90 Day Challenge: Is Natural Always Better?

Last week, I read an article about French women: an article that discussed their natural beauty, their confidence, the general allure that makes them so attractive. While I love the concept of natural beauty, I have many doubts about those that we bestow the title upon.

Inner beauty aside, we usually consider someone a natural beauty when she doesn’t have to wear tons of make-up, when she looks younger than her natural years without looking “fake.” Her skin looks flawless with no caked-on foundation, she exudes that “girl-next-door” look. But as I’ve found over the past month, having skin that looks so good sans make-up is work in and of itself. Yes, I can see definite improvement since I began the 90 Day Challenge. My make-up goes on much more smoothly and I seem to use less of it, not to mention the random compliments I’ll get from people who know me. Week after week people will squint at my face and say “you know, your skin really does look great.”

And it does, no doubt. I can even go out on a Saturday afternoon errand-running mission without foundation. I look…natural. Oh, but the work involved in looking so natural! Aside from the nightly routine, I’m getting chemical peels and trying to stay out of the sun. So while it’s nice that I have a natural look, it’s no more natural than the deep red lipstick I used to live and die by.

And where, exactly, do you draw the line in the natural/fake debate? Many of us curl or straighten our hair, shave or laser our legs, apply deodorant and perfume, scrub and exfoliate and polish and pluck….truly, in the search for beauty and attractiveness, does anyone really prefer “natural?” Or is it just the illusion of natural beauty that proves good enough?

For myself, I’m ok knowing that it’s not easy, that I don’t wake up looking ready for the day. It takes a little effort to get my hair the way I like it and my skin feeling smooth. And that’s fine, because it makes ME happy. And in the end, I think being HAPPY with myself is the key. After all, the French are confident too, right?

90 Day Challenge: Why are healthy habits so easy to break?

Posted by: Rhonda Shrum

hab·it (noun)

An acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.

We all have many habits in life; some good, some bad. The bad ones seem to come with ease; I mean, how swiftly we can fall into the habit of eating pizza and chips for dinner, or watching TV all night instead of folding laundry? But the good ones, the ones we REALLY want to stick–those, unfortunately, take more effort to ingrain. I’ve heard that it takes 21 days for something to really become a “habit,” and from my experience, that’s pretty generous. I might need more than 3 weeks to say “this is something I do everyday, without even THINKING, it is involuntary.”

A few short weeks ago, the notion of putting on serums and creams every night was so foreign to me, I actually had to set a reminder on my iPhone to do it. I grunted and groaned but I did eventually begin to get used to it, and even began to look forward to the clean, smooth way I felt after it was all done.

But then, I got my first chemical peel, and my fledgling habit almost went right out the window.

The experience of the chemical peel in and of itself was pretty much a non-event. The one I chose for my first time was simply a Level 1, so there was no actual “peeling” involved. In my imagination (which is pretty vivid) I was envisioning thick layers of gummy materials all over my face, being peeled off in one big hunk. In reality, the peel I got felt more like rubbing alcohol being applied to my skin with a piece of gauze. Simple, easy, no big deal.

In actuality, though, it is a pretty big deal, and therefore I was told to stop using the heavy-duty skin products for a week while the chemical peel did its skin-enhancing job. Admittedly, I was as stoked as if I was in fifth grade and just found out I had no homework for a week. I could go back to slacking!

The funny thing about it, though, was that I had sort of gotten used to feeling good, and stopping felt odd. Sort of. I missed the feeling of feeling clean and fresh and healthy, but I didn’t miss the routine, and I didn’t miss it enough  to re-start a week later with gusto. I had to reset my iPhone reminder, pep myself up again almost as if I was starting over from scratch. Even though I had halfway formed the habit, it was still very, very easy for me to take that break, and hard for me to start back up. If I had waited just a few days longer, it would have taken even more effort to get back on the horse.

Why do these healthy habits take so much effort, even when you enjoy how you feel afterwards? It doesn’t matter how great I feel after jogging, it’s still hard for me to get up in the morning and hop on the treadmill. Apparently, beauty and skin care are not much different from exercise. The benefits are great if you just force yourself to stick with it for at least 21…or 90…days. I just have to remember to keep my eyes on the goal, just like I do at the gym. Healthy skin, looking five years younger…it’s worth it, I promise.

90 Day Challenge: Jumping in and Making Mistakes

Posted by: Rhonda Shrum

For a tactile learner like myself, staring a new project is always exciting. Instead of reading directions or asking for help, I just like to jump in and get going. I’ve never read through a manual for a computer or a phone, I don’t properly lay down cloth and edge tape when I paint, and shelf diagrams just confuse me so I toss them in the trash before I set out to build them on my own. I’ve always found that if I can just get my hands on the material, I’ll figure it out significantly faster than if I go through someone else’s steps.

While this works fairly well with an iPhone, it doesn’t work too well with skin care.

Once I signed up for the 90 Day Challenge and got my photos taken, I was utterly mortified at the condition of my skin and vowed to fix it immediately. Armed with an arsenal of products that I had never even seen before, I set out to get fixed overnight. Before bed, I washed my face with some $5 drug store cleanser and then promptly slathered on thick layers of everything in my SkinMedica bag. The next morning, I did the same. I felt GOOD. I felt EMPOWERED. I felt PROUD of myself for taking steps to get healthier.

Upon entering the office later that day, I found an esthetician and excitedly went on and on about my night and morning experiences. Just like my five year old son when he writes his name perfectly and wants praise, I preened for Wendy and waited for her to pat me on the back like a good pupil when I told her what I had done. Imagine my surprise, however, when she told me I had done it all wrong.

Wrong? How could I have messed this up already, I asked? It’s cream! You rub it in, boom, done, right?

Not right…and if you ever want to see a skin care expert freak out, say to her “I’m not sure how many times I applied the Tri-Retinol formula to my face.” Frankly, I’m lucky she caught me when she did: Because skin care is a science, there’s a method to the madness, and left to my own devices, I might end up looking worse, and not better.

Number one, I was using an exfoliating scrub to wash my face instead of the gentle cleanser I should have been using as part of the program. Number two, I put everything on in the wrong order. A product like SkinMedica TNS Serum, for example, needs to go right on clean skin, and I was putting it on last. Number three, I was using WAY too much product. I rubbed so much TNS Eye Repair cream in that the concentrated ingredients were aggravating my contact lens-wearing eyes; apparently very small amounts rubbed gently in around the eye works just fine. Number four, the Tri-Retinol Complex is powerful stuff and only goes on at night….not numerous times during the day.

So this continual learning process carries on. Lesson learned this week? Sometimes, I can’t just dive in. Sometimes, I need to consult the instruction manual, read the diagram, and actually TALK to the experts…after all, that’s what they’re there for.