a therapeutic effect on our mental state. For most neurological issues, Ayurveda prescribes oiling our heads with sesame oil as it is Vata decreasing. But for heated, Pitta thoughts, coconut oil is best. This cooling oil is also great for hair loss and preventing hair loss, as it combats the excess heat which travels through our scalps (According to Eastern Medicine, heat rises) causing dried out, brittle hair follicles. Coconut oil is conveniently one of the lightest oils available, making it the easiest to rinse out.

3. Oiling our tummies: Stomach oiling is excellent for lubricating our G.I tract and helping to loosen old, unmoving waste in our intestines. This helps with constipation - but for extreme cases, Ayurveda prescribes an uber oleation: an oil enema. During tummy massage, always massage in a clock-wise motion as this is the direction our bowels move in.

4. Oiling up your eyes, ears and nose: My mother and I love oil so much we often engage in the Ayurvedic traditions of oiling...well...everything. People think we're being zany when we tell them that we oil our eyes. yes, we oil our eyes! You can do this with an eye cup (which is similar to the eye wash station in science class) or your can do a Netra Basti. This is the act of building a wall around your eye with dough and filling it with oil. This rejuvenates the eye area's skin as well as detoxifies the eyes, improving vision. Because the oil loosens toxins behind the eye, sometimes you can see eye crud surface in the oil. Melted ghee is best for this treatment.

Putting oil in our ears is another unconventional practice we do. It can be as simple as a few drops a week in your ear with olive oil (which helps prevent wax build up), or what I do, and fill your ear with sesame oil and leave it for a few minutes. This helps maintain our hearing as it protects from excess Vata(space) from being acquired in our ears. Remember, the process of hearing is simply our dendrites (ear hairs) to pick up sound waves. If there is excess space and damaged dendrites, we cannot process sound.

And the best for our upcoming winter: nasal oiling. Putting drops up our noses moisturizes our nasal passages helping us breathe better and dislodging nasal congestion. My mother uses plain sesame oil, while I prefer getting a "Nasya" oil which is a preblended concoction which is specifically for your nasal pathways.

5. Gargling with oil: When examining our bodies, Eastern medicine doctors look at our tongues. This is because you can see the state of all our organs here. Gargling everyday for 10-15 minutes with sesame oil not only strengthens our teeth and gums, but detoxifies our bodies by drawing out toxins in the mouth. The first time I did this, I could only use a tablespoon of oil - the thought of more than this made me want to gag. But after about a week I was swishing mouthfuls of oil without a problem. Remember, if you do this, do not swallow the oil, it is full of unwanted toxins and sometimes parasites. For those of us who are doing it only for gum and teeth strengthening and healing, holding oil in our mouths for 1 minute is sufficient.

Stress Series Part 4: A Little Yoga For Your Dosha

Recently I have written a two part article for Beauty and Beyond Magazine all about stress, and while doing some research on stress reduction, I soon realized that Yoga is to stress management what low fat! was to dieting in the 80s. It was everywhere - like a catch phrase.

But is it any wonder? Yoga and meditation are the conscious art forms of being still and clearing your mind of clutter. I, myself, have said in previous blog posts that Yoga save my life - what I really should have said was that Yoga saved me from losing all my hair. I'm a bit on the high-strung side.

But while I think Yoga is an excellent way to relieve tension and calm overactive minds, I don't know if many people know that you must tailor your practice to your constitution. Like everything in Ayurveda, it all comes down to balancing your Doshas. We have to be specific, and do the poses which will be therapeutic to what we as unique individuals need.

Are we experiencing Vata Excess? With too much air and movement in our bodies? Do we feel scattered and anxious? Perhaps some excess air in our digestive tract causing bloating or dehydrated roughness in our skin.

Are we experiencing Pitta Excess? With too much fire and heat inflaming our bodies causing thoughts of self-pressure and demanding ambitions? Maybe we have acid stomach or pimples from all the stress or aggravation of rosacea.

Or are we experiencing Kapha Excess? With too much earthy dampness making us lethargic and demotivated? Coupling water-retention and puffiness?

Whichever your Doshic dysfunction, when trying to pacify your mind and body, doing the proper poses is much more therapeutic than taking a generalist class.

Vata Yoga: Vata types or those with excess Vata must slow down their yogic practice. Transitions between poses must be gradual with calm concentration. Vata is easily ungrounded, so balancing poses are therapeutic. Tree pose and downward dog are good examples of Vata decreasing poses. But simpler poses like Mountain (which is simply standing upright and feeling your feet implant into the floor) and Savasana are also excellent. Savasana which is laying in an open rest position, is particularly good as it has the whole body on the floor feeling its own weight and grounding itself. When doing your sequence and balancing, setting your gaze downward is important, and many find that looking down helps with balance anyway. This is why downward dog is a great pose because it in a downward facing position.

Pitta Yoga: Pitta types or those with excess Pitta need to do poses with twisting involved. You can do many modifications of different poses to incorporate a twist or do something as simple as a seated twist. This breaks up the heat in the abdomen where the main site of Pitta is (in our jatharagni - digestive fire). Pittas also need to soften their hands during poses - and not have them made into strong spears. So if doing warrior poses, remember to make your wrists supple.

Kapha Yoga: Kaphas and those with Kapha excess need to open their chests. Because Kapha governs the lungs, there can be a protection of the lungs and a natural roll in of the shoulders and hunching over. To counter-act that accumulative tendency, poses such as Fish pose, Sleeping Hero pose and Wheel pose are ideal. Kapha also needs to be shaken out of the body by speeding up transitions in the yoga sequence. This can be done by doing one pose on the inhale and moving into the next on the exhale to keep your pace. Springing during Ashtanga classes are also good for stimulating blood flow for Kapha.

Changing your yogic style depending on how you feel is a great way to bring awareness into your practice. Also, becoming more body-aware and monitoring when you feel imbalanced is refined when you also treat your body with this type of physical therapy as you can actually feel the changes before and after asanas.

Stress Series Part 3: Stress Councillor to the Rescue

If you had asked me if I was living a Pure + Simple lifestyle a few years ago, I would have had to sheepishly admit that I was not. Of course, even by then I was already armed with Ayurvedic knowledge and TCM theory, but sometimes you push your better judgement aside despite knowing better.

When I returned back from Australia and we opened our second Pure + Simple location, I was overwhelmed with stress and began neglecting my health. I skipped meals and got little sleep. Of course this translated into under eye bags and a loss of muscle tone. I have never really dealt with stress very well - as a Pitta-Vata constitution, my Pitta self has goals it intends to execute and deadlines in which it wants to do this, and my Vata self worry about this...a lot.

But the world works in the most wonderful ways because Stress Councillor, Natalie Shay, landed right into the palm of my hand. Literally... I met her while giving her a facial, and its a good thing I have some sense because by time she was toned and moisturized I had already booked my first session with her.

Now, you may think having a councillor just for stress is excessive - Ben with his naturally grounded British way did - but to me (and my naturally neurotic North American way), emotional well being is a pillar of good health and we must put as much care and energy into stress-management as we do our diets, self-care and exercise programs.

So what exactly does a stress councillor do? Would having to put extra time aside be even more stress-producing? The Beauty of Shay's program was its simplicity. There were measurable metrics to monitor my success with and we started with a booklet of questions filled with thought-provoking inquiries of many sides of me - from the regularity of my body, to my feelings on my career's progress. What we found was that we I was in burn-out or close to burn-out in most categories. But what she also explained to me was that I would easily feel unable to cope with situations of distress if I wasn't nourishing my body properly or sleeping enough.

She set gradual goals like "take an hour for lunch at least three times a week", and "eat breakfast everyday, even if its something small". But she didn't just dictate these common credos but also gave me quick but nutrient-rich recipes to do this as well as body-relaxing breathing exercises. Just with these slight changes, I began to see my mind and my blood sugar balance out and felt much better.

To some, this sounds like common-sense, but to those of you who are like me who can get so swallowed up by your own anxieties that you begin to think that everything is urgent, and your body is less of a priority than your goals - its really helpful to know that enlisting a stress councillor is an option, and that it can be a worthy investment. Because as that small voice which tells you to "take it easy, and be gentle on yourself" gets more and more faint, and the adrenaline from stress-related dramas becomes more and more invigorating- you become less and less capable.

And the whole program was easy to do as her time-pressed clientele, she does her consultations via phone. I actually had one of my sessions blackberry while in transit from one spa to another (it wasn't the most grounded conversation, and I don't think she was impressed).

But what I really appreciated about this process was that you had someone reminding and encouraging you to take care of yourself. And Shay does a very good job of this - not from an uber-zen high ground, but a relatable voice of a woman who is also a young, ambitious professional. When I was feeling like work was overwhelming and that leaving at six o'clock was unrealistic, she would say "I know how you feel. But, what is it that is important that you cannot leave until tomorrow? Will you even be as effective as you would be with some rest?"

The process is also one which has an end-date (which I also liked). After six sessions, the goal is to have you be able to be independent and able to deal with stress with these newly learnt tools. In my last consult, we retested me on the same metrics we began with, and I improved in every segment (this as not a surprise as my skin looked less sallow and my body felt stronger).

I think that my success not only because this had forced me to commit to concentrating on reducing stress, but also to really reinforce the mind-body connection. What we do physically influences how we view the world and ourselves so deeply. So many of my clients see this first-hand from stress break outs, dehydration fine lines and dark circles. While good skincare is important, I know that the root of the issue is how they feel emotionally, and the therapeutic value of a facial helps much more than the thorough extractions of hydrating masks. For really high-strung clients, I refer them to Shay.

And while I don't believe that someone else can supplement these changes in our behaviour, and that we are in control of our own attitudes and tensions... sometimes a little guidance from a pro really helps.